While the mainstream success of Dungeons & Dragons RPG Baldur’s Gate 3 is undeniable, developer Larian has yet to announce sales results. However, after last year’s financial data was made public, we finally have an idea of just how gigantic Baldur’s Gate 3 really was.
The confirmation comes from financial records published by a Dublin-based Irish holding company for Larian, which is allegedly based in Belgium and controlled by majority shareholder, founder and CEO Swen Vincke. (Ireland is one of the most significant tax havens in the world, with a keen escalate in corporate tax revenues over the last decade).
According to a paid report published by Irish IndependentLarian reported a pre-tax profit for 2023 of €249 million (about $260.9 million), which included the August launch of Baldur’s Gate 3. Revenue for the year was €427 million (about $447.5 million).
Larian never announced the sales figures for Baldur’s Gate 3, although publishing director Michael Douse did indicated in February that the game has sold well over 10 million copies, and Hasbro, the parent company of Dungeons & Dragons owner Wizards of the Coast, reported in March that Baldur’s Gate 3 made $90 million through a licensing deal with Larian. The Irish Independent reported that Baldur’s Gate 3 sold around 15 million copies and paid a dividend of €28 million this year.
Larian’s stellar 2023 financial results stand in stark contrast to the company’s 2022 results, which reported a loss of €214,000 (approximately $224,100) on just €22.7 million (approximately $23.7 million) in revenue. So the wild success of Baldur’s Gate 3 has been a game-changer for Larian, and that’s without taking into account the current sales Baldur’s Gate 3 has achieved so far in 2024. Indeed, Douse said Baldur’s Gate 3 is seeing 20% more busy daily users this year than last, and the mods are helping fuel seemingly endless interest in the RPG game.
Vincke told IGN in September that the success of Baldur’s Gate 3 meant Larian was now in a “luxurious position” and could “choose his own destiny and his own path.” The developer shocked the video gaming world by announcing plans to create entirely fresh games outside of the Dungeons & Dragons universe, rather than follow Baldur’s Gate 3 with DLC or a sequel.
The Irish Independent has confirmed that while Vincke owns virtually all of the ordinary shares of Dublin holding company Larian, Chinese megacorporation Tencent owns a “large proportion” of the company’s preferred shares through its Tencent Cloud Europe unit.
Baldur’s Gate 3 is of course not Larian’s only hit game, but its success is far greater than that of previous RPG games, including Divinity: Original Sin 1 and 2. Larian opened multiple development studios around the world to lend a hand create Baldur’s Gate 3 as part of the “follow the sun” concept of 24-hour game development, where teams move work to the next time zone at the end of the workday to speed up development. In addition to Dublin, Larian has studios in Kuala Lumpur, Barcelona, Guildford, Quebec, Warsaw and its original headquarters in Ghent.
Wesley is the UK news editor at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. Wesley can be reached at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
