Obsidian and inXile acquired by Microsoft

[2house2fly]

The graphics and the full voice acting. Though given that D:OS 2 just bumped it to $45 they should have bitten the bullet on that extra $5.

DOS2 has full VO, better graphics, and from what I've heard it also has more content. If they're going to have full VO because there's audience expectations then they should also know there's audience expectations of a price ceiling for Xbox 360-looking games.

 

[Jarpie]

One of the reasons why Deadfire flopped was that, as I think Vault Dweller has said before, it was direct sequel. Wasn't there some statistics from the first game that only 10% finished it and less than 50% finished the first chapter? Boom, half of the potential sales gone, and many people who didn't buy the first one, didn't buy Deafire because it was sequel. They should've had different protagonist, and story which isn't tied to the first game, I doubt it'd been SLAMDUNK, but would've sold better IMO.

 

[fantadomat]

While in the same time good RPGs are coming out but being ignored by most of you edgy poser retards.

Are there? I guess it depends on what you're looking for in an RPG. Pathfinder: Kingmaker is certainly excellent, as I played it non-stop when it came out until reaching game-breaking bug in Act 4 (I'm yet to touch it since then). I'm yet to play that, but Underrail is at least worth playing from what I've read. What else did already come out recently that has the same scope as inXile and Obsidian's games (quality notwithstanding)? I know there are a lot of Kickstarters for cRPGs as I backed a few of them (Black Geyser, Realms Beyond) and seen some but decided not to back (Encased, since I felt there's too much possibility of it being a scam), but there's zero guarantee when it comes to quality of these games. Hell, you can't even know if they'll come out. You can shit on those bankrupt American studios all you want, but no matter how shit their games were (I'm never buying PoE2), I at least knew they'll come out and what I can expect. Almost every eurojank Kickstarter is a complete unknown though.

I suppose there are many more games for combatfags coming out, but I honestly couldn't care less. I love a good combat system, but only if it goes with a great story. Otherwise I'd rather play against real people in some MP game or play JRPGs where I can at least stare at big anime tiddies during fights.

You are just proving my point. Too hard to find....in what dimension? You could just check the gog released games one per week for a minute or two. If you are big fan you could just check codex's general rpg to see if there is anything good coming up,still that takes time. Also i never said anything about kicksters and other in dev games. Out of the top of my head good games from the last year....Spellforce3,ELEX,Expedition Vikings,Cat quest, tower of time,Avernum3 remake remake,Kingdom Come,Grimoire,Vapeorun,Regalia etc etc.

 

[Fenix]

My opinion is that games like Deadfire and WL3 should be expecting 100k, 200k, 300k players. Not 500k, 700k, 1 million. I haven't kept up with all the number crunching and digging by people, but it seemed that Deadfire expected 500k+ numbers, when POE1 should have been understood as an anomaly.

It was hit hard by PoE being as bad game as it is.
It's the same story as it was with Shadowrun - first game used lot of hype, but was actually absolutely mediocre, many bought it but that undermined sales of next game while it was much much better.
Many bought PoE only because of promise it's new Baldur's Gate. It was not.
So massive hype and advertising + actually bad game = forget about big sales of your next game even if will be better.

"You only get one chance to make a first impression".

 

[Latelistener]

$50 is in the AAA tier no matter how you look at and it's an insane price for an isometric RPG.

This isn't how people felt in the late 90s and early 00s and there were plenty of 3D games being released back then. Looking at the quality of the graphics, I wouldn't call it insane at all.

XCOM: Enemy Unknown was and XCOM 2 is $60 by the by. People certainly willing to pay the full triple A price for cinematic pseudo-iso strategy games with multiplayer.

I hope I don't need to explain how 3D graphics looked in the late 90s. In many cases it was a questionable decision and was much worse than 2D.

