I don't want to attack you personally but I think your post illustrates an common error in thinking that caused gaming to stagnate for the past decade. I can just hear the army of MBAs making spreadsheets and checklist reflecting exactly this "paint by the numbers" style of thinking. This in turn means that the next ten AAA titles starting production are going to check all these boxes and then ... will still fail. In reality there is no formular for making a hit game. You need people who care and know what they are doing and let them do what they love.
I think you’re right but also making a good or beloved game is not really the same endeavor as making a massively profitable one. Stardew Valley is beloved. If you described the vision to a 10k employee game studio, they could probably make something that is stardew-like, widely played, and absolutely rakes in cash through micro transactions, $49.99 variegated eggplant DLC, etc. and has the charm and soul of a cold baked potato.
Beloved games have heart, vision, and they don’t establish a predatory relationship with their customers. There will always be a place for them to gamers, because these attributes can’t be faked. There will also always be a place for soulless AAA because, as you said, the MBAs can bake these on paper, reliably, and procedurally.
The GP is analyzing some dimensions to figure out if the success of Baldur's Gate is surprising or not. He/she finds that, given the limited dimensions we can consider, the success is surprising.
I read your reply as saying "no, it's not possible to analyze why games fails / succeed, because they're all different". I feel that's usually unhelpful: assuming we can't explain things because they're all idiosyncratic is usually not productive. It's more productive if you, for example, point to something extra that is missing.
I think OP is putting too much emphasis on brand and reputation. Blizzard had the best of both and they still manage to produce failure after failure (at least as far as critical acclaim goes). BattleBit had none is also a massive success. What makes a game fail or succeed? I don't think anyone knows. But I am fairly sure that whatever AAA mainstream is doing isn't really working. The biggest games are almost all either old franchises that usually have their roots in mods or some kind of simulator that just packages up and polishes something from the real world. So where has the innovation, the joy of video games gone? I think it's being smothered by spreashsheets and processes. If that's true then the solution is quite simple: Let people who actually like games and who can make games, make the games that people want.
I've not been in that industry but was for a while, the closest input metric I ever saw that correlated to success was how fast your tools let you iterate on ideas to find the core of what was "fun" and the polish it until it shined. Same applied to the art side of the pipeline, the more headache importing/iterating in-engine the more things diverged from render -> in-game.
Oh and how much publishers meddled in games and/or set constraints. At one point one of the big 3 wasn't approving games that didn't have multiplayer regardless of genre, got to spend ~5mo working on multiplayer that was totally broken until we got sign-off that we could pull it from the title.
> You need people who care and know what they are doing and let them do what they love.
That includes Pillars of Eternity, and the other games I mentioned. They made great games but they just weren't that popular. I agree in general about checkbox thinking.
Nit: POE _is_ a success story (bootstrapped by a Kickstarter, proved that people still buy isometric CRPGs) but I get your point. Personally I grew up playing games and DnD campaigns in the Forgotten Realms setting and am thrilled to see it with modern graphics
Sure there's no general formula, but it's really not a surprise that the first big D&D videogame in a long time would be a huge success, after several years of tabletop D&D skyrocketing in popularity.
This game also has the meta that most recent D&D games missed. If you know the tabletop game, you can build an optimized character in the bg series, because the game system is close wherever it can be. Some spells are just too freeform to work without a human DM, but they seem to have done very well, perhaps a bit too much focus on environmental damage like the divinity series, but they toned that down right? I haven't looked at it in over a year.
Main thing I'm missing so far is you can't ready an action, which makes it nearly impossible to play defensively.
If your turn doesn't give you enough movement to run up to the enemies and stab them, you can't say "I run next to the doorway and wait to stab the first person who runs through it."
Instead, you have to waste your turn and then stand around getting attacked. So it's often to your advantage to roll worse in the initiative order, because the enemies will spend their turn dashing to within your movement range and then you actually get to hit them on your turn. Kind of hate it, rolling high initiative is supposed to let you get the drop on people or set up the battlefield more to your liking.
