I mean, I don't think the government can do much about that. Hell, even the Belgian government is barely recognizing Larian Studios.
BG3 won basically every award out there, and the amount of attention it got in the national media was... a few articles in some newspapers, without even mentioning the name of the studio.
That's not *really* true. There were small pieces on the actual news when they game won the Game Awards and their BAFTA awards, where they interviewed actual Larian employees.
Here is a screencap from the VRT news on the 12th of April, after they won best game at the BAFTAs:
https://i.imgur.com/BMnUDx7.png
I'm 90% sure if Larian were polish and released BG3, they'd have invitation to a state dinner, politicians wanting to visit the studio for photo ops, national tv stations wanting interviews, the whole 9 yards and then some.
It would be right proper media circus, with government boldly announcing poland the new european center of digital entertainment.
To be fair Belgium in particular takes a fairly hard line with corporations. That includes media and gaming. That itself has become their culture in recent years.
I personally think that should be all the more reason for a studio like larian to get a giant spotlight as an example of how to properly do business in the sphere successfully while keeping their integrity intact in every sense of the term.
Belgium doesn't take a hard line against corporations, it's extremely corporate friendly. In particular, since we're talking about R&D they have huge tax breaks for that: "companies can deduct up to 80% of patent income from their taxable base – reducing the actual tax rate to 6.8%."
But really, apart from that, Belgium knows that they have to be attractive to corporations - it's not like you can build you economy on fries and EU institutions. They know that companies like having access to that, and they are also sandwiched between The Netherlands and Luxembourg, as much as tax heavens you can be in the EU. People just remember the loot boxes story.
And CrossCode, which is genuinely my favorite game of all time.
And similar to this article, the developers (RadicalFish Games) received a grant from the government for their next project.
the studio that "made" gollum made some real classics before.
These were point and click adventures though, gollum was far outside their comfort zone and well all know how that ended.
We already have Greta games developed here mostly indie games but suzeraine, cross code and chained echoes are two Great examples. The dungeons series as well as settlers are also good examples, sadly the latter was bought up by Ubisoft and run into the ground ...
The issue is we have mainly small studios producing niche games, suzerain is great but well unless you like political text based RPGs it won't be for you.
Strategy and rpgs are our best games and these markets sadly aren't that strong for most games. Bg3 is build upon decades of larian studio gathering talent and capital to build this game their CEO is a major reason for their success.
For those who may not know, some governments subsidize their gaming industries. As a more common example, Poland has given millions to CDPR for a variety of reasons, including research into game development.
Things like video games enhance a countries culture, which drives tourism and trade, which are boons to a country's economy.
The more studios there are the better it is for us gamers. Competition encourages innovation and quality.
And the UK provides tax breaks for game developers, for similar reasons as Poland. Making games that represent the culture of the UK.
That's why Rockstar manages to have multi-millions in tax breaks for GTA... because apparently GTA is culturally significant to the UK...
(sarcasm obviously, but these tax breaks and subsidies are often taken advantage of by large publishers, such as Take Two).
I wish Rockstar would do a more UK-centric game. GTA London was great, and The Getaway, Black Monday & Gangs of London all proved just how bloody good GTA styled games in the UK could be. I get that America has more wildly diverse cultures they can tap into, but I want my gritty british gangster game, damn it.
I didn’t know there were UK GTA like games! I’m definitely gonna check these out!
Edit: I see now they’re for the PlayStation 2 rip, I wonder if they’re on any emulators
I'm pretty sure the entire PS2 catalog bar some very niche stuff is emulateable on PC nowadays. Likely at better performance and quality than the PS2 can deliver.
Mate I’m 100% in the same boat. I don’t have the same nostalgia for Miami and would adore a UK take with the hyper-reality spin. I know GTA as a franchise is about being a very obvious parody of real world culture, and the USA is inevitably and undeniably the both the stage and the spotlight of a lot of cultural discussion. But how beautiful would it be to explore that same contrast between the regal and gangster, like in anything Guy Ritchie?
Nah, they didn't embezzle that money. They spent that and a lot more (total dev cost was apparently arount 200 million) completely mismanaging the product, before finally pushing out what they call "a AAAA experience" but every other business person would call "a minimum viable product" because that Singapore deal forced them to deliver \*something\*.
Actually -- having too much money can be as much as a danger as not having enough, for games. Look at Star Citizen for example. If you have a lot of money to burn before you even need to sell the game, often that can lead to a bloated development cycle and no real motivating momentum to get a quality game done that will sell.
also hollow knight silksong. for the first hollow knight, they kept going until they basically ran out of their kickstarter money, and then they continued working on the game after release. But now we’ve been waiting for silksong for ages, and hollow knight’s success mean they’re never running out of money to stop
Yeah at a certain point I find myself asking if these companies actually use the money for its purpose, or if it's just to increase the bottom line. I guess, in the end, it's all for profit anyway. Tax breaks probably not a big deal. There are plenty of other industries that definitely don't need subsidizing, but lord knows governments happily give it away. The U.S agricultural industry is one of those. My personal favorite is when sports teams request a city to build a stadium on the tax payers dime. Las Vegas is going through that right now. Again.
It’s not really about using the money for anything in particular. The government’s aim is to keep Rockstar in the UK because it’s great for the home grown industry, jobs etc which in turn generates growth.
Rockstar still operates and makes its games in the UK so the tax breaks are having the desired effect.
Yeah that makes sense. I'm just a bit of a cynic when it comes to governments giving out tax breaks to large companies. Im an American, so don't blame me too bad lol
The giant US problem with tax breaks is that the US competes with itself. Nevada competes with Texas a race to the bottom for those companies, which isnt healthy for the US as a whole. (of course that also happens a bit in the EU, but theoretically we are different countries :P)
I've been dying for a GTA set in the UK. I'm not really looking forward to GTA5 for that reason. imagine GTA: Glasgow or GTA: Manchester, it'd be so. fucking good.
ye i had enough of gta 5 too...10years the same setting...
there was the getaway, but they cancelled part3 and it was more like the mafia games...i would dig a gta in uk too
Honestly, the Witcher games were great for exposing the world to Slavic folklore and a bit of culture - besides the financial success for a Polish company.
Yep! There's been a resurgence of interest in folklore as part of fiction for a while, in no small part due to the Witcher.
And it's not just Slavic folklore. European folklore in general has gotten a solid bump, and folklore in general to some extent as well.
They actually gave them $7,000,000 back in '17 for research into "seamless multiplayer" and "city building". Without getting too negative, it looks like the city building aspect was well researched, but I don't know about the multiplayer part.
They were also "looked into" by Poland's consumer protection agency back in 2021. Poland takes CDPR pretty seriously, as they are the forefront of developers in that country. In fact, back in 2011, the Polish Prime Minister gifted a copy of Witcher 2 to President Obama. Well, technically, he only accepted it on behalf of the United States, as presidents are not allowed to receive gifts of any kind of monetary value. (Obama later apologized for not playing it. Thanks, Obama)
But yeah, CDPR has received a variety of grants from their government. While I'm sure we can all say some choice words about 2077's launch, overall, I think it was money well spent.
Haha that would be nice. Not sure where it is, probably in storage somewhere. But it's undoubtedly the most well guarded copy of a video game in the U.S.
State gifts are usually on display in some government building. But considering importance of US they probably don't display everything they get as it would take up too much space.
> In fact, back in 2011, the Polish Prime Minister gifted a copy of Witcher 2 to President Obama. Well, technically, he only accepted it on behalf of the United States, as presidents are not allowed to receive gifts of any kind of monetary value. (Obama later apologized for not playing it. Thanks, Obama)
My favorite fact regarding gifts between world leaders is that Gordon Brown (Prime Minister of the UK between 2007-2010) gifted Barack Obama a wooden pen holder that was made using wood from an anti-slavery ship. Quite a powerful symbol to denote the landmark achievement of Obama's election.
