‘Baldur’s Gate 3’ Prepared for 100k Concurrent Players, They’ve Gotten 700K

What really sealed the deal for me checking out this game is the promise to not have any microtransactions. That's a trend that has only been getting worse for 20+ years now and I'd gladly pay full price for a game that simply gives me a whole game upon purchase.

No micro transactions, offline single player. A luxury in 2023.

I don't get this take, just in the past 12 months we have seen

-God of War Ragnarok

-Tears of the Kingdom

-Hogwarts Legacy

-Star Wars Jedi Survivor

-Final Fantasy XVI

All entirely or almost entirely singleplayer and all receiving critical acclaim (except for the poor launch of Jedi Survivor's PC port). And the next few months include Starfield and Spider-Man 2, both blockbuster singleplayer games with no microtransactions which stand a good chance of winning game of the year.

That may be so, but for every game like this there are a dozen that aren't. I just happened to not be interested in any of the above mentioned games. Still, I think the trend of releasing completed games is slowly becoming in favor again. I don't think Nintendo really strayed very far from this so props to them.

Also you’re dealing with a lot of pent up rage from a decade of systemic abuse.

>-God of War Ragnarok

playstation exclusive

>-Tears of the Kingdom

nintendo exclusive

>-Hogwarts Legacy

I don't know anyone who has played it - maybe we're just not that interested in harry potter

>-Star Wars Jedi Survivor

launched with multiple huge bugs including progression stopping bugs. I'll get it when its cheap and theyve fixed everything, or they haven't and I won't. If your game is bugged from day one don't expect day one pricing to work out.

>Final Fantasy XVI

playstation exclusive.

out of your list there the only ones not platform exclusive or riddled with bugs on launch is hogwarts legacy which honestly doesn't sound like anything I'd be interested in playing.

*timed exclusive, plus Switch emulator.

an exclusive is an exclusive. "timed exclusive" is an exclusive. Also not interested in dealing with piracy and other things for switch emulator - there's no way for a normal person to buy the game and play it on a switch emulator - you need an old version of the switch to dump it even if you wanted to, so you have to have the platform to emulate it without piracy anyways.

They do put some effort into getting you to create an account and go online in the installer.

And, when you boot the game, it instead boots a window GUI that I can imagine serves only to display the giant ad to upgrade to the more expensive version of the game. You have to search for the de-emphasized not-quite-a-button below to actually play the game.

This is one of the things I like about truly single-player games, where no interaction with other players is possible. Mostly puzzle games. None of those games have any of these dark patterns or unnecessary connectivity.

I have been enjoying Baldur's Gate 3. Offline :)

Hogwarts Legacy is recommended

im just not into harry potter

I watched a couple of the movies years ago. the game is enjoyable and very well done, I'd probably have more fun if I was an actual fan.

You can definitely see the amount of effort put into recreating the castle/town.

This feels like moving goal posts. Why does platform exclusivity exclude them from being considered in this discussion? They are still all very successful AAA games that have no microtransactions.

Because the disussion is taking place in the context of not-platform exclusive game with the article title talking about the number of concurrent Steam (ie. PC) players.

If you don't want to pay for hardware you don't get to own then console games might as well not exist.

> God of War Ragnarok

> playstation exclusive

Don't fret. It'll be ported to PC, just like the first game.

its not a question of fretting, its just a question of "is this game available for most people to play" and the answer is "just playstation owners" so not generally, no.

"look at all the great non microtransaction filled games you can play"

"...if you happen to own those consoles"

Those games are only available if you own that specific exclusive platform, not to the general public on any mainstream platform, so are niche on purpose. They're not really available without an investment into a specific platform.

so in the discussion of 'look at all these amazing non microtransaction filled games' adding ones that require I spend $300-500 on their platform is relevant.

I read all the books (decades ago? has it been that long?) and I'm sure I've seen some of the movies on flights I'm just not into roleplaying it.