Swen Vincke, founder/CEO at Larian Studios and the director of Baldur Gates 3, has shared the full speech he wanted to say after winning Game of the Year at The Game Awards 2023.
Vincke and other award winners were only permitted 30 seconds of speech time upon taking the stage; something that was criticized for being disrespectful to the very developers the awards show was meant to be celebrating.
That said, Vincke’s Twitter thread, posted on Dec.14, takes time to thank the show’s host Geoff Keighley, and everyone else who helped organize The Game Awards for “creating an award show so big that it gets mainstream attention. While 30 secs is a bit short, there’s nothing like The Game Awards and it’s an incredible achievement.”
He also extends his gratitude to Baldur’s Gate 3‘s many fans, explaining that his choice of wardrobe for the show—a suit of armor—was in tribute to how important those fans were for the game’s development. After all, Baldur’s Gate 3 was in Early Access for roughly three years before it properly launched this past August, meaning Larian was constantly taking on player feedback.
Of course, the game wouldn’t exist at all without the development team and while Vincke can’t namedrop all 2,000+ people who worked on it, he makes a point to highlight certain employees who are typically overlooked: “Team QA, team localization, team customer support, team operations, team publishing, team play testers, and every other developer at Larian, BG3 wouldn’t exist without you and you all deserve to be very proud of this.”
Vincke’s speech is rather bittersweet, though, since he touches upon the friends and family who sadly died during or shortly after development, including lead cinematic animator Jim Southworth, who passed away just a month ago, and Vincke’s own father, who died shortly before the Early Access launch in 2020. In addition, Vincke acknowledges the layoffs at Dungeons & Dragons company Wizards of the Coast. Hasbro recently opted to fire over 1,000 of its employees and while it’s not known exactly how many of those were at WOTC, Vincke states, “It’s a sad thing to realize that of the people who were in the original meeting room, there’s almost nobody left.”
Vincke concludes with a rather lovely message about how “Many developers, myself included, make games because they love seeing others engage with their creations in a way only games can offer. They don’t care that much about the money made beyond it being the fuel they need to create new and better games. It’s worth reminding everyone that fuel is but a means, not a goal. Whereto and how we journey are what matter and what we remember.”
Although the last thing he adds is that Baldur’s Gate 3 is now on Xbox Series X/S; a detail he meant to say during The Game Awards. Unfortunately, Xbox owners aren’t having the smoothest time with the new port, with save files suddenly disappearing. Microsoft has provided a workaround but hopefully, a proper fix will come sooner or later.
