Trust Destroyed: How Hasbro Ruined BG3 And D&D

Imagine being so despicable that you can't get along with Swen.

So that's why Larian is investing their last hour on providing modding support, to basically hand over the game to the community as a farewell gift.
It makes sense.

totally agree. swen once said: "i dont make games to make money, i make money to make games". says it all, imo.

Sven cast Globe of Invulnerability on Larian before Hasbro could throw a Dominate Person in there. Kudos Sven.

Hasbro could fuck up a wet dream.

I trust in Swen Vincke. Whatever project he spearheads will be a terrific game.

The corpos ruin it, and the modders keep it alive. Send love to your favorite modders, folks.

BG3 isn't ruined. It's right here on my hard drive and it remains to be a fine game.

Larian released a game of the decade, an instant classic.
The smart thing for them, as a company, is for their next release, which will have so many eyes on it, to be an IP that they own. Having to work with a huge corporation that owns an IP is almost always a pain in the ass to deal with, and often goes sour.

I get why people are disappointed, but I am not. Good for Larian. From Software is kinda doing the same thing when it comes to Bandai Namco, they want to become fully independent and publish their own stuff. They have the pedigree and the love of their fans. I wish Swen and the team the best of luck with their new projects

I remember Sven saying in an interview somewhere they never planned DLC in the first place so I'm not mourning what never was supposed to be there

Correction: Hasbro did not purchase dungeons and dragons 25 years ago, they bought it in 1999... Oh my God...

Stand by Swen! This dude spent 6 years and risked everything to bring us the best RPG in decades. I'd love for D&D and BG, and WOTC to continue on but, if I must choose, I'll follow Larian! they have the magic!

This is exactly what I’ve been saying since the announcement. It’s Hasbro, Hasbro is ruining everything. I have been wanting them to sell DnD or WotC as a whole for awhile now. The greed is ruining the passion of so many people’s favorite hobby. I’m dreading the upcoming VTT(virtual table top) they are working on. Every mini in that game will become a micro transaction, new maps, tools, assets, all micro transactions. Their hand in these games are ruining it. I hate the greed of the industry as a whole. A poor trained behavior we have learned to accept ever since dlc, or micro transactions came along, and the industry leaned into, and now it’s all we see, micro transactions. Never a whole game, never completed, always day one patches, or some times games have to wait a month before a patch will fix its jankyness. Unfortunately it won’t change, until we as the consumer have to say enough is enough. I fear that as a collective we don’t have the will power to resist anymore. A trained behavior, an addiction to the system.

The irony is Hasbro could be sitting on an actual horde of gold if they had an ounce of business sense.

Hasbro screwed the pooch on the movie. The corpos cut the creator of the realms,the venerable Ed Greenwood, out of even consulting. He could have portrayed Elminster. Can you imagine! We got lucky with Larian, won’t happen again I fear. The people who run Hasbro are just too stupid.

I'm a firm believer that most of the worlds problems (including games) can be blamed on the rise of Business and Management Schools at Universities.

I'm bummed out that Larian is done with BG3, but I understand and applaud Swen's decision. Knowing that he and the team has plans to break the 5e ruleset open even more than they had already makes me very excited as to what Larian is cooking up next.

As pointed out, Larian now has an incredible amount of "street cred," and no matter what game they make next, it will be well-received. As far as corporate greed and profit-portfolio-stock types, that soulless approach has torn the passion of innovators-business owners out of the world.

Swen is just too polite to say it out loud but you are 100% spot on. Habro done goofed and we pay the price for it.

Hasbro is pure evil. They're the kind of company that gets off on doing horrible things. They specifically fire people just before holidays in order to cause more harm. This sounds like something an evil villain would do, but it's happened too many times to be overlooked. That's just one of many things and there's many more not mentioned in the video. The people running Hasbro are really sick people.

Feels like Hasbro and WOTC are going the way of "We will sell licensing now and that's it. No more creating content." Based on all the internal and external moves they are making.

