Assisted Living Godzilla
Prophet
- Joined
- Nov 23, 2017
- Messages
- 4,438
this and the other 10 post this amigo made on the same page was a really good psuedo-history read, you have to put aside your sense of self and wanting to object to truly ride along with the author on his exploratory 'what if?' in a world kotor established the bioware name and jade empire was panned because of bad timing with def jam and bully. I wish he took it a step further though with every one attempting to make kotor clones and maybe made bully 3 to be a parallel witcher 3 in his worldGreat news for people who hated BG3, but walking away from an established IP with ~40 years worth of lore behind it is a huge mistake in the long run, just as it was for Bioware when they passed on making KotOR II in favor of Jade Empire and what followed. "We'll make our own IPs with blackjack and hookers!" is pie in the sky for most companies especially when generic fantasy/ sci-fi IPs are a dime a dozen these days. Wasn't even possible to whore out Dragon Age enough to secure a permanent place in the pop-culture and that was during the post-LotR fantasy drought of the late oughts. GFL in current year.
Here’s the difference between the two things you’re talking about: Larian Studios was already big before Baldur's Gate 3, BioWare was not big before Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. Larian built a large audience all on their own before Baldur’s Gate 3 ever came out, and moved somewhere in the range of 7 million units of Divinity: Original Sin 2. Larian was already on an upward path all on their own just like FromSoftware was going into Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice.
I also wonder how much Wizards of the Coast and Hasbro even see much of a future for D&D games like Baldur's Gate 3. They outlined the future of tabletop D&D in that One D&D video a couple years ago, and it was pretty clear watching that video that the future of “tabletop” D&D is a closed system video game. I’m not sure Wizards of the Coast is going to even want something like Baldur’s Gate 3 competing with their “tabletop” video game, and I’m thinking future games like Baldur’s Gate will be something you buy within the D&D Digital thing they’re doing.
BioWare’s big mistake with Jade Empire was probably more gameplay related than setting. They sold a couple million copies of KotOR before Jade Empire released, people that played that we’re probably expecting something that played more in line with KotOR, what they got was an action game that played like shit (which came out in the middle of games like Def Jam: Fight for NY, Yakuza, Urban Reign, Bully, Shadow of Rome...among others) and maybe the worst shoot ‘em up game ever made. I’d guess a lot of people interested in BioWare’s next game after KotOR rented Jade Empire and after playing it didn’t care much to actually own it.
BioWare did make their name with Knights of the Old Republic. The PC gaming RPG crowd knew them because of Baldur’s Gate, I’m sure most everyone that’s here on this site that’s over the age of like 35 (let’s say 30) knows them because of Baldur’s Gate, (either of them) but relatively few people played their Baldur’s Gate games in comparison to their Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic game back then. Baldur’s Gate may have been big for a CRPG, but CRPGs were niche in the larger gaming landscape; KotOR was their breakthrough game.
I didn’t even kind of say Jade Empire was panned because of those other games. I said people were expecting Jade Empire to be Knight of the Old Republic with a different coat of paint, and what they got was a shit action game. I didn’t even saw Jade Empire was panned, from what I remember it reviewed well, but the game did not sell what KotOR did before it despite a larger new audience that was eagerly awaiting the next BioWare game.