“People that don’t always get the credit they deserve”
Swen Vincke, the director of Baldur’s Gate 3, has revealed his full Game Awards acceptance speech, which was chopped short at the ceremony last week. Last week, the Game Awards 2023 attracted a lot of flak for imposing a stringent time constraint of 30 seconds on acceptance speeches. As a result, Baldur’s Gate 3 director Swen Vincke was just one of many prize recipients whose remarks were cut short, leaving many developers disappointed during the awards ceremony.
Vincke, on the other hand, has already revealed his whole planned speech for the Game of the Year award on his X account. Vincke opens his 15 tweets by praising competitors Capcom, Nintendo, Remedy, and Insomniac on their great productivity over the last year, due to titles such as Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 and Alan Wake 2.
Vincke then says that the magnificent suit of armor he wore to the ceremony was to celebrate Baldur’s Gate 3’s player base, without whom the game would not have been feasible. He also mentions the 2,000-odd staff members named in the RPG’s lengthy list of credits.
Vincke specifically mentions “team QA, team localisation, team customer support, team operations, team publishing, team play testers” as “people that don’t always get the credit they deserve.” That’s a great touch from the director of Baldur’s Gate 3.
Vincke then pays tribute to Jim Southworth, Larian’s cinematic animation lead, who tragically died while working on Baldur’s Gate 3. There’s also a nod to PitStop Productions, which Vincke recognizes had to record an “insane” number of lines for the game.
The director of Baldur’s Gate 3 then praises the massive RPG’s cast as well as publisher Wizards of the Coast, while lamenting layoffs at the latter. Hasbro said earlier this week that it would be laying off 1,100 employees over the next six months, a move that will take effect in six months.
Finally, Vincke tells a story about a publisher who once informed him that games were driven by “idealism,” but in an “exploitative” fashion. Vincke agrees with the publisher, saying that “games are a unique art form, as important as books, music or movies. Many developers, myself included, make games because they love seeing others engage with their creations in a way only games can offer.”
Vincke was also supposed to announce the immediate release of Baldur’s Gate 3 on Xbox in his award speech, but he simply forgot. To be fair to the director of Baldur’s Gate 3, there was a lot more he wanted to say outside the release.