XCOM is a tactical game and a part of a larger series with much bigger budget than PoE with all these money-sinking animations and cutscenes. It's also not strictly isometric as camera often moves up close and changes angles so you can actually see backgrounds. And it sold like shit on consoles and was pulled out of the hole thanks to PC and Long War (although price is not the problem in this case).

When I'm thinking about a $50 RPG it must be close to something like Alpha Protocol. Less than Mass Effect, but still AAA. Deadfire is nowhere near Alpha Protocol and I think even Dungeon Siege 3 cost less on release, while having online co-op.

 

[Fenix]

In the case of Divinity however, the recommendation can come with an offer to play the game together, which helps break that barrier.

I can confirm that. On release I watched imageboard closely, thread about that game - there were many, many posts "hi, me and my beefy frend want to play this game together under the blanket, we never playe dRPGs before...".
It was a detail that made a difference from a good sales to sales of DOS2 scale.

 

[Fenix]

What keeps modern studios from reusing their engines and assets? Hasn't it already happened? Shadowrun: Dragonfall was made in less than a year thanks to the foundation built by Shadowrun Returns and ended up being a pleasant surprise.

They want to lure the mainstream crowd with "this is something new" trick. Otherwise this crowd is bored, you know, attention span of a goldfish.

 

[Roguey]

DOS2 has full VO, better graphics, and from what I've heard it also has more content. If they're going to have full VO because there's audience expectations then they should also know there's audience expectations of a price ceiling for Xbox 360-looking games.

Larian undervalues themselves. They started off selling D:OS for $40, Feargus barges in and does $5 higher, people don't balk, so what happens is that inXile and Larian all go $45 for their next titles. Feargus barges in and goes $5 higher again and maybe with a different thing with the same production values it could have worked. I'm confident it could have worked with D:OS 2, which had the team size of a AAA game. A race to the top for a change.

I hope I don't need to explain how 3D graphics looked in the late 90s. In many cases it was a questionable decision and was much worse than 2D.

Unreal was looking a lot better than Baldur's Gate in the graphics department.

XCOM is a tactical game and a part of a larger series with much bigger budget than PoE with all these money-sinking animations and cutscenes. It's also not strictly isometric as camera often moves up close and changes angles so you can actually see backgrounds. And it sold like shit on consoles and was pulled out of the hole thanks to PC and Long War (although price is not the problem in this case).

Don't have an exact figure for XCOM:EU but

In terms of the scope of the project, is XCOM the kind of endeavour, investment and staff level we're used to seeing from triple-A console games from 2K?

Jake Solomon: Absolutely. We're 50, 60 guys, I don't know exactly. We've been working on it for three-and-a-half, four years. It's a big, big game. It's definitely as big as any game we've ever made at Firaxis. It's huge. It's a bit like piloting a big old boat.

For us it's very, very big. 50, 60 guys and girls, three-and-a-half, almost four years in development at this point. Yeah, it's big.

Shave off a year, and that's Deadfire.

When I'm thinking about a $50 RPG it must be close to something like Alpha Protocol. Less than Mass Effect, but still AAA. Deadfire is nowhere near Alpha Protocol and I think even Dungeon Siege 3 cost less on release, while having online co-op.

Alpha Protocol looks freaking ugly compared to Deadfire. All it has over it in the production values department is cinematics. Dungeon Siege III was $60 on consoles, $50 on PC, same as everything else at the time.

 

[Drowed]

Co-op is not more of the same by definition as playing with a friend is a unique experience. They bumped co-op from 2 to 4 in the sequels which also modified how much fun you can have there by inviting more friends.

So just to make sure I understand your point, is your point that any ("minimally good") game that has co-op can continue to sell sequels and it will sell well indefinitely?

It was even promoted as a fun co-op game:

https://www.polygon.com/features/20...-kickstarter-reveal-feature-gameplay-hands-on

Divinity: Original Sin 2 is a co-op RPG built for trolling your friends
Divinity: Original Sin Is One of the Best Co-op Games for Couples

Yes, it was, but this has been true since the first game. You may notice that the second title you mentioned yourself refers to the first D:OS, not the second one. So "co-op" isn't a novelty for the series, is part of what has defined the game since its launch. It was even a highlight in the very first D:OS kickstarter. We just have the fact that you could now have 4 friends instead of 2, yeah. But that difference is what justifies the success of the sequel for you?

