You know, they got a point. You gotta believe in the project, and when you do it properly, you will make the money back, and much more.
this post was submitted on 16 Feb 2024
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Okay, but where's that money coming from? Someone has to upfront pay for things. Larian are lucky, they have a majory investor that was not looking for any control, they released in early access and had runway money from previous projects to go with. They are the exception, not the rule, unfortunately.
Publishers no longer publish third parties for the most part, so everyone who isn't a subsidiary of a large company has to find funding somewhere.
You want tell me that to run a good business, one has to be able to negotiate preferable terms with investors?
If the implication is that they should be negotiating better terms. Well, good luck with that. I've been a part of many teams involved with investor negotiations. You need their money a hell of a lot more than they need your teams risk.
I don't say it's easy. But if you want to make a good creative product you have to be able to keep the creative control, that is part of your job and what makes realization of creative ideas, especially on big scale, more difficult. It's the same with other creative media like movies.
I'm saying it's not just "not easy", it's impossible unless you are an already established entity that has some cards to hold in negotiations.
Put yourself in the position of a new company, you've a great idea, a great team. How are you going to fund development in 2024?
How did Larian Studios arrived at their position?
Spending well over a decade pushing out moderately successful shovelware on consoles before crowdfunding D:OS and its sequel, which provided enough of a portfolio to attract the CCP’s money and allow for the development of BG3.
So the way is quite straight forward, do some shitty projects until you have money/reputation to do the projects you actually want.
How are you going to fund thr shitty projects again?
Depends, some people do other jobs to fund their projects. Some just do low budget stuff. Some are good at negotiating or find funding programs. Sure it's an effort but people out there are doing it in all kind of ways.
Larian Studios does technically have a single shareholder in Tencent—which owns around 30% of the company. However, an important piece of context is that Tencent appears to own what's called a "preference" share, meaning that Tencent doesn't have voting rights when it comes to Larian's decision making. The rest of the company belongs to CEO and Founder Swen Vincke and his wife.
Interesting, did not know that.
Few people do because Larian keeps lying about it. Part of me understands you don‘t go around telling people a Chinese government asset has big money in your company, given the ongoing genocide and all (speaking of toxic work environment eh) but it‘s publicly accessible information anyway. They‘ve been so consistently dishonest about it that I can‘t take them all that serious about anything anymore. Because alternatively to lying they could just… shut up and keep making great games. They don‘t need that sugar coating.
Did you not read the article?
Tencent own preference stock. They could sell their stock, which could potentially harm the company, but they hold no voting rights and carry no decision making power.
I am not a fan of China, nor Tencent, but spewing bile without understanding the context does NOT help this discourse.
Could they even sell if nobody is buying?
It would be bought. That's how stocks work. If there is a promising company, there will be interested buyers.