Larian Studios secured another GOTY award win at the DICE Awards for Baldur's Gate 3, and unlike at The Game Awards, the developers were given an opportunity to make an acceptance speech. They used it to call out the shocking state of the industry in an emotional address.
Director of publishing Michael Douse took to the stage, encouraging developers to persevere through the darkness: "I want you all to know that you are talented and that you matter, and that you are the future of this industry. Don't let that flame be extinguished by our collective mistakes; I know everyone here is scared because s***’s really f***ed up."
Douse continued, underlining the issue: "All of your projections are wrong, and it's scary. But we persevere as an industry, we will persevere as an industry, and you will all find your place, and you will all be welcomed back with open arms."
Larian's head of production, David Walgrave, took the mic, spilling the "secret" to the success of Baldur's Gate 3, which is simply finding answers to the questions players ask: "Last year, I started thinking the secret to our success comes from [asking] 'what does the player want?'. What do I think is best for the game? What is the most fun, the most crazy?".
Walgrave went on to say, "We don't have shareholders, but we also don't think about them", a pronouncement which was met with applause. As Eurogamer points out, while that is technically true, Chinese megacorp Tencent does own a 30% stake in the Belgian Baldur's Gate 3 developer, which goes to show how hard true independence is to achieve.
Walgrave concludes that in "the long run, building a community, building a player base, building games that are actually fun is going to make you the most money. That's it."