Larian Studios Exec Michael Douse, director of publishing, has spoken in Microsoft’s defense after info from a leaked email was revealed. The information comes after a number of email conversations and documents continue to be made public following the FTC hearings regarding Microsoft’s bid to buy Activision Blizzard. The latest however included assessments from Microsoft for games it wanted to shore up Game Pass with until Starfield came out. It is always a gamble on how much to spend to get a game on Game Pass at launch and it appears that Microsoft sorely underestimated the success of Baldur’s Gate 3 but according to Michael Douse, it wasn’t the only one.
The leaked information (per VGC) shows that EA’s Star Wars: Jedi Survivor was at the top of the list with an estimate of $300 million to acquire the title at launch for Microsoft’s gaming service. Next up were Suicide Squad and Mortal Kombat 1, each at $250 million. Then Dying Light 2 at $50 million followed by Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga at $35 million, and lastly, Baldur’s Gate at $5 million. Yep, $5 million.
Not the first time
The Larian Studios Exec responded on social media to defend Mircosoft’s leaked $5 million assessment by saying that many others failed to grasp the potential success of the third entry in the franchise. Michael also explained that it’s not uncommon for such things to happen with these types of genres since something similar happened with Larian Studios’ 2017 sequel, Divinity: Original Sin II.
In their defence, so did everyone else. Same with DOS2. Comes with the genre, and the way we approach things, and the way we execute things. There just isn’t any existing data that could have told anyone how BG3 was going to perform. We just had to take giant spooky leaps. https://t.co/BgLyW4cZZx
— Very AFK (@Cromwelp) September 19, 2023
It only took two weeks for 5.2 million units to be sold for Baldur’s Gate 3 on Steam alone and the folks at Larian Studios were quick to celebrate their success but that’s not the end of the story. A quick look at Video Game Insights shows the current amount of units sold on Steam and active player counts. The short end of it is that total sales on Steam alone have nearly doubled to 10 million units and as of this morning there have been an all-time high of 308,000 active players. So far Baldur’s Gate 3 has been released on PC and on the PlayStation 5 so sales numbers could be significantly higher than just what is reported on Steam. An Xbox version is also planned for release later this year.
Per VG Insights:
Quick stats as of today
308k active players
308k active players (24h peak)
95.8% positive reviews
$475.3m gross revenue
10m units sold
73.7 hours avg playtime
44.8 hours median playtime
Side Note: A new 4.9 GB patch has been released that adds support for Mac users but also CPU optimizations, the ability to change a character’s appearance, and much more. Patch #3 notes can be found here.