At the Game Developers Choice Awards, Michael Douse from Baldur’s Gate 3 had a very strong opinion about the games industry, as we hear almost weekly that X number of people have been laid off from this or that studio (but we could go further and use the example of Apple, which was mentioned yesterday).
Douse spoke to Game File about the issue and was highly critical of the mass layoffs: “They’re an avoidable fuckup. That’s all they really are. That’s why you see one after another. Because companies are saying, ‘Well, finally. Now we can do it. We’ve been wanting to do it forever. Everybody else is doing it. So why don’t we? It’s really kind of sick. We should be humbled by this time. It doesn’t feel like we as an industry are humbled by this time.
None of these companies are in danger of going bankrupt. They’re just in danger of pissing off shareholders. And that’s okay. That’s how they work. The function of a public company is to create growth for its shareholders… It’s not to create a happy climate for the employees. To make the games we wanted to make, going public might give us more money, but it would be antithetical to the quality part of what we’re trying to do. So it wouldn’t make our games better. It would just make us rush,” Douse said.
He says that better planning and management could have prevented the worst of it, and that shareholders are more concerned with stock value than the well-being of developers. Douse pointed to Swen Vincke’s mentality and Larian’s ability to take risks as two factors behind Larian’s success in recent years. However, Vincke will decide if the company goes public, which he considers highly unlikely.
He struck a critical but fair tone. Maybe money has indeed become the priority for many, but if all that changes is that management might take a few fewer days off for vacation, then it should be the people with less who should be helped.
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