BG3 players, please let me know if I'm missing something here.
Interesting, the way other games have dealt with this problem, is a wait option. you roll to move first, decide to wait, now everyone with lower initiative must move before you do. It’s a version of first in last out, if everyone waits, the last to wait must move first. Sort of an elegant solution to part of this problem. Other games might also have a generic guard move. Move+guard and you attack first thing to come in range
3e used to have a "delay" option where you could opt to move down the initiative order (and stay there going forward), but 5e did away with it and the only way to change when you act is via the Ready action.
The way readying usually works is basically "move + guard", though it's more flexible than that in regular D&D with a human DM where you can line up whatever action you want like "I'll stay put, but if the goblin comes toward me I retreat into the next room" rather than only being for attacks.
But if they wanted to only implement it as letting you attack or cast a spell when an enemy enters a target area, that would be a lot better than nothing.
Ready an action could get really complicated from a design perspective, but I really miss the "dodge" action. It would've been easy to integrate and support offensive play. I use it in the tabletop often when I play tank characters to hold chokepoints. Interested in the reason why they don't have it, maybe some EA players involved in the feedback process know why?
Agreed on the dodge action, that's also a great default to have around too when you can't find something useful to do.
As far as readying an action, at minimum it could work like XCOM's "Overwatch" action, targeting the first enemy you see within range.
But it would be nice to give you a choice of targeting options so that you can designate a smaller area, just in case that's useful. But fine leave it as "first enemy in this area" instead of trying to give you full pencil and paper D&D flexibility. There is a UI for picking between options in an action, such as Enhance Ability needing you to pick an ability.
If it's limited to readying an attack, it would look like pretty much all the tactical games which have an "overwatch" mode. They already have most of the logic they need with attacks of opportunity. Just need a slightly different trigger.
Works for some characters, not really a strategy for a heavily armored fighter.
And either way, if there's a crowd of archers in the next room I wouldn't want to walk in (sneaking or no) where I have no cover, so I'm going to try and hold at the door. Still the better play even if it costs a whole turn of not being able to use my action.
The missing Ready action really tilts things toward those "alpha strike" characters made to hit first and hit hard, which isn't a design choice I like much. I want to be able to lure enemies into a room with minor illusion or other sounds and have the whole party readied the jump them.
Ready an action is only usable in combat, so RAW outside of combat readying actions to jump on people you lured with an illusion into a room is not possible. This is an ambush and would be dealt with stealth / surprise rules and THAT is in the game, so it is possible if you play it by the rules.
The ready action is designed to get used for delaying actions to bypass initiative order.
Is it considered weird to drop into combat grid and initiative order to handle action strategy like trying to dodge around a guard patrol, even if nobody's been stabbed yet and nobody might get stabbed at all?
Speaking of delay, I know that's not part of 5e (it was in 3.5), but if we can't have ready action could we at least have the delay option? A lot simpler to implement and it'd at least help with the situations where you would have been better off at worse initiative.
Even the ones I would never have expected to work do, I had a couple of potions of speaking to animals, which led to a lovely (fully voice acted) conversation with some oxen.
And I think this is one of the things modern games have missed for a lot of BG-era players -- discovery and delight.
AAA production costs make it difficult: you can't just spread the game's budget equally into niche content most will never see.
But if you do it smartly, it seems like there's still financial and development space for "Wouldn't players find it cool if...?" things.
One of the major turn-offs of post-TES3 Bethesda style games has been just how soul-less the tracks through their content have been. It's obvious anything "weird" had to get approved through a committee and was watered down in the process.
Games were the better when there was a path for a development team member to have 10% time to implement some kooky feature.
And maybe now that needs to flow through approval... but don't soften it into pablum in the process.
My first attempt with Speak with Animals led to a somewhat awkward conversation with a boar, whom an absent druid had recently promised a mate. His "haunches" clenched and quivered with anticipation.