I for one am not disappointed at all. BG3 was a commercial success and the game itself is basically a complete package. The sooner they cook their next project, the sooner we get to play it

Larian Studio next project just take my money now, I completely trust you.

Sven Vincke is an anomaly, and a gift to us gamers.

I don't care for D&D, I'm pretty confident that whatever Larian is cooking it's going to be good.
Also, Swen pretty clearly said that one big reason he wanted to do BG3 was to leverage the IP to elevate Larian to the next level, to be able to do more ambitious projects with higher budgets and for that they needed to reach a mainstream audience. In that sense it was a well calculated move, but only a stepping stone for Larian to enable future development. I don't doubt they have a lot of passion (obviously) for D&D / forgotten realms, or that it was the main reason, but a smart move nonetheless and it paid off.

I think Swen wants to be polite and not be a part of a mob screaming at Hasbro so he took the route he did. Hasbro and WoTC are in a state of collapse and there are rumors of a sale of D&D to Tencent. I gave WoTC the last dollar they ever received from me about 5 years ago. That will absolutely not change if Tencent buys them.
Hasbro complained about only being able to wring 90 million out of their contract with Larian. Swen made the comment that they had already started on DLC for BG3 and were looking at ideas toward BG4. They would/could not be doing work on a DLC without a contractual ability to do so and permission from the IP rights holder.
I'm here for whatever Larian makes but it's a damn shame that greed is killing the best CRPG of all time.
The game sold 15 million copies. That's about 900 million before cuts from software sellers. Hasbro made 90 million. there is no way they didn't demand more. They likely went to him with dollar signs in their eyes and said something to the effect of "You can make a game in any D&D setting you want but we want 50%". I don't blame him if that's the case. So we could have seen an Icewind Dale 3, Dark Sun, Ravenloft, or anything else and while that's a damn shame, I'm sure I'll love what they come up with.

The witcher background music makes me imagine Geralt of Rivia hunting Hasbro like it's some kind of horrific monster in a swamp, or plain.
I can see it now, it's a cold icy morning in Nilfgaard, Geralt is riding through the gloom of the early dawn hours, atop his mighty steed roach the horse. He comes to a halt before an old dead tree, the wind shifts towards him, his powerful witcher senses detecting the scent of spilled blood. Warily, he starts riding again, coming upon an entire batallion of Nilfgaardian soldiers along the road, torn limb from limb, guts and shattered armor everywhere.
His horse whinnies in alarm but Geralt soothes the beast and slowly dismounts. "Looks like I'm getting close." he muses to himself, as he kneels down to examine the bifurcated corpse of a nilfgaardian captain named Morvik, who many months earlier, had tasked the mutant with hunting drowners close to his camp's latrine, which sat near a river.
In the far distance, the ground shakes slightly, Geralt lurches to his feet, drawing his steel sword. It was Hasbro, they always return to the site of kills to feed upon the corpses, he reminds himself.
Then he see's it, charging his position, a lumbering wall of muscle and dark shaggy fur. The Hasbro resembles a cross between a werewolf, a cassuary bird, and a man, its head is bright blue like a summer sky, its eyes burning with red otherworldly rage. It shrieks as it closes the distance. "STOCKHOOOLDEEEERSSSSSHHH!" it roars!
With a lunge faster than any normal man, the Butcher of Blavigan hurls himself to the side as an enormous, four fingered hand carves a massive trench into the ground, partially crushing the head of a dead horse in the process.
"MYLITTLEPOOONY!" the Hasbro thunders. "Damn, you're ugly!"
And the battle is joined proper, just monster vs mutant.

I was kinda hoping to one day see the upper city and flesh out Karlachs story

I knew something went south

I'd love to see a Shadowrun game designed by Larian Studios.

