Larian Studios - Community more important than Shareholders

NME reports that in the opinion of Larian devs building up a community is much more important for success  than optimizing shareholder value on the long run:

‘Baldur’s Gate 3’ devs hit out at industry-wide lay offs

“In the long run, building a community is going to make you the most money”

Larian Studios has hit out at a number of companies laying-off development staff to maximise profits for shareholders.

2024 has started with a number of studios cutting huge swathes of employees. Microsoft laid off 1,900 staff shortly after its acquisition of Activision Blizzard was approved, Riot Games laid off over 500 members of staff, and today (February 19) it was confirmed that Disco Elysium developer ZA/UM has cut a quarter of its staff.

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“This is a really human industry, and we’re really bad sometimes at showing developers what they’re worth … it’s kinda the elephant in the room, especially surrounded by all this opulence,” said director of publishing Michael Douse [via PCGamer].

“Many, many people were let go at the start of this year. I want you to know that you are all 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 … we will persevere as an industry.”

“There’s an expression in Dutch - ’honesty lasts longest’,” continued Larian’s head of production David Walgrave “We don’t make decisions where we think ‘this could make us the most money’ [because] in the long run, building a community, building a playerbase, building games that are actually fun is going to make you the most money, that’s it.”

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