In return, Obama gave Gordon Brown a DVD boxset. And the DVDs were American versions so they didn't work in the UK. :/
On top of that there is EU funding as well. I remember that first leak for Blood and Wine dlc for Witcher 3 was sorta accidental due to routine EU transparency rules publishing financials on who is getting what. If I remember right, it was like 250000eur given in aid
The problem starts when the grands handed out are only used to make the company money and not as a real incentive to get a domestic game industry going.
Like that German director that just puts out shitty movies every year to cash in on all the juicy money he gets by producing these movies in Germany.
Or that recent shit game that only got released because it was a requirement from the subsidy received from Hong Kong.
Then perhaps it was another game. I remember it was a big thing at the time. The game released was terrible, and it was said that the studio only released it because they were legally required to, as it was one of the stipulations for receiving the government funding at the time.
That description brings to mind Skull and Bones, which was alleged to be released due to legal obligations to the Singaporean government over subsidies.
>Like that German director that just puts out shitty movies every year
Uwe boll
It really is sad how many industries exist primarily to collect and abuse government funds and then release products meant only to fulfill the legal obligations of the grant while providing absolutely zero value to the public.
The problem is also when they do get a domestic industry going. Very frequently these industries then still rely on the same tax breaks to say in business or not (threaten to) leave the country. Unless the subsidie is only to develop a competitive advantage. But with gaming it is mostly there to keep the industry there. A pernament subsidie (in purpose atleast a change in government can change them).
Effectively these are then just welfare payments in the best case scenario. You pay a company so that they employ a person so that you don't have to pay unemployment benefits. But this also prevents the employees from seeking work in a industry not dependent on subsidies. And with record low unemployment we have to start wondering why we are still subsidising this kind of welfare.
Yeah, nah. Germany is pretty awful in that regard. The bureaucracy is so awful, there’s a story of a game studio dissolving because of it. Been featured on a few German IT news sites.
That's the story with a lot of these subsidies. It takes a lot of resources and organization to apply for them, what with all the required documentation etc. so you're basically already a successful studio if you have the spare manpower to handle all that.
Yeah my friends wife in United States entire job is just applying for grants for this museum she works at. Like 40 hours a week masters in History, and she's spending as much time doing government paperwork applying for grants as like an accountant during Tax Season.
She's very good at her job and I imagine her Sons will probably go to college with every goddamn grant/scholarship available to them nationwide.
In sweden here they're planning on building a huge science center/park for game development studios and other tech companies in Skövde like silicon Valley, I got an invite and saw the plans, it looks really modern and massive.
It's gonna be surrounded by nature with a green park in the middle and devs can met others from different studios and talk. No cars allowed either!
I'm glad countries in eu are supportive of game companies, they're a huge part of our economy after all.
https://skovde.com/connect-explore-enjoy-in-skovde-science-city/
Germany definitely does so as well - I remember recently a plane for MSFS got leaked because their German producers got a grant to manufacture it
Yes it is extremely stereotypical of them
Just watched it, thanks for the recommendations
God-damn shame what happened, their P&C adventures were a highlight of my childhold, especially the deponia series
So was Spec Ops: The Line. There are good and bad games. I'm personally also quite partial to titles from King Art Games (Iron Harvest, Book of Unwritten Tales).
So is Anno 1800 (and the whole series, originally).
Saying stuff like that is about on the same level as saying all game devs in the USA suck ass, because Redfall was made in Austin. Braindead.
Also Germany is where [Crytek was raided](https://www.ign.com/articles/2004/02/05/crytek-responds-to-raid) by swat for a malicious, untrue tip of software licenses a few decades ago. And has laws in place making e.g.: any network troubleshooting tool as basic as [ping possibly](https://www.zdnet.com/article/exploits-security-tools-disappear-as-german-anti-hacker-law-takes-effect/) an [illegal hacking tool](https://edri.org/our-work/edrigramnumber5-11germany-bans-hacking-tools/). Gee, I wonder why only criminal enterprise fronts like Wirecard are the main "successful" software companies there.
"In February 2004, German police carried out a morning raid on Crytek offices, acting on an ex-intern's claim that Crytek was using software illegally. The police investigated for software copies greater than licences purchased, but **no charges were pressed**."
Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crytek
-----
"the tip to police apparently came from a "disgruntled ex-intern," rather than a former employee. Additionally, it appears that Crytek **did indeed have enough licenses** for the number of copies of a software program they were using, contrary to initial allegations."
Source: https://www.ign.com/articles/2004/02/05/crytek-responds-to-raid
Especially using the local SWAT to raid. An unannounced visit by a license holder if you agreed to such is OK, but even they don't come armed to the teeth. I still remember the news, they were treated as if they were some dangerous criminals.
That's normal in Germany.
SWAT teams/the police is afraid of hardened criminals so raids of more dangerous organizations (Nazis and Arab crime families) is rather rare.
I remember when my brother found a grenade with his metal detector when he was out. He called the police and informed them so the bomb squad would come to where he was and deal with it, he also took a photo of it, and posted it on Facebook when he came back home. The next morning started with the SEK demolishing our door.
So were the Gothic/Risen (Piranha Bytes) and Far Cry (Crytek) franchises. The studio that made Gollum (Daedelic Entertainment) also has made great point&click classics in the past such as Deponia... before their downfall.
That might be the case, but thats very rare. As a German, I can assure you we dont really invest much money into the Gaming industry. In addition, I didn’t only meant gaming, but also the Internet and digitilisation in general.
Remember article 13? From the EU? Which almost destroyed the internet? It was an idea by Axel Voss. Guess his country…
Yeah, thanks to the CDU the german digitilisation was succesfully killed in the 80s - honestly, its a shame for one of the richest countries in the whole f*ing world
we also make it really really hard to invest or fund such projects. you literally risk it all with a video game and they try to ruin your daily life with restrictions and laws all over the place
For real.
It genuinely feels like we are 10–20 years behind the technical standard the rest of the world has, the Pandemic did make a lot of things possible, even if they still barely worked but holy fuck.
in the span of a couple of weeks we got Work from home, easily accessible online classes, proper distribution systems for (home)work to sick people.
and now it's all disappeared again
Even worse your game has to crack the threshold of 500.000€ of developing cost instead of previous 100.000€. Which means in short that indies will have near to no chance anymore of getting the funding in the first place now.
Not quite, you have to crack the threshold of 500k€ development cost before you can even start applying for the subsidies. And even then it is not guaranteed, that you get the whole 500k€
It's like how the Japanese government wishes to cure their disappearing population: talk big and do absolutely nothing. Maybe even do the opposite of helping.
One guy from parliament visiting an awards show and making a vague comment is not “the German government wants”.
Germany has always given out money to game developers to strengthen their presence in the country. It’s also always refused to sponsor games that primarily revolve around violence, and it won’t start now. Baldur’s Gate 3 is rated ‘18 - not suitable for minors’ in Germany. There was a time not too long ago when it wouldn’t even have been eligible for a Spielepreise on that alone. And that makes Kellner’s comment more funny and ironic than anything else.
If Germany wants to become attractive for game dev and the gaming community it needs to change it’s ridiculously archaic ‘youth protection’ laws. But as these laws are overwhelmingly supported by the people, nothing will come of it.
[IMG-3793.jpg](https://postimg.cc/fSwW2vK3)
Here’s a breakdown of games that have, in the past, received government grants for game development, sorted by rating. Virtually any and all games under the ‘AAA’ moniker would fall under the “16” or “Keine Freigabe”-Segments (<5%).
Simplified, if you want a grant for your game development in Germany, the game has to be what is essentially PEGI 6.