I agree. At first I thought it would just be a matter of the right amount of money to get another Larian BG title, but based on Swen's tone, money was discussed, and it didn't work out. Something on the corporate side didn't align with what Swen wanted, and I'm guessing they weren't going to fund the development cycle he wanted and that meant he'd have to lay people off since he has mentioned how the BG3 team has grown a lot. There was money coming in later from the early access sales. Anyway, you've mentioned this in another video about Bioware, Drew Karpyshyn and James Ohlen, and the new Exodus project with Anthem studios. Let's not forget (or let me inform the younger audience) this has happened before when BioWare lost the Star Wars license after Knights of the Old Republic and they then went on to make the first two Mass Effect games, which were excellent. By the time Mass Effect 3 came out those original people were gone and it was hot garbage and has never recovered. Dragon Age was also a similar story, BioWare made Baldur's Gate II when they had the D&D license. We've seen this time and time again, and I understand Swen's frustration that these mistakes keep getting made. Laid off game developers sometimes don't come back like in Drew's case where he just started writing novels instead of games.
Don't want this to get too long, but, just like Baldur's Gate II was much bigger and had cooler content than Baldur's Gate I, the engine was already developed so they could focus on the content. BG3 is working out all the bugs now because they can just build off that engine for any future project. They will be very capable of building a bigger game than BG3 because less time will be spent on the engine and more time can be dedicated to content.

Forget killing the golden goose, hasbro management seems to be under the impression chucking it into a wood chipper will yield gold filigree...

I have played games for 30 years. I have never been into D&D and had no idea about a single 5E rule or what 5e was. In only every played MMO's and the last turn based game I played was Final Fantasy 8. Baldur's Gate 3 changed all that. I am now mad into D&D Lore, turn based RPG's and looking into playing D&D. It's a shame there will be no BG3 dlc but Hasbro could really cash in on this if they looked after people like me. They won't but then I'll just play DOS1/2 until the next Larian game.

I've played BG 3 now twice and on the third complete playthrough. I feel like I've played THREE completely different stories/games in three playthroughs. Whatever Larian does I can see myself playing BG3 for years and years until the next thing they do which I hear will be GRANDIOSE. I hope it's Fantasy RPG like DOS 3 with cutscenes and story.

A little inside tea i know is that wizards and hasbro are horrible to work with. The main reason too why larian never came with any BG3 merch, besides the mindflayer shirts. So ye no more content for BG3 in big forms, but theres still stuff being added right now, like scenes, endings and other quality of life things. BUT their working on their next game and im sure it will be awesome once again

Swen shouts what EVERYBODY wants so say. Its so good to have someone from "inside" with the player's same vision

Won't be surprised if larian hires those people and makes a ttrpg for divinity or just picks up critical roles new system

As always, corporate fatcats ruin everything.

Tbf the way he worded it was more in reference to DLC or Expansion in the traditional meaning. As in paid. But they're still providing massive content updates in the form of free patches. So they're not necessarily done with BG3 they're just not going to monetize it further

In all fairness - Larian has never been a studio that wanted to release DLCs or expansions and as a matter of fact only one game they made has an expansion (Divinity 2: Ego Draconis has an expansion titled Flames of Vengeance). Swen Vincke himself has always been a supporter of delivering a full game and then moving on to the next project.
We will never know for sure if the layoffs impacted Swens decision or not ( I bet it did but that's pure speculation). It is telling though that He specifically said WotC was great to work with. He never mentioned Hasbro - and we all know that the decision to fire all the people was made by Hasbro.
Here's something to ease the dissapointment: Not having staff working on a BG3 expansion means that Larians next game will be in our hands sooner - and that's something I'm looking forward to.

Good for Larian tbh. Not everything gotta have 5000 expansion updates and 300 tv shows. One and done is more than enough

I had that suspicion too. And you're making a coherent case. As much as I like the DnD setting and would have wanted an adventure in Chult, a NWN3, PS:T2 or whatever, I think Larian have made the right decision.