 

[2house2fly]

One of the reasons why Deadfire flopped was that, as I think Vault Dweller has said before, it was direct sequel. Wasn't there some statistics from the first game that only 10% finished it and less than 50% finished the first chapter? Boom, half of the potential sales gone, and many people who didn't buy the first one, didn't buy Deafire because it was sequel. They should've had different protagonist, and story which isn't tied to the first game, I doubt it'd been SLAMDUNK, but would've sold better IMO.

I agree with this. Even if you liked the first game, if you didn't get all the way through(E: or played all the way through at release and moved on, and now don't fully remember the story) you're going to be iffy on getting a direct sequel. The only reason to make it a direct sequel is the main character's secret knowledge of the gods, but that never really comes up. When they decided to revise the mechanics so heavily they already lost any perception of being a BG2-alike with sagafeel, so fuck it. Make it a Dragon Age 2 alike, imported worldstate but different main character. Then at least the competition isn't held in such high regard

 

[Deleted Member 22431]

1997: Fallout
1998: Fallout 2
1999: Planescape Torment
2000: Icewind Dale

pure shit, right?

You may notice that the second title you mentioned yourself refers to the first D:OS, not the second one. So "co-op" isn't a novelty for the series, is part of what has defined the game since its launch. It was even a highlight in the very first D:OS kickstarter. We just have the fact that you could now have 4 friends instead of 2, yeah. But that difference is what justifies the success of the sequel for you?

Here is a thought. Why wouldn't debate what works and what doesn't using the exceptions to the rule? That way we can use Interlay miracle years out of context as a proof that studios can churn out a classic every year and DOs games as proof that sequels will always be hits?

 

[Tigranes]

My opinion is that games like Deadfire and WL3 should be expecting 100k, 200k, 300k players. Not 500k, 700k, 1 million. I haven't kept up with all the number crunching and digging by people, but it seemed that Deadfire expected 500k+ numbers, when POE1 should have been understood as an anomaly.

It was hit hard by PoE being as bad game as it is.
It's the same story as it was with Shadowrun - first game used lot of hype, but was actually absolutely mediocre, many bought it but that undermined sales of next game while it was much much better.
Many bought PoE only because of promise it's new Baldur's Gate. It was not.
So massive hype and advertising + actually bad game = forget about big sales of your next game even if will be better.

"You only get one chance to make a first impression".

Codexers that hate POE say this every 5 seconds, but do we have any broader indication that, say, hundreds of thousands of people who bought POE really hated it and it made them swear off the sequel? I don't think this is a problem that is unique to POE. Banner Saga, XCOM, Grimrock - it is quite common for sequels to not recapture the unexpected success of your first game. The problem is that Obsidian, like the Banner Saga people, didn't anticipate this logical drop in their planning.

This is not a question of, "did we think POE was a good old school CRPG". Codexers of all people should know that making a quality RPG does not correlate with sales. We don't believe Skyrim is 10x better than PST based on sales, so why are people suddenly using this argument when it suits their feelings? Even if Deadfire was the best old school CRPG since BG2/Fallout/PST/whatever, it would still have been unlikely for it to sell a million copies.

Larian look like geniuses now because DOS1 and DOS2 both sold unexpectedly well. I think this is fantastic. But for example, many Codexers would say that DOS2 made many questionable design changes, and that in many areas it's a step sideways or backwards from DOS1. Larian didn't succeed where Obsidian failed because they made their sequel a significantly superior RPG. Nobody can 'prove' exactly what made Larian succeed - the graphics, the co-op, etc. - but we don't really have data on whether, say, 90% of buyers were satisfied with DOS1 while only 20% were with POE.