Given almost every single D&D movie has been horrible it would be surprising if it wasn’t a well known studio like Larian doing it. It’s pretty common for games from existing “high profile” IP to be lazy, lackluster, money grabbing products.
The last D&D game I remember, Dark Alliance, is horrible.
I had fond memories of Dark Alliance. You maybe didn’t like it, and coming out for a console with no PC release was an odd choice for the series, but there was fun gameplay and story there. At least, 13 year old me playing co-op with my Dad through Dark Alliance 1 and 2 on my PS2 is a fond memory I have that maybe nobody else got.
Anyway, I was just surprised because I guess I never looked up a review of the Dark Alliance games but my general impression was actually pretty good.
edit: Apparently there is a Dark Alliance game with a naming collision that came out much more recently than the Dark Alliance series I'm thinking of. Smart move, Wizards of the Coast/DnD.
I had the same reaction as GP, thanks for the explanation! I don't think the original DA games hold up too well nowadays, but they were good at the time and still provide me with fond memories.
Fair observations broadly, but gp’s points are fair too. It’s hard to predict hits but the points listed are all factors that helped the title out. Larian got the contract precisely because they proved themselves to be what you describe in your last sentence through the Divinity releases gp mentions. And even that was no guarantee here.
It reminds me of the montage scene in Matrix 4 where all these business types are telling Neo how to make a new hit game, when he already had made one, so he should be telling them.
This difference, is the key difference I've seen in my career between successful startups and ones that fail.
This game is huge. It's 4 modern games in one. I am curious how one keeps a budget for a game like this. I agree love and passion are the reason this game is doing well, but honestly how do you convince the money to invest in something like, besides the trend of copying BG3 simply due to success?
> honestly how do you convince the money to invest in something like, besides the trend of copying BG3 simply due to success?
you cannot. The money is interested in making more money. Good art may, or may not make money - and that's because the goal of the artist(s) aren't aligned with making money. It just so happens that it _could_ make money, and thus that became the pitch to investors.
If given the chance (imagine an unlimited UBI for example), the same artists would make such a game without investors (and might make an even better one...).
Depends what you mean by "fail". The MBA is going to be perfectly happy with a profit margin even if the metacritic score is well within the yellow range. Plenty of rehashed sports games and even beloved but ultimately fairly lazy franchises like Pokémon and Sonic (most recently ticking that open world.. er, excuse me, zone box) seem to do fairly well from that point of view.
Are there any companies continuously making widely different critically acclaimed games? or do they typically have a hit and then make games in the same vein? Bioware had a certain take on RPGs, same with Bethesda's modern Fallout/Elder Scrolls, FromSoft make DS derivatives, etc.
If I'm missing some studio which has a diverse catalogue of consistently successful games, then please tell me which. But I feel they usually find a niche and then work that.
Supergiant is pretty close? Bastion, Transistor, Pyre and Hades have all been pretty big hits in different genres and styles. They're consistently high production value in terms of art/soundtrack/writing, but the gameplay varies a good bit. About the same release cadence as Bethesda in my memory while being a smaller studio.
Valve and Obsidian Entertainment have such catalogue but even great studios fail from time to time.
Most will find a formula that works for a niche and stick with it. Which is smart because innovation increases both the chance of achieving something great and of releasing a fiasco.
I’m not sure I follow the point of this criteria. They find niches and leverage their experience. This is what everyone in the professional world does.
The point is that there must be a formula if studios can consistently deliver.
I wonder what the "new game onboarding" process at Nintendo looks like. Thinking of something relatively more left-field and recent like the Mario Rabbids tactical thing for Switch.
Was that pitched to them? Solicited to studios by them? In the latter case that would be a fascinating process to observe.
Rabbids are a spinoff from Rayman. I would assume Ubisoft was the driving creative force behind it. And it's somewhat damning that the "relatively recent" innovation is currently two expansion packs into its second installment.