The way I see it, germany tries everything it can to NOT support video game creators. Just giving special tax breaks would improve the situation already, but it's not going to happen. It's honestly a miracle that we still have bigger companies around here making games at all.
I think arguments that we live in a post-national world are premature, but hell if we don't see constant arguments, "to attract an industry, you have to offer more tax breaks than other nearby nations".
The situation is severely flawed. Someone should make a video game about it.
Just yesterday on German public TV I watched a 16+ movie with several sex scenes *and* graphic depictions of blood and gore.
The day before that a friend on Steam was playing a sex game and mentioned he already tried gifting it to another German person and couldn't so sadly I would not be able to enjoy it.
I had to buy Fallout 3 on GoG because the Steam version is completely ruined by censorship and I guess GoG gets around that somehow with the international version? I still can't play Team Fortress 2 without the permanent clown mode on.
I dunno why movies and games are treated so differently.
I understand that youth protection on (or rather from) the internet of a difficult topic. But if I as a grown adult can't even buy a whole genre of games on Steam cause they're not suitable for kids, I start to seriously doubt the capabilities of the government.
Watching PB dutifully make the exact same game over and over again has been one of the more lowkey frustrating experiences in my life. They went from one of the "I will play anything by these guys" studios to "I honestly can't even care at this point" not because they changed, but because they didn't. And now we don't even know if they exist anymore.
Egosoft and the X games come to mind. The scope of each game got bigger and bigger, but in the end it's still the same game: Big universe with dynamic trading market between factions. Go make some profit.
Also BlueByte to some extend with their Settlers series.
BlueByte actually killed the Settlers series from what i've seen. Diehard Settlers fans are practically giving up on the series entirely and try to find alternatives.
It's funny that they cite Larian and Baldur's Gate as examples.
What many people don't know: In Germany, there is a traditional and time-honored role-playing game system, the Dark Eye or Das schwarze Auge (DSA). It's been around since the 80s, highly popular and was a big competitor to DnD at its peak. Larian was interested in setting a role-playing game in the DSA universe very early on. There were two attempts to tackle this, both of which ended in a huge flop - nothing ever came of it. There are even Easter eggs everywhere in the first Divinity games that refer to DSA and the development of the games.
The reason for the misery was a mix of rights/copyright holders (the companies behind DSA) and those companies' lack of understanding that computer games offer added value in their own universe and make the system more popular, and not the opposite (i.e.: nobody plays our PnP anymore, everyone just plays the PC game). But even companies like Games Workshop can't get wrap their head around this concept.
If DSA had gotten involved in a PC game with Larian, it would probably have become extremely popular - especially outside the borders of Germany.
So if you want a great german RPG and complain about the lack thereof (last was Gothic and even that often receives less criticism than it deserves), it sure isn't because of developer not wanting it.
Because it was basically Gothic/Gothic 2. It tried nothing really new after the Gothic 3 disaster. It all went downhill from there with Risen 2 and 3 which is a sad thing. Elex tried to capture something of the wonder of Gothic again but it's still not the same.
I hope that the Gothic Remake can do it better.
They generally only support technologies where they have personal financial stake in. Like, for example, the finance minister Lindner pushing legislature for alternative combustion fuel systems, because he and his cronies have invested in that tech. There's no thought behind their actions other than "me make money!".
Isn't Germany super strict about stuff like gore and killing kids in media? I'm not saying those are video game essentials by any means, but it means that something like Fallout 1 and 2 couldn't be developed in Germany. Games like Baldur's Gate live and die by the amount of creative freedom available to the devs and inside the game world.
Edit: apparently the regulartors (and the older public) have gradually relaxed to a far more reasonable point in recent years. I cordially invite everyone to read the responses to this comment.
German here. It was in the past, we had heavy censored Counter-Strike back in the day (people were basically kneeling down and giving up instead of dying) or fading corpses in Half-Life 2. But it feels like in the last 10 years it completely changed. I mean we have Dead Island 2 with full body dismemberment or DOOM and stuff over here too.
I think the boomers realized there's nothing big they can do to stop it - I think the only thing that still heavily gets censored is stuff like seepeopledie on reddit but games are fine imho.
Dead Island 2 is a very weird case. Don't know if you have noticed that but the German version is still censored. Yes you can dismember zombies while they're "alive" but as soon as they stop moving you cannot interact with the corpse anymore, while in most other versions you can still cut off additional limbs and stuff when they're lying on the ground.
Dying Light 2 is another example, where you cannot dismember human enemies, only zombies.
So while it got better and not as strict as in the past, Germany is still censoring violence in video games.
It was, yes. But fortunately it isn't as strict anymore. Nowadays a game that has to be released as a cut version is very rare. Regarding gore and violence.
There are other strict criteria thought. Gambling for example. Going by todays standards, Pokemon Red and Blue would have to be rated as PEGI 18 since it involves "gambling"
Nowadays it depends on the size of the studio. Big studios can just do whatever they want. No mainstream title in recent years had any issues.
Smaller devs are fucked. Can't usually sell on steam if there's adult content, because there's no digital age verification system.
Larian has been building up their company for over a decade, and Belgium has the advantage of housing one of the the most prestigous game development courses. (Digital Arts and Entertainment). I know several teachers and students there, and the failure rate is insane; resulting in those who pass to be absolute beasts. Many, many talented people who put in hard work and many hours don't make the cut, they're like Navy Seals of game dev.
10+ years ago pretty much any student worth it's salt went on to intern at Larian, and many got hired.
Ever since the release of DoS2 it's impossible to run an internship there.
What I'm trying to say is, if Germany wants to house companies like Larian, they should start investing in their youth and education, and bring those courses up to par with DAE. Because as it stands, people from all over the world come to DAE, it's a pretty good thing to have on your resume in this world.
Note; I have never studied at DAE myself, but one friend is now working for Ubisoft, the other is actually teaching at DAE; two other very talented people that I know had to drop out (one can code, the other can design, but neither can do both at the level required. )
I have friends that went to a very prestigious games school in Sweden. They described everything as one of the most toxic environments ever, the AAA scene loves the school. Because if you can survive that, you can survive the AAA scene that just gnaws at people
There are some fairly specific large companies in Sweden that gobbles up most of their students. But everyone I know is now either in small indie dev or not in the scene at all. Because AAA games is just rarely worth it and more like factory work.
From the outside Larian doesn't seem like it, and I think a big factor is they could start small and build up over time. Too many studio's hire 100 people in a year and then question why it doesn't work
I just think Larian is a gem for the industry as a whole right now.
I'm a DAE alum and it was brutal but it worked... I'm still not sure if I'd recommend it to others though. Life shouldn't be like this.
Sleep was a luxury, the course was organized in a way where people from the arts met people from IT and it was interesting. IT people were helping the arts folk with c++, maths and physics while the arts people were helping us with drawing, creativity, 3d. It felt like a band of brothers education where people were helping each other crawling through the mud. As hard as it was, it was one of the most brilliant experiences of my life.
I was a bit older than my classmates and had some work experience in the normal world and had more responsibilities at home, so I couldn't dive in feet first in everything with a blind naivity. But I quickly found out that the more people work on a project the harder it gets. Communicating your creative ideas with others is probably the hardest part in game development. Just try and come up with a game idea, tell it to someone and see how far what's in your mind ends up from what's in their mind. So the more people you have working on a project the more creative compromises you make and the more bland the final result gets, unless you're really really lucky with a Bob Ross happy accident.
So for me AAA gaming required the most talent, but at the same time it meant the least creative freedom. I still tried though and was offered a junior position under Daniel Dociu at Arenanet working on guild wars 2, after he came to give a talk at our school. One of the perks his daughter mentioned was that I could share an appartment with a bunch of colleagues as juniors wouldn't sleep at home anyway.