The lesson isn't "POE was so shit 500k people hated it, the proof is that they didn't buy Deadfire". To prove that, you need to show that most other sequels do not show a sales drop, or some broader proof that hundreds of thousands of people did not buy for that reason. The lesson is that "old school CRPGs should never expect to sell 1m+ copies every time", and if they beat the odds to do so, then they shouldn't expect it to happen the next time.

 

[J_C]

My opinion is that games like Deadfire and WL3 should be expecting 100k, 200k, 300k players. Not 500k, 700k, 1 million. I haven't kept up with all the number crunching and digging by people, but it seemed that Deadfire expected 500k+ numbers, when POE1 should have been understood as an anomaly.

It was hit hard by PoE being as bad game as it is.
It's the same story as it was with Shadowrun - first game used lot of hype, but was actually absolutely mediocre, many bought it but that undermined sales of next game while it was much much better.
Many bought PoE only because of promise it's new Baldur's Gate. It was not.
So massive hype and advertising + actually bad game = forget about big sales of your next game even if will be better.

"You only get one chance to make a first impression".

Codexers that hate POE say this every 5 seconds, but do we have any broader indication that, say, hundreds of thousands of people who bought POE really hated it and it made them swear off the sequel?

Of course not, it is actually the opposite. Look at user reviews, score aggregates, people liked it. Some edgy Codexers are just parrotting their bullshit for years.

 

[Deleted Member 22431]

Larian look like geniuses now because DOS1 and DOS2 both sold unexpectedly well. I think this is fantastic. But for example, many Codexers would say that DOS2 made many questionable design changes, and that in many areas it's a step sideways or backwards from DOS1. Larian didn't succeed where Obsidian failed because they made their sequel a significantly superior RPG. Nobody can 'prove' exactly what made Larian succeed - the graphics, the co-op, etc. - but we don't really have data on whether, say, 90% of buyers were satisfied with DOS1 while only 20% were with POE.

The lesson isn't "POE was so shit 500k people hated it, the proof is that they didn't buy Deadfire". To prove that, you need to show that most other sequels do not show a sales drop, or some broader proof that hundreds of thousands of people did not buy for that reason. The lesson is that "old school CRPGs should never expect to sell 1m+ copies every time", and if they beat the odds to do so, then they shouldn't expect it to happen the next time.

This is a great argument. You also need to take into consideration that most people who bought DOs games (or PoE, or Banner Saga, etc) didn't bother to finish them. Studios are making a ton of money based on consumerist pseudo-gamers that buy on impulse. You can check this. People buy more games than they know how to do with. These numbers are bogus. DO2 is worse than DO1 by any reasonable criteria, but it sold more, not less. They are on the right side of the curve for now, but it could be the other way. This is not an exact science.

 

[Sherry]

Hi.

Gosh wtf! this is just I know for me too because of our new family computer webuilt to play games like Pillars graphics in high or ultra high but what now okay? I do not know and do not want have money to buy xbox if there is another pillars game I will not get one so this is it for me if it happens and xbox version comes out for third one Orange story will never be completed because what happens to Orange then never to finish story? That is bad okay! Reading since the release lots do not like the game but I do and very me disappointed about the news of new aqcuzition and what is going to happen with the series now makes me sad. There is that new game coming out lookings liek ultima with the updated gaming rules from bg series not bought out yet there is a kickstart so check it out realms beyond and maybe that is where JOsh will go if they do not want to be in this new company right? Already J osh will be making a Lich King and the crypt and encounter so that opens the door to more maybe like helping on expansion or consulting item descriptions or lore because that is one of many I like about pillars world made .All the best thank-you for at least bring fun for me with the pillars franchise at least okay.

Thanks,
Sherry

 

[Brancaleone]

The lesson is that "old school CRPGs should never expect to sell 1m+ copies every time", and if they beat the odds to do so, then they shouldn't expect it to happen the next time.