That's all well and good, but all of this success is happening before reviews are in or anyone has even had time to play and recommend the game. People are buying it solely based on criteria like the parent described.
Instead, I think it's that "Linux" is an overloaded term. One sense is that someone downloads and installs a "Linux" distro because they actually want to use "GNU+Linux" (wink). The other sense, what you are aluding, to is that linux is foundational to most things IT. If I subscribe to DSL the provider is probably going to send me a modem that runs linux. But that doesn't mean I chose linux. I just wanted DSL. Same for Android. Most people that use Android didn't choose a linux-based mobile operating system. They want Android or are just using whats one the phone they wanted. And indeed, I don't think many "GNU+Linux" people would tolerate the specific essense of Android in their distros.
Now, SteamOS might be the bridge between these two worlds. On the one hand, Steam Deck users also didn't chose Linux. But then, the resources that Valve can spend on enabling gaming on Linux because of the success of Steam Deck means that many more people, like me, can finally consider choosing Linux.
At the same time, the majority of those running Windows have the same relationship to it as you have with Linux on your DSL modem - "It's what the computer I bought comes with" - and yet we are not discounting those Windows users. Same goes for macOS, especially now where Asahi Linux is the only and yet incomplete alternative.
In some comparisons it makes sense to remove DSL modems from the equation and focusing on some more "computer-like" subset of device (otherwise no OS would ever do better than "several orders of magnitude fewer deployments than Linux"), but discounting every device where you did not actively pick the OS would make for an extremely biased comparison.
Plus, we don't care about such distinctions outside comparisons. SteamOS have already driven significant improvements for regular desktop users. Same goes for Tizen, Android and ChromeOS. Even wonky DSL firmwares have positive effects for the rest of us.
> Exactly. And MacBook users don't choose MacOS either.
I'm not sure what would make you an authoritative source on why people by Macs or where you're sourcing your thoroughly researched data, but I can tell you I purchased an MBA to run macOS and the software that runs on macOS. Or like the Intel N100 mini PC I purchased explicitly to run proxmox + OPNSense. Or like my Windows laptop to have a mobile lab.
I pick the machine based on the software I want to run. I'm sure we can find one, perhaps if we stretch it, two other people on HN who also purchase machines based off of the OS/software they need to run.
Many on HN might be intimately familiar with macOS internals, but we are not in any way or form the average users. Running OPNSense on Proxmox definitely sets the "outlier" sticky bit.
Most users do not watch WWDC and do not know what OS release notes are. They don't know what the boundary between their web browser and their OS is, and macOS just becomes "the thing that nags them to update it" - a nag that users unfortunately still ignore, as evident by my recent confrontation with Big Sur machines.
Oh I completely agree with you that folks on HN are likely to be of a particular mindset when it comes to technology purchases.
However, that doesn't mean that every non-HN user out there buys the aluminum-shell-in-the-vague-shape-of-a-laptop and doesn't make a conscious choice.
My point still stands. The GP doesn't have the data to back up the assertion.
There is also no data to back up the opposite assertion. It would be rather surprising to see comments on HN based on hard statistical data - an implicit "IMO" prefix makes sense to apply in most human discussions.
> That does not mean that every non-HN user...
Not every - but I do believe it is still the majority. There are a lot of people out there, and the knowledge required to make the aforementioned OS choice is niche.
This is not implying stupidity, just that there are many trades and interests out there, and subscribing to ours specifically is not a given.
You are indeed making the opposite assertion by implying the statement is false, hypocritically with no information to back it up. By your standards, your counter is entirely invalid. "I do not know" is how you avoid making an assertion.
Ridiculous standards aside, I find it an extremely reasonable to assert that given more than 7 billion people across vast areas, interests, ideologies and jobs, and given the vast hi.an knowledge, expertise and culture, that any particular interest or knowledge is only shared by a small subset.
> You are indeed making the opposite assertion by implying the statement is false
That's not at all what they said. All they're saying -- correctly -- is that you are asserting some sort of magnitude ("majority") without any data to back it up.