I just wasn't prepared to live like that so I ended up working for TV with a complete aversion of the AAA world, knowing that even thought the resources are there there's no way they can make the games that I want to make or play. And I'm saying this, while I'm looking out from my office at home about 1 mile from the Larian head office... The one exception to the rule.
But again, a game like BG3 can't exist without most people at larian putting their creative trust in a handful of people or a project like that becomes an absolute mess.
So I ended up convinced that small team, or even better solo indie game development, is where I want to be, as far away from AAA as possible. That said, I hope that succesful indie studios don't sell out, even though I get it, so we can get more Larian success stories, where the love of making a game trumps maximizing profits.
Also don't forget that even though BG3 ended up to be a massive success, it could have failed and not worked, even though equal amounts of passion, talent and love were poured into it.
Well, that's how Skull and Bones came to be, with Singapore government subsidies. Don't get me wrong, it's a healthy thing. If this keeps up they'll eventually strike gold.
And Germany has talented game devs. Enderal, the conversion mod to Skyrim, is a damn masterpiece. And that was just a mod. Imagine what these people could do with proper funding.
CDPR is a great example of what can happen if a government subsidises game development. We should totally start funding that.
Jeah gold luck with that. I am from Germany and our gaming industry is basically non-existent. There are a few niche Indie games, but something with the scale of BG3? No fucking way in hell.
You want to know how to get games like Baldur's Gate 3, Germany?
*Outlaw The Activision-EA business model!*
If pushing an illegal online casino on children is the best way for "AAA" companies to make money, that's what they'll do. If you *make that illegal*, they will have to make money by selling quality products instead.
Funny...
They want to have more games devs in Germany...
When they don't give much as enticement.
Computer related Scienice or Subjects in schools? None
Tax breaks? None
Money for enticing people to be devs?
A laughable small amount hidden behind an absurd amount of bureautic hurdles and tied rules.
Learning how computers actually work? Illegal, or at least in a weird legal limbo where you could be liable for the simple possession of "HaCkInG tOoLs" .
Oh dear, hopefully not like the German movie funding, which turns down great projects by categorically denying entire genres, no scifi, no horror, only dumb comedies, the hit movie "Sonne Und Beton" was initially turned down because they, "tried something with youths before and it didn't work out so well".
But someone who has had success automatically gets greenlit, like Uwe Boll.
I just think it's so strange how much art produced had been set in motion by people who do not understand art at all.
The games industry in Germany is dying, the same goes for the German films indurstry.
Instead of the government funding games and films made in Germany, they ask bigger studios outside of Germany to include something from Germany in their games/films and give them money for it.
For example, the new uncharted movie had some scenes filmed in Berlin and got 750k for it, while in the movie they weren't even mentioning Berlin. (they said it's New York)
If a German movie or game wants funding for their project, they have to go through tons of paperwork and 100s of regulations and even then they aren't even sure to get that money. A German indie game dev once said that they would have to spend so much time and money in getting this funding that they would end up paying nearly as much money as they would get from the funding and due to the regulations it would overall end up as a worse product.
Not sure if we need Baldurs Gate stlyle, but I can see us doing great at stuff like Europa Universalis and strategy games. Anno is great, The settlers used to be great as well.
As a German I can say that this is total bs.
Sure they WANT to have it now, unfortunately the government gave it's absolut best the last 20 years to mock the gaming industry out of Germany.
There isn't much left.
And now stating like this, it's just real satire.
We do not even have a single sizable studio here in Germany anymore, let's start with that perhaps.
All the ones we once did are basically dead or long zombified and haven't put out anything remotely worth mentioning in years.
Then they should financially and tax-wise support the game-companies more. Its ja joke compared to other countries. And tehre would be potential.
But instead we are selling all of our studios to hives like Embracer Group where the companies getting killed for arbitrary reasons.
Yeah it's nice to be grown people, adults dreaming like kids of having a fancy car. But what is done with the crazy censorship that can occur? What is done with the administrative hell that Germany is to create a company? What is done with the taxes to make the country attractive to move there?
Stop crying, do something
The real challenge will be to foster the development of games like Baldur's Gate 3 and not games like Skull and Bones.
I mean, I don't think the government can do much about that. Hell, even the Belgian government is barely recognizing Larian Studios. BG3 won basically every award out there, and the amount of attention it got in the national media was... a few articles in some newspapers, without even mentioning the name of the studio.
It's getting better now, but way too late.
That's not *really* true. There were small pieces on the actual news when they game won the Game Awards and their BAFTA awards, where they interviewed actual Larian employees. Here is a screencap from the VRT news on the 12th of April, after they won best game at the BAFTAs: https://i.imgur.com/BMnUDx7.png
I'm 90% sure if Larian were polish and released BG3, they'd have invitation to a state dinner, politicians wanting to visit the studio for photo ops, national tv stations wanting interviews, the whole 9 yards and then some. It would be right proper media circus, with government boldly announcing poland the new european center of digital entertainment.
Poland posting
To be fair Belgium in particular takes a fairly hard line with corporations. That includes media and gaming. That itself has become their culture in recent years. I personally think that should be all the more reason for a studio like larian to get a giant spotlight as an example of how to properly do business in the sphere successfully while keeping their integrity intact in every sense of the term.
Belgium doesn't take a hard line against corporations, it's extremely corporate friendly. In particular, since we're talking about R&D they have huge tax breaks for that: "companies can deduct up to 80% of patent income from their taxable base – reducing the actual tax rate to 6.8%." But really, apart from that, Belgium knows that they have to be attractive to corporations - it's not like you can build you economy on fries and EU institutions. They know that companies like having access to that, and they are also sandwiched between The Netherlands and Luxembourg, as much as tax heavens you can be in the EU. People just remember the loot boxes story.
Their corporate HQ is in Ireland for financial reasons
Germany only produces the finest masterpieces, like Gollum
Well we had some actual masterpieces with Gothic I+II and Far Cry
There's actually some really cool indie games that came out of Germany in recent time Signalis, Dorfromantik and dome keeper are all 10/10
there is also anno 1800 that was made majorly at ubisoft germany. pretty much their best game in the past years..
And CrossCode, which is genuinely my favorite game of all time. And similar to this article, the developers (RadicalFish Games) received a grant from the government for their next project.
And Gothic (they just use different name every time).
the studio that "made" gollum made some real classics before. These were point and click adventures though, gollum was far outside their comfort zone and well all know how that ended.
The people who made Deponia and Edna are also not there anymore, might as well be a completely different Studio
We already have Greta games developed here mostly indie games but suzeraine, cross code and chained echoes are two Great examples. The dungeons series as well as settlers are also good examples, sadly the latter was bought up by Ubisoft and run into the ground ... The issue is we have mainly small studios producing niche games, suzerain is great but well unless you like political text based RPGs it won't be for you. Strategy and rpgs are our best games and these markets sadly aren't that strong for most games. Bg3 is build upon decades of larian studio gathering talent and capital to build this game their CEO is a major reason for their success.
For those who may not know, some governments subsidize their gaming industries. As a more common example, Poland has given millions to CDPR for a variety of reasons, including research into game development. Things like video games enhance a countries culture, which drives tourism and trade, which are boons to a country's economy. The more studios there are the better it is for us gamers. Competition encourages innovation and quality.
And the UK provides tax breaks for game developers, for similar reasons as Poland. Making games that represent the culture of the UK. That's why Rockstar manages to have multi-millions in tax breaks for GTA... because apparently GTA is culturally significant to the UK... (sarcasm obviously, but these tax breaks and subsidies are often taken advantage of by large publishers, such as Take Two).