Larian worked with Hasbro for 7 years, through all the scandals Hasbro and WOTC went through in said years. You made a good analysis and I think you are spot on. Sven cant stomach working with them anymore even though he said through gritted teeth they were fine to work with. I also imagine WOTC would be more hands on during the development of a BG4 pushing DEI and having a lot of "You can't do that, You can't do this, You must add this' it would be torture to deal with.
With their own IP Larian will have total freedom, I imagine they crave just that.

Man. We could've had a NWN 3 and WotC and Hasbro fucked it.

Sad for the fact that no extra DLC from Larian. But glad Sven and Larian are done with WotC and Hasbro. Looking forward to what the modders will do though. Fuck the greedy corporate fat cats. Peace.

You kinda immediatly realized the disgusting envy hasbro and wotc had for the success of BG3 when they were first doing absolutely nothing to cross promote the game and after BG3 blew up they were IMMEDIATLY pumping out youtube content that constantly referenced BG3 and were pointing out where their P&P System was superior to the video game etc. It was just so cringeworthy to watch unfold.

Will the new GDC talks of swen be available online?

What if I told you that a game can be full and whole .... Without a darn DLC?
I wish more devs would make complete games at the get go and forget the DLC boom. This way we get a whole new Larian game quicker too.

We have modders to make up for that. I'm honestly happy with how everything turned out and for the awsome job larian did. Silver lining, now we can make our own DLC the way we want it.

WOTC's CEO is a former Microsoft CEO... speaking of greedy soulless corporations

I believe that Larian have gained enough traction of their own as a studio to go out and make a game of their own. I don't beleve for a second that it had anything to do with what Hasbro did or didn't do in terms of, say OLG, and other stuff. We may think that those things matter, but to the absolute vast majority of the people enjoying their games it doesn't matter at all. They just play games.

It is simple: Hasbro thinks the Brand holds the Power - not the Studio.
They think they can now profit on the Success of Larians BG3 and thus make a BG4 and Spinoffs for themself.
Also, hasbro and WotC working hard on the DungeonMaster-AI to aloow Players to play whenever wherever they are - without the need of other pesky Humans, and this is where I agree, it is a hassle to play with thoose running wild all over the Places, triggering scenes without the P?arty beeing even close to be present and wildly murderhobo everyone.
they simply "do not need" Laqrian anymore and also the changes in Licensing and the treatment of the Fans and Creators, even of the own Staff, makes one with all senses intact walk away asap with all you got - which is in this Case BG3 and ones own freedom.
This - sadly - makes even sense for Hasbro as enough Idiots will buy now all the Merch they coff up and all the cheap shite they will produce in the wake of this to make it profitable.
Just enjoy BG3 as long as you can and then look out for something else until Larian shows up again.
At this moment, they have my trust after the Divinitys and BG3 - hell, I am with them from the beginning with LMK, in which I set great hopes and was really sad about it beeing sacked (In Skyrim is a Reference to that Game or better, its Demo that was shown.)

I can't wait for Larians next game, it will be terrific.

what you think about David Jaffee opinions on Sven spech at the awards?

I frankly am glad that they're letting BG3 go.
I didn't think it needed anything more. No more races or expansions. It already had SO MUCH.
And Given all the work they've put into it, I'm happy that the devs get to move past this success and not get burnt out but fuel this fire in a new direction that they want to go in now with ideas that wouldn't have worked in DnD as well that they're excited to try. - This is according to a interview with Swen where devs came to him later and thanked him that they weren't going to do any more work on BG3. I can sympathize with feeling of wanting to put an end to a project after having worked on it for so long.
Letting it be 'finished' is cathartic even with my most favorite projects.
I'd say whatever happens from here in the DnD realm, who ever follows Larian, has a high bar set for them. So here's hoping they try to follow their example.

I was a fan of Larian before BG3, and will be a fan after, so I feel no loss.

The writting was on the wall with swen interview. Leaving D&D is Hard thing to do even if you burn out you want to leave the door open to come back. This is not what happened, this was hard breakup.

I like that 'corpo' has entered into the public lexicon.

