Swen Vincke, Larian’s CEO says that they’re “not interested” after finding out his company was listed on Microsoft’s shopping list of companies to aquire from 2021 that surfaced this past June
As Baldur’s Gate 3 released only a day ago and is currently smashing records on Steam, the Belgum developer, Larian’s CEO was interviewed by Bloomberg on Thursday about Baldur’s Gate 3 and how it was projected to be one of the biggest releases of 2023.
This comes from a PC Gamer article who reported on this interview with Swen Vincke and Bloomberg on Thursday. Vincke was asked and responded to the question about his company being on 2021 list of potential aquistions by Microsoft that resurfaced in June. Along with Larian, other companies that were included in the list at the time were, CD Projeckt Red which expressed previuously that they don’t plan on selling anytime soon, SEGA, FromSoftware, and Bungie, Crytek, and Paradox Interactive.
According to PC Gamer, Vincke told Bloomberg, while it was “always flattering” to catch the eye of parties like Microsoft, he’s just not interested in selling. He followed up by telling Bloomberg that, “he was worried that a monolithic corporate owner like Microsoft could end up limiting creatively infavor of profits.”
“I’m getting older, but I’m certainly not done yet,” Vincke to Bloomberg
Vincke did mention to Bloomberg and PC Gamer even notes that all final decisions and authority rest with him. This can be viewed as an advantage for Larian since there is no higher authority to report to and currently, Vincke isnt to sure whats next in terms of development plans, which makes sense since their biggest project, Baldur’s Gate 3 just released. I’m no game developer but im sure the development team over at Larian wants to currently focus on squashing any bugs and listen to commmunity feedback for any future content.
You can purchase Baldur’s Gate 3 now for PC and PlayStation 5, with an Xbox Series X/S release later in 2024.