Swen Vincke’s GDC Divinity: Original Sin Post-mortem Video

The GDC Vault website has put online, for free, a recording of the entire Divinity: Original Sin post-mortem talk from Larian CEO Swen Vincke. In case you’re interested in the title or the history of Larian, this is very much a recommended watch, though I have to warn you that it’s also a lengthy one, as the talk lasts about 59 minutes in total. If you don’t have the time to watch the full talk, however, I have attempted to summarize the points that struck me as particularly interesting.

During the talk Vincke talked about his maddening experience with the development of Divinity II: Ego Draconis, and how that ultimately inspired the decision to self-publish two titles. To be precise, Vincke intended to use a smaller title to fund a bigger one, and the plan was originally to use the sales of Divinity: Original Sin (then known as Divinity: Eyes of a Child) to fund the bigger Divinity: Dragon Commander. Original Sin apparently was planned to only cost €1.5 million originally, though the budget eventually almost quadrupled. Vincke followed by talking at length on the ways Larian managed to secure a budget for their titles, and how the development team ultimately decided to “sacrifice” Divinity: Dragon Commander in favor of Divinity: Original Sin.

Vincke also talked about how he desired to publish an RPG with co-op multiplayer that wasn’t “dumbed down” (he specifically cites the RPG Codex while using the expression) for a very long time, but always had to cut it because of budget reasons. To accommodate multiplayer, Vincke explains, Larian had to come up with an “N+1” design philosophy. In practice, this means that the designers were forced to think of a fallback solution for every single quest, starting from the assumption that the players had somehow put themselves in a position where none of the other designed solutions could work. At various times, when the financial pressure was the highest, the developers were tempted to deviate from that design template, but still decided to persevere and not compromise on their original vision.

According to Vincke, once in Early Access the developers decided to embrace player feedback and rapidly iterate on the game’s rule system, which wasn’t quite as good as the developers had originally estimated. Vincke acknowledged that the process was “exhausting” but helpful, and stressed that a game’s polish can make a difference between review scores in 7s and review scores in the 9s. Vincke also stressed the need of having an audience you are targeting and being aware of the competition, and was especially keen to note the importance of finding open spots in the calendars where competitors aren’t either releasing or firing all cylinders with marketing, so that the message can go through much more easily.

On the topic of messaging, Vincke also talked about the importance of the way a game is introduced to the public, and the pains Larian had to go through to correct their initial fluke on that subject. According to him the press was a big help, as it ultimately sold the title as a “modern day Baldur’s Gate”, which, Vincke notes, is not exactly how he sees the game. Another help came in form of YouTube coverage, which is apparently extremely important for sales. Vincke cited a rise in sales for Divinity: Dragon Commander immediately after a positive review from Joe “AngryJoe” Vargas as an example of the importance of YouTube coverage.

Vincke also gave some advice on how to interact with a player community based on his experience, and cautioned against promising too much. Finally  and this is news we have previously covered Vincke claimed that Larian is looking to announce 2 new RPGs in the near future, RPGs that will integrate mechanics that the developers are currently experimenting with and should allow them to stay ahead of the competition.