The sliver lining of Hasbro is that we can make fun of the CEO's name.

I haven't had any real love for D&D since they phased out D&D 3.5 for the board gamey 4th edition and depthless 5th. Some of my friends still loved D&D, so I occasionally humored them, but Hasbro simply *trying* to rescind the OGL has made never buying, playing or worrying about D&D again a very easy commitment. 😊

I've done some business with Hasbro. However bad you think that would be, multiply it by 10 and add a billion.

As soon as Larian tried to work with someone again, they were stabbed in the back again. Well, it's a good thing that no one will take away their own Divinity.

At the very least, if Larian is done with BG3, at least they add all the stuff they cut back into the game before they leave, or make it so that it becomes possible for modders to add the things back in.

Hasbro/WotC no doubt wants micro transactions, Sven has intentionally said "Nope" to that idea publicly. It's pretty easy to see the difference in ethos.

this news broke me tbh im used to be a try hard only playing competitive games and really rarely story games but baldurs gate 3 came to a perfect time where i was fed up with cheaters and wanted to try something new i thaught i would only play couple of hours and go back to cs or rainbow but hell no im close to 1k hours now and i even got into dnd what i always thaught is a nerd only game well now im a nerd that cant get enough i even modded 5e spells and insanely many new races and classes into my game and after finding this new love and satisfaction i hear they litteraly drop the whole thing and i will never get any new content

This.....was a really good synopsis! I especially appreciated the videos you used to back up your list of reasons for Larian's decision. Instead of using an annoying face cam, you simply provided video to back up your assertion. I appreciated that.

I’ve got my original library of 3.5 books. I can play as much as I want for the rest of my life, even if the lights go out.

I'm sure Pathfinder would be happy to have them make a game in their setting. Then again, the Pathfinder mechanics are really complicated and I would say not ideal.

We all know Hasblow ruined D&D they want to sink their ship faster and faster

Honestly glad that Larian is walking away. Better to leave a hero, then to stay long enough to turn into a villain. Larian has such a high amount of trust and a such an overwhelmingly positive image among people today that they, frankly, don't need to make D&D-related content to stay relevant. Their track record so far is amazing.
As for BG3, everything must inevitably come to an end. The replayability is already off the charts. People will return to it every now and again, me included. That Larian isn't releasing any more content isn't a negative thing in the grand scheme of things. We got exactly what we paid for from the get-go, no strings attached. Once upon a time, this was the norm. And to be honest, what more can there be to ask?
Let it go. Let something new come and take its place, some other time.

Good. A graceful bow for all the work they've done and the joy they brought. I want nothing than for them to succeed, and the best way to now is to peruse their own work.

It’d be funny if Critical Role got Larian to work with Daggerheart in the future. Would be interesting and a great way to expand and establish lore within the new TTRPG.
However I bet their next project will be Divinity: Original Sin related or something sci-fi related.
Also, I bet Owlgames won’t go to making DnD games if they know the shit Larian probably dealt with. So the DnD video games are definitely up in the air right now and Hasbro and WotC are to blame.

Wait until Larian starts making games for Critical Roles Daggerheart. It's going to be epic. Take that Wotc!

Man it's so saddening to think about, but the bonus is like you said Larian can set out on their own path now

Think in bussiness way, Sven is smart to use D&D ip to push Larian into the triple A status. So now he got an absurd amount of money, no way he want to pay Hasbro to extend the contract while knowing they propably gonna jack up the price like 10 times. To me, this is smart business move from Larian.

I thought Larian said that they just aren't doing anymore with D&D because they'd rather focus on their own stuff. Did WOTC really sabotage thier relationship? wanted Larian to make some Microtransactions or something?

I blame WoTC more than Hasbro, but they are both to blame.

