At the Game Developers Choice Awards, Larian's publishing director Michael Douse spoke to Game File (paywalled) about the current state of the industry.

"It's an avoidable fiasco. That's it. That's why we're seeing one layoff after another. Because companies say, 'We finally did it. Now we can do it. We've wanted to do this for a long time. Everybody else is doing it. Why aren't we doing it? It's really like a disease."

While Daus acknowledged that major publishers are complex operations that cannot respond quickly to new demands or market changes, he argued that better planning and leadership could have prevented the worst of what we are seeing, and he expressed his frustration with the way the industry always continues to do business at fancy events like the GDC Awards and the BAFTAs. He expressed frustration that the industry is continuing business as usual with flashy events like the GDC Awards and BAFTAs: "We should be humbled at this time of year. I don't feel like we as an industry are being humble at this time of year."

He also noted that publicly traded gaming companies have competing incentive issues, with concerns about stock prices costing both players and developers: "No company is on the verge of bankruptcy. No company is at risk of going bankrupt." That's fine. That's fine. The function of a publicly traded company is to create growth for its shareholders. It is not to create a happy environment for employees."

Daus pointed to Sven Vincke's leadership and Larian's ability to make risky moves without shareholder reservation as the main reasons for the company's success over the past few years; Bloomberg's Jason Schreier made similar points in an op-ed he contributed to around the release of "Baldur's Gate 3" in an op-ed he contributed to around the release of "Baldur's Gate 3.

Daus acknowledged that the final decision would always be up to Vincke, but said that an IPO would never be desirable for Larian. So our game will never get better. It will just be rushed."

The full conversation can be found by subscribing to Game File, the newsletter of former Kotaku editor-in-chief Steven Totilo; Douse and Totilo also discussed how Steam and social media have changed the way games are sold, and how in that area consoles are still playing catch-up with the PC, and that Larian-Douse will likely follow the release model of Original Sin 2 and Baldur's Gate 3 for Larian's "whatever the next game is" and that Early Access is the way forward for Larian discussed that Early Access is the way forward for Larian.