I would guess, though, from my personal experience, that you are probably right that a majority of people just get whatever laptop with whatever OS they're used to because that's what their parents/school/employer gave them to use, and when it's time for a new machine, they just get whatever they had before. But I don't think this is a very large majority.
> I find it an extremely reasonable to assert that given more than 7 billion people [...] that any particular interest or knowledge is only shared by a small subset.
Probably true, but also remember that OS choice isn't always driven by interest. A macOS user may get frustrated with the state of gaming on the Mac, and decide to switch to Windows. Or a Windows user might really want or need to use an application only available on macOS (though I expect this sort of thing doesn't happen as often anymore, since more and more of people's computer use ends up being through a web browser). A Windows user might also buy an iPhone or iPad and get into the Apple ecosystem enough that they decide to switch to macOS.
Certainly some people who do switch OSes don't do so because they've made an independent choice; they do so because they switch employers, and something else is the only thing available, or a friend evangelizes another OS to them to the point they want to give it a try, and end up liking it.
Regardless, many people these days don't even have a laptop or desktop computer, and do all their computing on their phone or tablet. I think that 7 billion number gets a lot smaller when you consider that. (Also, as an aside, the current world population is estimated to be a bit over 8 billion now, not 7.)
The problem with making unreasonable demands for data in response to casual discussions is that it is usually done when the person strongly disagrees with the statement. For that reason, it is implicitly a counter argument, and a hypocritical one: "Your opinion differs from mine, so you must provide data to back up yours!". None of the available options can be considered default, so any outcome is equally "grand" and subject to same requirements. Opposing without having a standpoint could happen in a peer review for a paper, but that is not what this is.
Your response is more reasonable, and is also more out in the open about the alternate belief (of course equally without data). Nothing wrong with disagreeing - only about making up unbalanced burdens of proof in casual discussions.
For good reason. Running those updates requires restarting the computer, which in turn means you have to get your working state setup again after each update. People use computers to get things done, and running updates often has the opposite effect.
That and updates are going to be the time where computers stop working. If you don't change anything, it will generally continue to work fine for years. My experience with MacOS at work was that I could expect to spend at least a day fixing whatever broke after each major OS version update, so naturally I'd put off doing it for as long as possible.
Even if things continue to work, updates may come with UI changes that disrupt the user's workflow (and the trend tends to be to remove or hide functionality and make things less useful/information dense as time goes by). Unless there's something you specifically want, modern software updates tend to be high risk low reward from the user's perspective.
Incidentally this is why I prefer desktop Linux. With the exception of Firefox turning into Chrome over the years, FOSS software tends to be remarkably stable. My home computer feels like it hasn't changed at all in almost a decade. I never have to fiddle with it.
What was surprising to me was that having an Ubuntu Laptop and a Windows 11 PC side by side that Ubuntu needs about twice as often restarts compared to Windows.
I only have that setup 3-4 months, so it could be an outlier though.
> They don't know what the boundary between their web browser and their OS is,
Exactly. The thing many users are referring to as MacOS, is in fact, Darwin/MacOS, or as I've recently taken to calling it, Darwin plus MacOS. MacOS is not an operating system unto itself, but rather another component of a fully functioning operating system made useful by the BSD corelibs, shell utilities and vital system components comprising a full OS as defined by the Single Unix Specification v3.
They would, as soon as they try to use any software most people on their circle of friends use, CD/DVD coming on the hardware they bought at the mall, or any computer magazine besides Linux Format and similar.
Well, in 2023 a majority of that would be web or electron apps so they might not be able to tell the difference. They would be equally stumped at the sight of a CD/DVD no matter their choice of OS, as machines have not shipped with optical drives in ages.
Desktop computers are unusual nowadays, despite being a decent option. They are gone from non-gaming retail stores from what I can tell, so it's much more of an active decision to get.