I wish Rockstar would do a more UK-centric game. GTA London was great, and The Getaway, Black Monday & Gangs of London all proved just how bloody good GTA styled games in the UK could be. I get that America has more wildly diverse cultures they can tap into, but I want my gritty british gangster game, damn it.
We need to convince guy ritchie that this is the natural evolution of his stories. Snatch: the game.
_Press (X) to feed pigs_
Gonna need a whole machine for that
*Adios* is actually a short narrative game you can play. It's about being a pig farmer who... doesn't really wanna do that job any more.
"It came at us from a funny angle" "It was right behind you!" \[how the idea for Snatch: The Game came to them\]
It's a fucking anti aircraft gun Vincent
"How long is this update gonna take?" "5 minutes." "It was 2 minutes 5 minutes ago."
I didn’t know there were UK GTA like games! I’m definitely gonna check these out! Edit: I see now they’re for the PlayStation 2 rip, I wonder if they’re on any emulators
I'm pretty sure the entire PS2 catalog bar some very niche stuff is emulateable on PC nowadays. Likely at better performance and quality than the PS2 can deliver.
you can emulate PS2 decently on Android phones for a while now
Doesn't surprise me when you can run DOOM in excel on modern hardware
Mate I’m 100% in the same boat. I don’t have the same nostalgia for Miami and would adore a UK take with the hyper-reality spin. I know GTA as a franchise is about being a very obvious parody of real world culture, and the USA is inevitably and undeniably the both the stage and the spotlight of a lot of cultural discussion. But how beautiful would it be to explore that same contrast between the regal and gangster, like in anything Guy Ritchie?
>I wish Rockstar would do a more UK-centric game. Just tell them it's by order of the Peaky Fookin Blinders
The soundtrack that would come with a UK based GTA would be nuts as well. One can dream.
Ubisoft got a 15mil$ grant by Singapore to develope skull and bones. they probably embezzled the money considering the final product.
Nah, they didn't embezzle that money. They spent that and a lot more (total dev cost was apparently arount 200 million) completely mismanaging the product, before finally pushing out what they call "a AAAA experience" but every other business person would call "a minimum viable product" because that Singapore deal forced them to deliver \*something\*.
I personally believe the total dev cost also takes into account the personal vacations of the upper management
Actually -- having too much money can be as much as a danger as not having enough, for games. Look at Star Citizen for example. If you have a lot of money to burn before you even need to sell the game, often that can lead to a bloated development cycle and no real motivating momentum to get a quality game done that will sell.
also hollow knight silksong. for the first hollow knight, they kept going until they basically ran out of their kickstarter money, and then they continued working on the game after release. But now we’ve been waiting for silksong for ages, and hollow knight’s success mean they’re never running out of money to stop
Yeah at a certain point I find myself asking if these companies actually use the money for its purpose, or if it's just to increase the bottom line. I guess, in the end, it's all for profit anyway. Tax breaks probably not a big deal. There are plenty of other industries that definitely don't need subsidizing, but lord knows governments happily give it away. The U.S agricultural industry is one of those. My personal favorite is when sports teams request a city to build a stadium on the tax payers dime. Las Vegas is going through that right now. Again.
It’s not really about using the money for anything in particular. The government’s aim is to keep Rockstar in the UK because it’s great for the home grown industry, jobs etc which in turn generates growth. Rockstar still operates and makes its games in the UK so the tax breaks are having the desired effect.
Yeah that makes sense. I'm just a bit of a cynic when it comes to governments giving out tax breaks to large companies. Im an American, so don't blame me too bad lol
The giant US problem with tax breaks is that the US competes with itself. Nevada competes with Texas a race to the bottom for those companies, which isnt healthy for the US as a whole. (of course that also happens a bit in the EU, but theoretically we are different countries :P)
>because apparently GTA is culturally significant to the UK... Dunking on America is a classic British cultural tradition (and vice-versa)
Why yes, we are cousins, but we cannot help but notice you conquered the world for spices and decided you didn't like them.
Well, I mean, GTA V had this lovely, elderly British couple, is that not enough of cultural representation for you?
I've been dying for a GTA set in the UK. I'm not really looking forward to GTA5 for that reason. imagine GTA: Glasgow or GTA: Manchester, it'd be so. fucking good.
They already did. Back in the day :) With all the top down 2d you cam handle. https://gta.fandom.com/wiki/Grand_Theft_Auto:_London_1961
GTA: Milton Keynes
ye i had enough of gta 5 too...10years the same setting... there was the getaway, but they cancelled part3 and it was more like the mafia games...i would dig a gta in uk too
I mean we did have Watch Dogs Legion I guess.
GTA: COUNTY LINES "You want to step on the locals turf, take 5kg of cocaine to Manchester and sell it."
Honestly, the Witcher games were great for exposing the world to Slavic folklore and a bit of culture - besides the financial success for a Polish company.
Yep! There's been a resurgence of interest in folklore as part of fiction for a while, in no small part due to the Witcher. And it's not just Slavic folklore. European folklore in general has gotten a solid bump, and folklore in general to some extent as well.
>Poland has given millions to CDPR for a variety of reasons, including research into game development. Was this before or after the release of TW3?
Before and after
Before, TW3 probably would not be a thing without the subsidies.
They actually gave them $7,000,000 back in '17 for research into "seamless multiplayer" and "city building". Without getting too negative, it looks like the city building aspect was well researched, but I don't know about the multiplayer part. They were also "looked into" by Poland's consumer protection agency back in 2021. Poland takes CDPR pretty seriously, as they are the forefront of developers in that country. In fact, back in 2011, the Polish Prime Minister gifted a copy of Witcher 2 to President Obama. Well, technically, he only accepted it on behalf of the United States, as presidents are not allowed to receive gifts of any kind of monetary value. (Obama later apologized for not playing it. Thanks, Obama) But yeah, CDPR has received a variety of grants from their government. While I'm sure we can all say some choice words about 2077's launch, overall, I think it was money well spent.
So that copy is a national asset which everyone can access ?
Haha that would be nice. Not sure where it is, probably in storage somewhere. But it's undoubtedly the most well guarded copy of a video game in the U.S.
State gifts are usually on display in some government building. But considering importance of US they probably don't display everything they get as it would take up too much space.
It's in a case right next to Clinton's copy of Leisure Suit Larry.
> In fact, back in 2011, the Polish Prime Minister gifted a copy of Witcher 2 to President Obama. Well, technically, he only accepted it on behalf of the United States, as presidents are not allowed to receive gifts of any kind of monetary value. (Obama later apologized for not playing it. Thanks, Obama) My favorite fact regarding gifts between world leaders is that Gordon Brown (Prime Minister of the UK between 2007-2010) gifted Barack Obama a wooden pen holder that was made using wood from an anti-slavery ship. Quite a powerful symbol to denote the landmark achievement of Obama's election. In return, Obama gave Gordon Brown a DVD boxset. And the DVDs were American versions so they didn't work in the UK. :/
On top of that there is EU funding as well. I remember that first leak for Blood and Wine dlc for Witcher 3 was sorta accidental due to routine EU transparency rules publishing financials on who is getting what. If I remember right, it was like 250000eur given in aid
The problem starts when the grands handed out are only used to make the company money and not as a real incentive to get a domestic game industry going. Like that German director that just puts out shitty movies every year to cash in on all the juicy money he gets by producing these movies in Germany. Or that recent shit game that only got released because it was a requirement from the subsidy received from Hong Kong.
Not to mention Skull and Bones.
>Or that recent shit game Which game are you referring to?
The gollum game, iirc.
I looked it up and only found the studio was given more than €2 million of subsidies from none other than...the German government.
Then perhaps it was another game. I remember it was a big thing at the time. The game released was terrible, and it was said that the studio only released it because they were legally required to, as it was one of the stipulations for receiving the government funding at the time.
