Baldur's Gate 3 director and CEO of Larian Studios, Swen Vincke, has shared his full speech for winning Game of the Year at The Game Awards 2023.
Despite taking home six awards, including the biggest award of the ceremony, Vincke and his team were only given a short amount of time accept it, which prompted criticism of the event for not offering winners more time to speak and give their thanks (via IGN).
However, now in a new Twitter thread, Vincke has posted his uncut speech, thanking everyone from the players, the cast of Baldur's Gate 3, and of course the development team.
"Winning Game of the Year is a great honor and I want to first thank everyone that voted for us and I want to congratulate all the other nominees. This has been an incredibly competitive year and you each would have deserved to win this award," Vincke wrote, tagging the developers of the other Game of the Year nominees, Capcom, Remedy Entertainment, Insomniac Games and Nintendo.
Vincke continued by thanking those who organized The Game Awards, as well as its host, Geoff Keighley, adding: "While 30 secs is a bit short, there’s nothing like The Game Awards and it’s an incredible achievement."
Larian Studios' CEO also commended the over 2,000 people credited on the game, but wanted to focus "on a group of people that don’t always get the credit they deserve," which included the QA team, localization, customer support, operations, publishing, playtesters, "and every other developer at Larian, BG3 wouldn’t exist without you and you all deserve to be very proud of this."
I want to dedicate this award to the friends and family members we lost during development including Jim, our lead cinematic animator who passed away last month and personally to my father who passed away the week before we launched our early access campaign (8/16)December 14, 2023
Like in his speech on the night, Vincke went on to dedicate the award to friends and family members the team lost during the development of the game, including Jim Southworth, the lead cinematic animator on Baldur's Gate 3 who passed away in November. He also personally dedicated the win to his father who died the week before the game launched in early access.
In addition, Vincke thanked the Dungeons & Dragons team and addressed the recent layoffs at Hasbro which affected Wizards of the Coast (via Forbes).
"I’m really sorry to hear so many of you were let go," he said. "It’s a sad thing to realize that of the people who were in the original meeting room, there’s almost nobody left. I hope you all end up well."
Vincke wrapped things up, saying: "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. They don’t care that much about the money made beyond it being the fuel they need to create new and better games. It’s worth reminding everyone that fuel is but a means, not a goal. Whereto and how we journey are what matter and what we remember. Thank you."
To conclude, Vincke joked that the game is now out on Xbox Series X|S, which he was supposed to announce during The Game Awards. The announcement was instead made on social media shortly after the event ended.
For more, check out our list of the best PC games, as well as our list of the best story games.