It is true that if you try to reuse your 2003 Office install you will fail, but such unsupported and deprecated software will also cause trouble on a modern PC. Even if it runs, using an old version of Outlook is extremely unsafe...
Common end-user hardware does not require drivers nowadays either (not even printers due to IPPAnywhere and co., even though manufacturers still ship them for some reason).
Things are always hairy outside that though - macOS no longer permit kernel extensions, and you know you are in a dark place if DKMS gets involved on Linux.
macOS does not permit kernel extensions, because contrary to GNU/Linux they take ABI and kernel stability seriously, and are incrementally turning the OS into a proper microkernel, with all extensions running in userspace.
Do you have a source on Apple working to turn macOS into a proper microkernel? Couldn't find anything. Certainly Mach is a microkernel, but Darwin very much isn't. I do know that Apple has worked to expose some kernel-level hardware interfacing features in safer ways than giving full kernel extension access, but otherwise that's it?
How do you call a kernel whose drivers and extensions are all in user space?
WWDC sessions on that roadmap state quite clearly that is the long term end goal, all the kernel extension mechanisms will only be available in userspace, with one year transition for each subsystem after an userspace API is made available.
> My dad exclusively use ie(due to activex/flash in some internal corp site), excel, and word on the laptop I bought for him.
That was a majority use-case between 2005-2015. Now it's a niche case (yeah, even if absolute numbers are still big enough, relatively speaking it's a niche)
Except many if not most (at least in the past) chose a Mac for the software first and the hardware second. I know I did. And I’ve also been using desktop Linux begrudgingly beside it, ever since it existed. Windows too, though I’ve lately removed any need for that.
But at that point then who gives a damn what the “desktop” or other market share is because it’s essentially meaningless and can be manipulated into whatever you want it to be. Add in the fact that a lot of what you run whether SaaS or even a shell is in a server somewhere else. The actual client operating system is increasingly about as relevant for a lot of use cases as what software your terminal ran a few decades ago.
I don't see why. I really like macOS. More than any other environment it's uncluttered, well organised, it gets out of the way. It abstracts a lot of unnecessary technical detail but still allows diving into that, if I'm inclined. And most of all, I like well integrated system-wide features instead of palming it off to developers. Sure the hardware is good too, but I don't know where you get that idea from.
It can be quite pragmatic to use it too, there's no need to be religious about it. Even though the term gets criticized for "what about other parts than GNU", "what about Alpine" etc. it's actually a very useful term which makes people know exactly what you mean behind it, which is not something that can be said about "Linux" without providing additional context.
well, maybe you are right and it's not as clear cut. But I think people very intentionally buy a PC or a Mac which to most means the hardware and the operating system together. And, not to put too fine a point on it, but NOBODY here is counting mac user as BSD users either.
I agree with this assessment but the same two senses exist for Iphones and Macs too. To some extent it is even the same with Windows. A lot of people just buy _a_ laptop. They don't even know what an operating system is.
They know to the extent of the applications they need to use, when accessing goverment sites, and if it doesn't work it is broken, from their point of view.
Having said this, the local library from my German city does run on GNU/Linux.
I would be very curious to see the numbers comparing intentional OS installation. How many people go out of their way to buy and install Windows (thereby truly choosing Windows) versus how many people go out of their way to download and install Linux.
If Linux wins in that category as well, could we finally stop moving the goalposts?
You know, I used to be a Windows guy but Windows really jumped the shark some years ago and so I am just preparing to move over to Linux at the next best time. This is just to say, I want to the best for Linux and I don't want to move the goalposts unfairly. But I do think there is diffence between "using" Linux as in Android and using Linux as in Arch and I think the people who use Windows use it more similarly to that later way.
> or are just using whats one the phone they wanted
In that case 99.9% of windows users fall in the same category. They are just using the OS that came on the device they bought. How many people actually bought a separate license, and downloaded a Windows installer because they specifically wanted to install Windows on their device?
How many people actually bought a separate license, and downloaded a Windows installer because they specifically wanted to install Windows on their device?
