'Marketing's dead, and I can back this s**t up': Larian's publishing director says players 'just want to be spoken to, and they don't want to be bamboozled'

During Baldur's Gate 3's trip around the award circuit winning every major GOTY trophy there is, the developers at Larian have taken some of their stage time to criticize corporate greed and mass layoffs. In the wake of its massively successful self-published game, Larian hasn't been shy about pointing the finger at what it sees changing—and going wrong—in the games industry. Larian publishing director Michael Douse brought that same energy to a recent PC Gamer roundtable interview, confidently stating "marketing is dead" in a discussion with other prominent game developers.

Warframe creative director Rebecca Ford kicked off the topic: "Actual players don't want to be marketed to," she said during our State of PC Gaming roundtable, recorded last month during the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco. Douse jumped in to agree enthusiastically.