Baldur’s Gate 3 will not come to Game Pass, at least not anytime soon, according to Larian Studios founder Swen Vincke. Speaking to IGN, the executive said there is a “fair price to be paid” for a big game like Baldur’s Gate 3, and that doesn’t include Xbox’s popular subscription service.
“Oh, we always said from the get-go, it wasn’t going to be on Game Pass, it’s not going to be on Game Pass,” Vincke said. He said this after being asked outright if Microsoft offered to pay Larian to put Baldur’s Gate 3 on Game Pass.
“We made a big game, so I think there’s a fair price to be paid for that, and I think that that is okay,” he added. “We don’t charge you any microtransactions on top of it, so you get what you pay for. Upfront it’s a big meaty game. So I think that should be able to exist as it is. This is what allows us to continue making other games.”
Microsoft, a company with a trillion-dollar valuation, is known to pay developers to put their games on Game Pass to help in turn drive more people to sign up for the service. Many have questioned whether or not this business practice is sustainable and healthy, and there are no clear answers yet, in part because the subscription service is so new, relatively speaking to other business models.
Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer himself has spoken openly about how there is no one defined path for the deals it makes for Game Pass releases. He told The Verge that Microsoft’s Game Pass deals are “all over the place,” and he understands that this might sound “unmanaged.” In some cases, Microsoft will completely fund the development costs of a game, and the studio can go sell their game on rival stores like PlayStation and Steam, or at retail, while Microsoft enjoys the benefit of having another Game Pass game. “For them, they’ve protected themselves from any downside risk. The game is going to get made. Then they have all the retail upside, we have the opportunity for day and date. That would be a flat fee payment to a developer,” he said.
In other cases, a game might be finished, and then Microsoft works out a straight cash deal to bring it to Game Pass, Spencer said. Still, other deals involve usage and how much monetization a game has through in-game sales.
Some believe the launching on Game Pass might hurt sales of boxed copies, and this may be true to some extent, but Microsoft’s own Starfield managed to be the No. 1 best-selling game in September in the US when it was also released on Game Pass at launch.
Baldur’s Gate 3 was one of the most-talked-about games in 2023, and it was named GameSpot’s Game of the Year. It also won Game of the Year at The Game Awards.
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