Larian Studios’ Swen Vincke Blames Mass Layoffs on Publisher Greed

Swen Vincke, director of Baldur’s Gate 3 and founder of developer Larian Studios, used the opportunity afforded by winning big at the Game Developer’s Conference (GDC) to blame the industry’s current state on rampant corporate greed, a sentiment we can get behind. Plenty of developers made their voices heard at the Independent Games Festival Awards and Games Developers Choice Awards (held as part of GDC). Still, Vincke directed his ire at a specific part of the industry: publishers, those companies that proliferate games and allow them to reach a wider audience, for a price.

“Greed has been fucking this whole thing up for so long, since I started,” said Vincke while securing the GDCA for Best Narrative on behalf of BG3 (thanks, Eurogamer). “I’ve been fighting publishers my entire life, and I keep on seeing the same, same, same mistakes over and over and over. It’s always the quarterly profits”.

Vincke went on, pulling no punches and continuing to talk sense: “You don’t have to. Slow down on the greed. Be resilient, take care of the people, and don’t lose the institutional knowledge that’s been built up in the people you lose every single time, so you have to go through the same cycle over and over and over. It really pisses me off.”

Afterwards, Vincke clarified his stance on Twitter, doubling down rather than walking his words back. Not done for the day, he then broke the hearts of millions at another panel, revealing that Larian Studios will not be developing DLC for Baldur’s Gate 3 or its inevitable sequel.

There was plenty of criticism for the ongoing, industry-wide layoffs at GDC, and developers weren’t shy about speaking their minds. GDCA host Alanah Pearce, a writer at God of War studio Sony Santa Monica, said: “People in this room have lost their jobs. We’ve lost people with years of experience who have worked hard to make some of the games nominated tonight, but more importantly, we’ve watched our friends get laid off, we’ve seen how that impacts their families, their children.”

Pearce even got a solid jab in at The Game Award’s Geoff Keighley’s expense, briefly displaying a “Please Wrap It Up” message on the screen while she spoke.