As the director of Baldur’s Gate 3, Swen Vincke had far more to say at the Game Awards than he was allowed to.
The makers of Baldur’s Gate 3 were often able to celebrate at the Game Awards – but Swen Vincke and his team didn’t get much time for it. Like everyone else, the Larian CEO only had 30 seconds to give his acceptance speech. The winners were not given any more time between trailer premieres and promotions.
This was met with strong headwinds in the community. Now Vincke took to the symbolic stage again using X, formerly Twitter, and wrote down what was on his mind – for which he received plenty of joy, sympathy and thanks in return online.
In one 17 part post Vincke highlights various topics. Towards the end, he further shows how a strength of game developers can all too often be used against them. We’ll guide you through the multifaceted monologue.
A finished speech: What’s in it?
Link to Twitter content
Gratitude and lots of it: Above all, Swen Vincke is grateful to many people and pays the greatest respect to all competitors. According to him, they all deserved to hold the trophy in their hands. Aside from all the developers at Larian and others involved, he highlights the role-playing community.
Commemoration: There are also several deceased people in the vicinity of the more than 2,000 people in the credits or even directly below them. Vincke remembers them, especially his father and the cinematic animation lead Jim Southworth.
Those terminated: He also highlights the former employees at Wizards of the Coasts. Almost none of the licensor’s original representatives, with whom he once sat in a meeting room to discuss the third part of the series, are now on board. We reported on the layoffs by Hasbro’s parent company.
A story: He also talks about a conversation a long time ago with a publisher. In this he remarked how happy he was that game developers are driven by idealism. Vincke is still certain to this day: it was alluded to here how easily enthusiastic people can be exploited.
He, on the other hand, is proud of how much passion goes into creating gaming experiences in the industry. For most people, money is just the means to an end, not the end. And what this creates is more than remarkable:
Games are a unique art form, synonymous with books, music and films.
In the following YouTube video you can relive the studio boss’s forced shortened speech as well as the moment when the Game of The Year Award for Larian’s role-playing hit was announced.
Link to YouTube content
With Swen Vincke’s written speech, the community celebrates the boss of Baldur’s Gate 3. Here are two of the countless voices:
- Arcaena:
I’m about to cry, honestly. So many losses and still a great year and a great game. You guys rock and deserve to be able to say all that on stage.
- Jam:
Thanks for this post. The fact that you couldn’t say that during the Game Awards is disgusting. I hope you all continue to do such a great job and raise the bar for all other game developers.
1:10:35
Is Baldur’s Gate 3 the renaissance of old school RPGs? – with RBTV
Another beautiful moment: But the Game Awards also had more good news for the people behind Baldur’s Gate 3, such as Neil Newbon being named best actor for his role as Astarion.
He is also extremely touched and you can feel how much passion goes into this historic mammoth project in the video game industry.
Did you watch the Game Awards show this year? How did you experience the short acceptance speeches? Do you think such a short limit is appropriate to speed up the process or should the organizers be more generous in the future so that everyone can really say what they want? And what did you think of the subsequent one? Network
from the Larian boss? Feel free to write us your thoughts in the comments!