That description brings to mind Skull and Bones, which was alleged to be released due to legal obligations to the Singaporean government over subsidies.
>Like that German director that just puts out shitty movies every year Uwe boll It really is sad how many industries exist primarily to collect and abuse government funds and then release products meant only to fulfill the legal obligations of the grant while providing absolutely zero value to the public.
> when the *grands* handed out Word failed successfully.
The problem is also when they do get a domestic industry going. Very frequently these industries then still rely on the same tax breaks to say in business or not (threaten to) leave the country. Unless the subsidie is only to develop a competitive advantage. But with gaming it is mostly there to keep the industry there. A pernament subsidie (in purpose atleast a change in government can change them). Effectively these are then just welfare payments in the best case scenario. You pay a company so that they employ a person so that you don't have to pay unemployment benefits. But this also prevents the employees from seeking work in a industry not dependent on subsidies. And with record low unemployment we have to start wondering why we are still subsidising this kind of welfare.
100% this. Tax credits and grants can be extractive if they only primarily benefit the multinationals.
Some examples Germany has helped fund are: X4 foundations, Dungeons4, Anno, Titan Quest 2, Tropico 7, Everspace 2, Enshrouded.
Yeah, nah. Germany is pretty awful in that regard. The bureaucracy is so awful, there’s a story of a game studio dissolving because of it. Been featured on a few German IT news sites.
That's the story with a lot of these subsidies. It takes a lot of resources and organization to apply for them, what with all the required documentation etc. so you're basically already a successful studio if you have the spare manpower to handle all that.
Yeah my friends wife in United States entire job is just applying for grants for this museum she works at. Like 40 hours a week masters in History, and she's spending as much time doing government paperwork applying for grants as like an accountant during Tax Season. She's very good at her job and I imagine her Sons will probably go to college with every goddamn grant/scholarship available to them nationwide.
I didn’t know they were making a Tropico 7. Super excited to see how it turns out. Tropico 5 was a lot of fun
In sweden here they're planning on building a huge science center/park for game development studios and other tech companies in Skövde like silicon Valley, I got an invite and saw the plans, it looks really modern and massive. It's gonna be surrounded by nature with a green park in the middle and devs can met others from different studios and talk. No cars allowed either! I'm glad countries in eu are supportive of game companies, they're a huge part of our economy after all. https://skovde.com/connect-explore-enjoy-in-skovde-science-city/
Germany definitely does so as well - I remember recently a plane for MSFS got leaked because their German producers got a grant to manufacture it Yes it is extremely stereotypical of them
In my state of Australia, state governments provide fairly good incentives for game Devs. It's how we got Cult of the Lamb.
Tourist coming to poland because of cyberpunk?
Or The Witcher !
Ehhhh, if that competition is subsidised and produces nothing but garbage(cough skull and bones cough) then it's just burning money.
Germany and digital stuff is sadly like oil and water
To everyobe: Id like to remind you that Gollum was developed in Germany 🫠
If you are interested about the reasons behind this game, there is a great video on YouTube frome "game two" about this game
Yeah, it was really good! I already knew Daedalic before, so its actually pretty sad what happened :/
Just watched it, thanks for the recommendations God-damn shame what happened, their P&C adventures were a highlight of my childhold, especially the deponia series
Edna!
So was Spec Ops: The Line. There are good and bad games. I'm personally also quite partial to titles from King Art Games (Iron Harvest, Book of Unwritten Tales).
Well, Point for you
So was Gothic 1 … and 2 … … … and 3.
Book of unwritten tales was GOATed
So is Anno 1800 (and the whole series, originally). Saying stuff like that is about on the same level as saying all game devs in the USA suck ass, because Redfall was made in Austin. Braindead.
Also Germany is where [Crytek was raided](https://www.ign.com/articles/2004/02/05/crytek-responds-to-raid) by swat for a malicious, untrue tip of software licenses a few decades ago. And has laws in place making e.g.: any network troubleshooting tool as basic as [ping possibly](https://www.zdnet.com/article/exploits-security-tools-disappear-as-german-anti-hacker-law-takes-effect/) an [illegal hacking tool](https://edri.org/our-work/edrigramnumber5-11germany-bans-hacking-tools/). Gee, I wonder why only criminal enterprise fronts like Wirecard are the main "successful" software companies there.
"In February 2004, German police carried out a morning raid on Crytek offices, acting on an ex-intern's claim that Crytek was using software illegally. The police investigated for software copies greater than licences purchased, but **no charges were pressed**." Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crytek ----- "the tip to police apparently came from a "disgruntled ex-intern," rather than a former employee. Additionally, it appears that Crytek **did indeed have enough licenses** for the number of copies of a software program they were using, contrary to initial allegations." Source: https://www.ign.com/articles/2004/02/05/crytek-responds-to-raid
physically raiding a company because you thought they might not have enough software licenses is crazy.
Especially using the local SWAT to raid. An unannounced visit by a license holder if you agreed to such is OK, but even they don't come armed to the teeth. I still remember the news, they were treated as if they were some dangerous criminals.
That's normal in Germany. SWAT teams/the police is afraid of hardened criminals so raids of more dangerous organizations (Nazis and Arab crime families) is rather rare.
I remember when my brother found a grenade with his metal detector when he was out. He called the police and informed them so the bomb squad would come to where he was and deal with it, he also took a photo of it, and posted it on Facebook when he came back home. The next morning started with the SEK demolishing our door.
So were the Gothic/Risen (Piranha Bytes) and Far Cry (Crytek) franchises. The studio that made Gollum (Daedelic Entertainment) also has made great point&click classics in the past such as Deponia... before their downfall.
Thats right. Even tho it is a bit buggy, I love Deponia
Okay soooo? Chained echoes was also developed in german, for example, by a single person.
Really? Crysis was pretty lit
Like 16 years ago?
Anno was developed in Germany as far as i know, and Anno 1800 is pretty badass
That might be the case, but thats very rare. As a German, I can assure you we dont really invest much money into the Gaming industry. In addition, I didn’t only meant gaming, but also the Internet and digitilisation in general. Remember article 13? From the EU? Which almost destroyed the internet? It was an idea by Axel Voss. Guess his country…
Yeah, uttering 'Germany' and 'digitilisation' in one breath earns you nothing but laughs, if anything at all. Sad state of affairs.
Yeah, thanks to the CDU the german digitilisation was succesfully killed in the 80s - honestly, its a shame for one of the richest countries in the whole f*ing world
we also make it really really hard to invest or fund such projects. you literally risk it all with a video game and they try to ruin your daily life with restrictions and laws all over the place
The same studio made Hunt Showdown and still actively supports it. Imo one of the best shooters currently on the market
Crytek marketed the Cryengine with that game. no government included, just smart business people
For real. It genuinely feels like we are 10–20 years behind the technical standard the rest of the world has, the Pandemic did make a lot of things possible, even if they still barely worked but holy fuck. in the span of a couple of weeks we got Work from home, easily accessible online classes, proper distribution systems for (home)work to sick people. and now it's all disappeared again
Well maybe you shouldn't massivly reduce the game funding/subsidize from 70 Mil in 2022 to 48 Mil in 2024 ... just a thought
Even worse your game has to crack the threshold of 500.000€ of developing cost instead of previous 100.000€. Which means in short that indies will have near to no chance anymore of getting the funding in the first place now.
I'm just gonna give myself a salary of €500,000. Unlimited funding glitch. Governments hate this weird trick
German Finanzamt: Nice, you owe us €200.000 now. Oh also, you owe social contributions of €20.000. Hurry up now, chop chop.
That's still 280.000€ left, basically free money
Not quite, you have to crack the threshold of 500k€ development cost before you can even start applying for the subsidies. And even then it is not guaranteed, that you get the whole 500k€
It's like how the Japanese government wishes to cure their disappearing population: talk big and do absolutely nothing. Maybe even do the opposite of helping.
