Baldur's Gate 3 is a bright spot in an altogether down financial report from Wizards of the Coast owner Hasbro, which says Larian's "mega hit" RPG, having driven around $90 million in revenue in the last year, is a good sign for more video games to come from the D&D license.
As our friends at PC Gamer noted, Hasbro execs discussed Baldur's Gate 3 and the D&D license in a conference call on the heels of the report's release. Overall revenue is down 15% due to a 19% fall in consumer products and 31% in entertainment, but Wizards of the Coast and digital gaming are actually up 10% thanks to "revenue behind Baldur's Gate 3 from Larian Studios and Monopoly Go! from Scopely."
CEO Chris Cocks said "video games will clearly be a huge leg up on the D&D business," and "Baldur's Gate 3 is just the start of several new video games that will be coming out over the next five to 10 years that I think will continue to power that franchise."
This outlook is somewhat tempered by the fact that Hasbro and Wizards of the Coast have reportedly canceled multiple video game projects in the last year. At least five were said to have been shelved as of January 2023. More recently, studio Hidden Path, previously working on an "epic D&D project with Wizards," paused development and laid off 44 people. In a LinkedIn post, CEO Jeff Pobst reaffirmed that the team was working on "an exciting RPG project."
Hasbro and Wizards have had some issues with video games, then, but seem to be committed to the medium, now buoyed by Baldur's Gate 3's meteoric success, which has proven that D&D mechanics can click with non-tabletop gamers. Cocks predicts "a long tail into 2024 and beyond for this mega hit" as Larian continues to support the game with new updates. Just today, we learned that Baldur's Gate 3 patch 6 will finally fix the RPG's second-biggest party management sin, not to mention add fancy new kissing animations.
Larian is also already feeling out its next game, with CEO Swen Vincke saying Baldur's Gate 3's success is "really encouraging us to ensure it pushes many boundaries." Last month, Vincke said he'd "finally figured out" the first act of whatever this mystery project is.
Baldur's Gate 3 now has over 500,000 Steam reviews and a 96% score, putting the RPG with Stardew Valley and Hollow Knight among the store's best-reviewed games.