It's like that universally with corporate, I've been a store manager of several retail companies, and all but one was the corporate offices completely out of touch and/or bottom line over employee engagement.
My favorite was " the self-check outs aren't going to replace cashiers, their jobs are safe. We are however cutting back hours."
They're not saying you have to let people go, but if with reduced hours you can't afford them then you do what you think is next.
Problem is now most retail chains have only 1st or 2nd year hires left (including with SM and DM) so that industry knowledge is long since gone and it's the blind training the blind.

Having BG3 be the game that made Larian more known in the gaming scene is enough for me. If they make D:OS3 it's gonna be epic and I'm very much looking forward to that.

Hasbro has become the most reviled company of the decade. Right up there with Enron. Nobody i know respects WOTC or Hasbro for decades now. I grew up with D&D and hate seeing this.
Just ask any Magic the Gathering fan. They'll tell you.
I would join a WOTC Hate club. It's TSR all over again.

Unfortunate the Larian doesn't own the D&D IP. Although I like the Divinity universe somewhat, it doesn't hold a candle to the Forgotten Realms. Disappointing that BG3 will be the only D&D game from Larian, but Sven obviously has no interest in working with (and enriching) Hasbro.

It's a shame we won't get more Larian D&D but I'm also very keen for a return to the Divinity universe so I think it'll work out okay.

I do hope that Larian continues with the Divinity series as well, before BG3 they were working on a direct sequel to DOS2, i would love to see it finished

Good for them. If they allow Hasbro or whatever to chain them the story of Bioware and EA will repeat.
Now, I hope that now that BG3 is done, Larian finally goes back (after a good deserved Vacation 😂) to Divinity Original Sin.
BG3 is cool and all, but I prefer DOS.

In Swen we trust.
If this guy says no he’s not making any DLC for a project you know there’s some bullshit he can’t get past.

My biggest question is
Whats the next project Larian studios going to undertake?

I thought D&D’s meteoritic rise in 2015 was a combination of Critical Role and the popularity of Stranger Things using D&D in their show.

Holy shit. The whole gaming landscape is so fucking depressing at the moment. Add to this the mess Capcom made of Dragon‘s Dogma 2… I‘m really getting tired of this

Yeeeea... No.
There's a great interview with Sven over on IGN today, and what leapt out to me was that the team were visibly relieved when Sven decided they weren't going to be working on DLC or a sequel but rather something entirely new.
Trying to say otherwise is just copium, verging on conspiracy theory.

I don't know the real reason why Larian won't continue working on Baldur's Gate, but I fully trust them. I believe that good stories must end, and that's the case with BG3. Larian now has enough money to work on their next project and do things the way they want. Whatever they are cooking, it will be amazing, so Larian just take my money!!

Thank you for this. Until a couple days ago everyone had jumped on the "they're never making BG content again!!" bandwagon but *nobody* was providing the original source. I figured it was true after a few days, because everyone was repeating it, but it honestly felt like clickbait. This solidifies it as fact, but also shows a whole lot of context that nobody else has shared. It makes much more sense now.

Don't blame just Hasbro.
Womits of the Coast are to blame just as much or even more.

i have a wet dream where larian makes a game in world of darkness setting

This makes me even more interested in what that more sci-fi-themed project they will be working on is going to end up being

I'm not sure why people hoped for DLC and stuff. Sven said it before BG3 was even coming out there would be none, zero and that hes already moved on to work on his next project. This was like 8 Months ago.
Source: Panel From Hell: Release Showcase. If you was a fan of Larian before BG3 you probably already know it, but just tip for the new fans. Watch their live streams and then you'll know for next time. Just saying so you don't set yourself up for disappointment. He was pretty clear.

This means Divinity Original Sin 3 will be a massive hit.

Imagine Larian taking over the dnd franchise. Wouldnt that be a sight.

We probably won't be seeing a BG4 for another 19 years....This just sucks.

This whole situation is the definition of “bittersweet”. I would have loved to maybe get one or two new companion (I wanted a Dragonborn one sooo bad), new races, more subclasses…
But at the end of the day, following your heart (as novel as that sounds) is always the right move.