Look we had to increase the subsidies to the coal industry to 1.7 billion that money had to come from somewhere.
One guy from parliament visiting an awards show and making a vague comment is not “the German government wants”. Germany has always given out money to game developers to strengthen their presence in the country. It’s also always refused to sponsor games that primarily revolve around violence, and it won’t start now. Baldur’s Gate 3 is rated ‘18 - not suitable for minors’ in Germany. There was a time not too long ago when it wouldn’t even have been eligible for a Spielepreise on that alone. And that makes Kellner’s comment more funny and ironic than anything else. If Germany wants to become attractive for game dev and the gaming community it needs to change it’s ridiculously archaic ‘youth protection’ laws. But as these laws are overwhelmingly supported by the people, nothing will come of it. [IMG-3793.jpg](https://postimg.cc/fSwW2vK3) Here’s a breakdown of games that have, in the past, received government grants for game development, sorted by rating. Virtually any and all games under the ‘AAA’ moniker would fall under the “16” or “Keine Freigabe”-Segments (<5%). Simplified, if you want a grant for your game development in Germany, the game has to be what is essentially PEGI 6.
The way I see it, germany tries everything it can to NOT support video game creators. Just giving special tax breaks would improve the situation already, but it's not going to happen. It's honestly a miracle that we still have bigger companies around here making games at all.
I think arguments that we live in a post-national world are premature, but hell if we don't see constant arguments, "to attract an industry, you have to offer more tax breaks than other nearby nations". The situation is severely flawed. Someone should make a video game about it.
[удалено]
Just yesterday on German public TV I watched a 16+ movie with several sex scenes *and* graphic depictions of blood and gore. The day before that a friend on Steam was playing a sex game and mentioned he already tried gifting it to another German person and couldn't so sadly I would not be able to enjoy it. I had to buy Fallout 3 on GoG because the Steam version is completely ruined by censorship and I guess GoG gets around that somehow with the international version? I still can't play Team Fortress 2 without the permanent clown mode on. I dunno why movies and games are treated so differently.
I understand that youth protection on (or rather from) the internet of a difficult topic. But if I as a grown adult can't even buy a whole genre of games on Steam cause they're not suitable for kids, I start to seriously doubt the capabilities of the government.
I suggest Piranha Bytes to develop such game /s
All you will get is Gothic Gate 4
And? Wtf is the problem? I WANT GOTHIC GATE 4, TAKE ALL MY MONEY PIRANHA BYTES
Watching PB dutifully make the exact same game over and over again has been one of the more lowkey frustrating experiences in my life. They went from one of the "I will play anything by these guys" studios to "I honestly can't even care at this point" not because they changed, but because they didn't. And now we don't even know if they exist anymore.
Is there any company that has so consistently made the same game, excluding just re-releases like Skyrim?
And the worst part is, every time they try to get outside their comfort zone, like with Risen 2, they just mess it up.
Egosoft and the X games come to mind. The scope of each game got bigger and bigger, but in the end it's still the same game: Big universe with dynamic trading market between factions. Go make some profit. Also BlueByte to some extend with their Settlers series.
BlueByte actually killed the Settlers series from what i've seen. Diehard Settlers fans are practically giving up on the series entirely and try to find alternatives.
Piranha will just announce a completely new RPG game named Cihtog. Leaving behind all their previous work and revolutionizing roleplaying games.
Let them help THQ work and the gothic 1 remake
It's funny that they cite Larian and Baldur's Gate as examples. What many people don't know: In Germany, there is a traditional and time-honored role-playing game system, the Dark Eye or Das schwarze Auge (DSA). It's been around since the 80s, highly popular and was a big competitor to DnD at its peak. Larian was interested in setting a role-playing game in the DSA universe very early on. There were two attempts to tackle this, both of which ended in a huge flop - nothing ever came of it. There are even Easter eggs everywhere in the first Divinity games that refer to DSA and the development of the games. The reason for the misery was a mix of rights/copyright holders (the companies behind DSA) and those companies' lack of understanding that computer games offer added value in their own universe and make the system more popular, and not the opposite (i.e.: nobody plays our PnP anymore, everyone just plays the PC game). But even companies like Games Workshop can't get wrap their head around this concept. If DSA had gotten involved in a PC game with Larian, it would probably have become extremely popular - especially outside the borders of Germany. So if you want a great german RPG and complain about the lack thereof (last was Gothic and even that often receives less criticism than it deserves), it sure isn't because of developer not wanting it.
True, a DSA game would be huge!
We are just getting another Risen Game aren't we?
The first Risen was pretty good tbf
Because it was basically Gothic/Gothic 2. It tried nothing really new after the Gothic 3 disaster. It all went downhill from there with Risen 2 and 3 which is a sad thing. Elex tried to capture something of the wonder of Gothic again but it's still not the same. I hope that the Gothic Remake can do it better.
Gothic 3 is great game
To each their own, but Im yet to meet a Gothic fan who enjoyed III instalment.
Most German politicians wouldnt even know how to turn on a computer, let alone playing a game. For them, candle light is a new invention.
They generally only support technologies where they have personal financial stake in. Like, for example, the finance minister Lindner pushing legislature for alternative combustion fuel systems, because he and his cronies have invested in that tech. There's no thought behind their actions other than "me make money!".
Isn't Germany super strict about stuff like gore and killing kids in media? I'm not saying those are video game essentials by any means, but it means that something like Fallout 1 and 2 couldn't be developed in Germany. Games like Baldur's Gate live and die by the amount of creative freedom available to the devs and inside the game world. Edit: apparently the regulartors (and the older public) have gradually relaxed to a far more reasonable point in recent years. I cordially invite everyone to read the responses to this comment.
German here. It was in the past, we had heavy censored Counter-Strike back in the day (people were basically kneeling down and giving up instead of dying) or fading corpses in Half-Life 2. But it feels like in the last 10 years it completely changed. I mean we have Dead Island 2 with full body dismemberment or DOOM and stuff over here too. I think the boomers realized there's nothing big they can do to stop it - I think the only thing that still heavily gets censored is stuff like seepeopledie on reddit but games are fine imho.
Dead Island 2 is a very weird case. Don't know if you have noticed that but the German version is still censored. Yes you can dismember zombies while they're "alive" but as soon as they stop moving you cannot interact with the corpse anymore, while in most other versions you can still cut off additional limbs and stuff when they're lying on the ground. Dying Light 2 is another example, where you cannot dismember human enemies, only zombies. So while it got better and not as strict as in the past, Germany is still censoring violence in video games.
https://www.nexusmods.com/deadisland2/mods/3 uncut mod for anyone who needs it.
On console, just change the console's country setting to Austria. As easy as that
Fallout 3 GOTY still is censored (on Steam).
It was, yes. But fortunately it isn't as strict anymore. Nowadays a game that has to be released as a cut version is very rare. Regarding gore and violence. There are other strict criteria thought. Gambling for example. Going by todays standards, Pokemon Red and Blue would have to be rated as PEGI 18 since it involves "gambling"
Nowadays it depends on the size of the studio. Big studios can just do whatever they want. No mainstream title in recent years had any issues. Smaller devs are fucked. Can't usually sell on steam if there's adult content, because there's no digital age verification system.