Pretty much the entire (DIY) PC gaming market? Granted they may not buy Windows but they are certainly making the choice to download and use it over linux.
Sure there is a pre-built market for desktop PCs but I would think the PC Gaming market skews to DIY though I have no stats.
Yeah I know. But they must be less than 0.5% of the total number of Windows users. Probably even less. So you are just proving my point here that practically all windows users just use the OS that comes with the device they got.
Just a few weeks ago, I tried playing a Japanese game that I was interested in, but it didn't even get past the start menu. Not a big deal for me as I'm not an avid gamer, I just moved on.
But imagine telling a hardcore gamer that no, you can't play that new game released an hour ago. Maybe it'll become compatible a few months later, maybe not.
Or tell a professional artist that no, they can't use that art software anymore, they have to retrain their entire skillset with an entirely different software.
Now that's a show-stopper. For most people, it's 100% compatibility or bust.
The community is really responsive, such that you could point the hardcore gamer to the forums and they would likely get help getting it fixed.
Professional artists are also an interesting choice. If they are in a major art studio, they are probably having to use custom tooling there already. And Wacom is very well supported on linux.
They aren't necessarily technically skilled, but they are often building the skills. Is literally how a lot of us got into computers. Did we actually understand what himem was? Not at all, but we could play with DOS and friends really well. :D
This is also an odd rabbit hole to fight about. I've had so many windows boxes that couldn't play games throughout the years that I've basically accepted that games programming is hard. :D
Your whole comment is hilarously incorrect because overwhelming majority of windows users never intentionally installed it. It just came pre-installed with their new laptop. The exact scenario you invoke with a DSL device.
Do you have stats on that? I would imagine if you swapped it out with linux or BSD they would have something to say about why all their apps aren't available. It's a choice.
A modem's application is the one thing it does and the interface is an abstraction layer standardised enough that the modem could be replaced in a shoe closet without anyone even noticing.
My fiancee has a handmade women's and children's cloth business here in Germany where I help out with IT, software, customer support and back office. We are affected by this as Etsy is currently holding about 4000 of our Euros. I am glad we are not totally dependent on Etsy (and on this business) because otherwise it might well wreck us financially.
I would say that our account is a good citizen. We have been on Etsy for two years fullfilling over 1200 orders and garnering a 5 star ratings from hundreds of reviews. In all the time we operated we had a single, unjustified case against us that was quickly withdrawn by the counterparty. Not a single Etsy order was lost during shipping, and we have managed to maintain a positive account balance without any issues related to fees or refunds. Our return rate is also below the industry average for our niche.
Now, we are not perfect. Often we run over the promised delivery date by a few days simply because we get swamped with orders. We also don't ship single items with tracking. Rather we send it as a German Post "Big Letter" which is quite reliable and has the benefit that people can receive it in their mailboxes and don't have to sign for it. This works quite well and is "the way" that we handmade / second hand people usually send around stuff.
This lack of tracking is, I think, the crux of this whole matter. Etsy really wants sellers to add tracking and it states in the "reserve" that you can get your money at once if you just add valid tracking.
To me this leaves a bad taste. I really resent being "nudged" by platforms like this especially if there isn't even a problem. The fact that they can simply change the rules out from under you is also disconcerting. The first time we noticed that this was even happening was when they already had withheld 2000€ (1). The worst thing about it is that we raised a support request for this, for which you have to jump through really stupid hoops, and have not even heard back from them in weeks. Not even a boilerplate response. This is really a scary prospect, to have your income be at the mercy of literally a faceless entity that'll happily take your fees but CBA to connect you with a real person when you run into trouble.
I also want to mention that I think a "reserve" is generally reasonable. But it's not really reasonable to hold 75% over 45 days. I think if it was 25% for 15 days from shipping then, generally, seller would be able to handle it financially.
(1) I am necessarily not blaming Etsy here, we are all just very busy and I just expect for this stuff to keep working like it did.
