Later this week, video game developer, Larian Studios, will launch the highly-anticipated RPG video game, Baldur’s Gate 3. The culmination of six years of development, Baldur’s Gate 3 promises players a highly-reactive narrative with over one hundred hours of content in a fantasy world populated by thousands of interactable characters. Community updates have spoken of more than 174 hours worth of fully motion-captured cinematics and a spider-web approach to the narrative leading to 17,000 variations of the ending.
It’s a staggering achievement in terms of technological accomplishment and video game design, but perhaps more astonishing is that less than a decade ago, Larian was facing bankruptcy.
Founded in 1996 by Swen Vincke, Larian is a Belgian video game developer best known for its Divinity series of RPGs. While producing relatively successful and well-received games for much of its existence, Larian struggled to make a name for themselves and make money. This was partly due to unfavourable deals with publishers, who took the lion’s share of the revenues and left Larian with little to show for their efforts.
Knowing the Audience
However, that wasn’t the only issue. Swen understood his audience as a video gamer, but his publishers often did not. In a candid interview in 2013, Swen spoke of his frustrations with dealing with executives who had never played video games and relied entirely on market research to determine what people did and did not want.
For example, Swen was told that audiences did not like the turn-based strategy approach to combat that he favoured, nor would they appreciate certain other elements of narrative and design. Consequently, Larian were effectively ordered to make inferior products due to the over-reliance on self-selecting data. After all, if nobody is making turn-based RPGs because executives believe there is no demand for them, then nobody will buy turn-based RPGs because there are none to buy. The data might support the claim simply because the sample size is virtually non-existent.
Cutting Out the Middlemen
Realising that his company could not survive without significant changes, Vincke made the decision to break free from the shackles of publishers and do things his own way. As he tells it, the decision to start doing things his own way was little more than a shower thought. The realisation that his publishers were demanding that he sacrifice his vision to try and compete against heavyweight studios that Larian simply did not have the resources to compete against. He’d had enough.
What followed that decision is one of the most remarkable success stories in the video game industry. Larian went from a small company of 30 or so employees forced to cut a deal with the Belgian government to delay tax payments to a global operation with 400 people in offices worldwide now on the brink of launching one of the largest and most ambitious video games of all time.
Praise Where It’s Due
Much of this can be attributed to Swen’s leadership, although, like all good leaders, he would be the first to tell you it’s his people who deserve the credit. Indeed, in every interview, Swen is quick to praise the efforts and contributions of his team. He regularly supports his team members publicly, and many of those team members have offered public endorsements of both Swen and Larian in turn.
Swen Vincke is also a decisive man with the confidence to take risks that many would not. Even with the shadow of bankruptcy hanging over the company, Swen made the risky decision to pull resources from one game to make another, believing in his vision for Larian’s future. That game, Divinity: Original Sin, a classical RPG with turn-based combat, was both a critical and commercial success that secured the immediate future of Larian Studios. More than that, it was Larian’s best-selling game at that time, and because Larian published the game themselves, they no longer had to share the revenues with the executives that had held them back.
Humility
Swen is also a humble man and accepts that he’s not infallible. That’s why he listens to his customers, sometimes making huge and costly changes to a project to better fulfil the wants and needs of his audience, and he engages with that audience regularly. Through live-streamed behind-the-scenes panels, early access feedback, forums, and more, Swen offers potential customers the opportunity to weigh in on all aspects of the games he’s making. When something isn’t working, he addresses it to give the customer the best possible experience. In doing so, he cultivates a fanbase willing and eager to engage with Larian, which converts to more sales. Larian now sells millions of units in a niche genre where most competitors could only aspire to a fraction of that.
Enthusiasm and Love
Perhaps, however, Swen’s most significant leadership trait is his infectious enthusiasm. He makes games that he wants to play and has surrounded himself with people that also want to play those games. He’s spoken about how many times he’s played through Baldur’s Gate 3 as it’s been in development and how many times he’s been astonished by the creativity that’s gone into the game. In a recent tweet, he even said that reaching the end credits of the game and seeing the names of his team members who have been part of this project brought a tear to his eye.
Such devotion to his team and their work has led to a culture where people are genuinely invested in the quality of what they do. When your boss loves what you’re doing and is excited by what you’re bringing to the table, when you know your boss spends hours enjoying what you do, it’s hard not to share in his enthusiasm.
Larian Studios is a modern-day, real-life, rags-to-riches tale starring a man who knew that his company could be so much more than it was. It’s a story of perseverance, determination, calculated risk, and self-ownership that are often themes of the games they make. Mostly, however, it’s about leadership and having the confidence, people skills, enthusiasm, attention to detail, and humility that brings the right people on board and makes them want to follow you.