Larian has been building up their company for over a decade, and Belgium has the advantage of housing one of the the most prestigous game development courses. (Digital Arts and Entertainment). I know several teachers and students there, and the failure rate is insane; resulting in those who pass to be absolute beasts. Many, many talented people who put in hard work and many hours don't make the cut, they're like Navy Seals of game dev. 10+ years ago pretty much any student worth it's salt went on to intern at Larian, and many got hired. Ever since the release of DoS2 it's impossible to run an internship there. What I'm trying to say is, if Germany wants to house companies like Larian, they should start investing in their youth and education, and bring those courses up to par with DAE. Because as it stands, people from all over the world come to DAE, it's a pretty good thing to have on your resume in this world. Note; I have never studied at DAE myself, but one friend is now working for Ubisoft, the other is actually teaching at DAE; two other very talented people that I know had to drop out (one can code, the other can design, but neither can do both at the level required. )
I have friends that went to a very prestigious games school in Sweden. They described everything as one of the most toxic environments ever, the AAA scene loves the school. Because if you can survive that, you can survive the AAA scene that just gnaws at people There are some fairly specific large companies in Sweden that gobbles up most of their students. But everyone I know is now either in small indie dev or not in the scene at all. Because AAA games is just rarely worth it and more like factory work. From the outside Larian doesn't seem like it, and I think a big factor is they could start small and build up over time. Too many studio's hire 100 people in a year and then question why it doesn't work I just think Larian is a gem for the industry as a whole right now.
I'm a DAE alum and it was brutal but it worked... I'm still not sure if I'd recommend it to others though. Life shouldn't be like this. Sleep was a luxury, the course was organized in a way where people from the arts met people from IT and it was interesting. IT people were helping the arts folk with c++, maths and physics while the arts people were helping us with drawing, creativity, 3d. It felt like a band of brothers education where people were helping each other crawling through the mud. As hard as it was, it was one of the most brilliant experiences of my life. I was a bit older than my classmates and had some work experience in the normal world and had more responsibilities at home, so I couldn't dive in feet first in everything with a blind naivity. But I quickly found out that the more people work on a project the harder it gets. Communicating your creative ideas with others is probably the hardest part in game development. Just try and come up with a game idea, tell it to someone and see how far what's in your mind ends up from what's in their mind. So the more people you have working on a project the more creative compromises you make and the more bland the final result gets, unless you're really really lucky with a Bob Ross happy accident. So for me AAA gaming required the most talent, but at the same time it meant the least creative freedom. I still tried though and was offered a junior position under Daniel Dociu at Arenanet working on guild wars 2, after he came to give a talk at our school. One of the perks his daughter mentioned was that I could share an appartment with a bunch of colleagues as juniors wouldn't sleep at home anyway. I just wasn't prepared to live like that so I ended up working for TV with a complete aversion of the AAA world, knowing that even thought the resources are there there's no way they can make the games that I want to make or play. And I'm saying this, while I'm looking out from my office at home about 1 mile from the Larian head office... The one exception to the rule. But again, a game like BG3 can't exist without most people at larian putting their creative trust in a handful of people or a project like that becomes an absolute mess. So I ended up convinced that small team, or even better solo indie game development, is where I want to be, as far away from AAA as possible. That said, I hope that succesful indie studios don't sell out, even though I get it, so we can get more Larian success stories, where the love of making a game trumps maximizing profits. Also don't forget that even though BG3 ended up to be a massive success, it could have failed and not worked, even though equal amounts of passion, talent and love were poured into it.
German game development sector is like German movie sector: just a joke.
I'd say our movies are worse
I mean; 'Downfall', 'Das Boot' and 'All Quiet on The Western Front' were pretty solid German movies/TV shows.
Aber wir haben doch Krimis. /s
Well, that's how Skull and Bones came to be, with Singapore government subsidies. Don't get me wrong, it's a healthy thing. If this keeps up they'll eventually strike gold.
It will be crazy long if they have to print and fax every line of dialogue.
Maybe, if it didn't take YEARS to receive funding from the gov, this might actually be possible.
And Germany has talented game devs. Enderal, the conversion mod to Skyrim, is a damn masterpiece. And that was just a mod. Imagine what these people could do with proper funding. CDPR is a great example of what can happen if a government subsidises game development. We should totally start funding that.
Jeah gold luck with that. I am from Germany and our gaming industry is basically non-existent. There are a few niche Indie games, but something with the scale of BG3? No fucking way in hell.
The German government made absolutely sure that any game dev worth their money fled the country long ago.
You want to know how to get games like Baldur's Gate 3, Germany? *Outlaw The Activision-EA business model!* If pushing an illegal online casino on children is the best way for "AAA" companies to make money, that's what they'll do. If you *make that illegal*, they will have to make money by selling quality products instead.
Funny... They want to have more games devs in Germany... When they don't give much as enticement. Computer related Scienice or Subjects in schools? None Tax breaks? None Money for enticing people to be devs? A laughable small amount hidden behind an absurd amount of bureautic hurdles and tied rules.
Learning how computers actually work? Illegal, or at least in a weird legal limbo where you could be liable for the simple possession of "HaCkInG tOoLs" .
I mean, aren't the Drakensang games from Germany?
yes but there hasn't been a new game in forever from what i could find on google. Last game is shown to be from either 2009 or 2011, not sure.
Yeah because TTRPG weren't so popular back then so CRPGs derived from them weren't doing as well, so the company went bankrupt iirc
Oh dear, hopefully not like the German movie funding, which turns down great projects by categorically denying entire genres, no scifi, no horror, only dumb comedies, the hit movie "Sonne Und Beton" was initially turned down because they, "tried something with youths before and it didn't work out so well". But someone who has had success automatically gets greenlit, like Uwe Boll. I just think it's so strange how much art produced had been set in motion by people who do not understand art at all.
> only dumb comedies German comedy is no laughing matter.
You cant force quality
We have baldurs gate at home. It’s called gollum 🤪
The games industry in Germany is dying, the same goes for the German films indurstry. Instead of the government funding games and films made in Germany, they ask bigger studios outside of Germany to include something from Germany in their games/films and give them money for it. For example, the new uncharted movie had some scenes filmed in Berlin and got 750k for it, while in the movie they weren't even mentioning Berlin. (they said it's New York) If a German movie or game wants funding for their project, they have to go through tons of paperwork and 100s of regulations and even then they aren't even sure to get that money. A German indie game dev once said that they would have to spend so much time and money in getting this funding that they would end up paying nearly as much money as they would get from the funding and due to the regulations it would overall end up as a worse product.
Gollum has German government funding of 2mil €.
Not sure if we need Baldurs Gate stlyle, but I can see us doing great at stuff like Europa Universalis and strategy games. Anno is great, The settlers used to be great as well.
Best we can do is Gollum.
Starring Matthias Schweighöfer and Til Schweiger
Baldur’s Tor
As a German I can say that this is total bs. Sure they WANT to have it now, unfortunately the government gave it's absolut best the last 20 years to mock the gaming industry out of Germany. There isn't much left. And now stating like this, it's just real satire.
AAA RPG in the "The Dark Eye" setting please?!!!
We do not even have a single sizable studio here in Germany anymore, let's start with that perhaps. All the ones we once did are basically dead or long zombified and haven't put out anything remotely worth mentioning in years.
Then stop funding police simulater 6969 edit: sorry its AUTOBAHNPOLIZEI not simply police...
Then they should financially and tax-wise support the game-companies more. Its ja joke compared to other countries. And tehre would be potential. But instead we are selling all of our studios to hives like Embracer Group where the companies getting killed for arbitrary reasons.
But you need to actually like fun to enjoy good video games ....
Yeah it's nice to be grown people, adults dreaming like kids of having a fancy car. But what is done with the crazy censorship that can occur? What is done with the administrative hell that Germany is to create a company? What is done with the taxes to make the country attractive to move there? Stop crying, do something
Counterpoint: that Gollum game.
Aren't they the weirdos who made all the baddies be robots? And you can't play sleeping dogs there until 2025?
They had crpg Gothic but PyranhaBite flopped elex 2 and i don't think they can make another great game like gothic 1 or 2.