Unfortunately, shamelessly riding the IE legacy only works the first time. That's all that made PoE1 an anomaly. Or do you really think that at the very least the 700-900K people who bought Beamdog's 'remakes' of BG1 and BG2 wouldn't have bought Deadfire had PoE1 been a worthy heir to IE games (and BG2 specifically)?

This is a great argument. You also need to take into consideration that most people who bought DOs games (or PoE, or Banner Saga, etc) didn't bother to finish them. Studios are making a ton of money based on consumerist pseudo-gamers that buy on impulse. You can check this. People buy more games than they know how to do with. These numbers are bogus. DO2 is worse than DO1 by any reasonable criteria, but it sold more, not less. They are on the right side of the curve for now, but it could be the other way. This is not an exact science.

I wouldn't bundle all these titles together. An argument might be made that most DO1 players didn't finish the game because the second half was objectively much worse. Or that, as I said above, PoE1 and XCOM rode hard the credit deriving from the old classics they claimed to be inspired to, and that works only if the game you release keeps its promises. Or that Banner Saga was overhyped as hell (mostly due to the gorgeous graphics and atmosphere). Or that Grimrock 1 projected the aura of a worthy heir to classic blobbers, and it came short, breaking the illusion in similar fashion to PoE1. Etc. etc.

 

[SymbolicFrank]

So, when is the first round of reorganizations coming up? We all know they will happen, and probably in less than 6 months from now.

 

[TemplarGR]

This is a great argument. You also need to take into consideration that most people who bought DOs games (or PoE, or Banner Saga, etc) didn't bother to finish them. Studios are making a ton of money based on consumerist pseudo-gamers that buy on impulse. You can check this. People buy more games than they know how to do with. These numbers are bogus. DO2 is worse than DO1 by any reasonable criteria, but it sold more, not less. They are on the right side of the curve for now, but it could be the other way. This is not an exact science.

This. People buy games based on hype, screenshots, videos, twitch, youtube, and metacritic. Many 90s teenagers have grown up and have more money than time and buy games based on habbit and impulse, even if they never finish those games. And the hillarious part is that they later visit forums and sing praises to games they never bothered to finish. This is a secret in the industry and that is why most succesful games in this day and age are frontloaded, they display all the good stuff in the first few hours of the game and after that they become SLOGS, but 90% of the purchasers will not reach that point and early impressions matter more... Want a great example of that? Metal Gear Solid V. The early game seems like a masterpiece, but after the first 5-10 hours the game becomes a huge repetitive SLOG that you have to really hate yourself in order to persevere and actually complete it... Still got stellar reviews, still community bought the hype. Years later, most people realize it was actually mediocre...

Both Divinity Original Sin games were mediocre, but achieved good sales due to having nice World-of-Warcraftish presentation and voice acting. They are not *bad* games but they are definitely *meh* games. Still they sold because in order to get why they are mediocre you have to actually... play them enough. And we know from Steam stats that only a 5-10% at best finished those, even years after launch.

 

[RRRrrr]

Releasing quality RPGs every year is impossible. They take 3-4 years to make, if not longer. If a company pumps out one RPG a year, it's shit. So far I don't recall a year with more than 2 quality releases. 3 releases if we loosen up the standards a bit. That's $100-150. Not a huge sum. Is there any reason - other than bad or uninspiring design - that prevents more than 100,000 RPG players playing 3 games a year or spending $100-150? Are you inviting me to believe that 9 out of 10 RPG players can play/afford only one RPG a year and once D:OS2 got their money there was nothing left for Deadfire?

VD, I think you are misunderstanding the RPG market. The niche RPG market definitely cannot sustain more than 3-4 "classic" RPG releases a year. PoE sold 700 000k, D:OS2 sold about a million and is an outlier. In the current state of the market, this is the maximum potential. What you consider a "better" designed RPG does not have a bigger market than that, probably the contrary.

And the games that will sell more are those closer to the mainstream market RPGs, not those closer to the classic ones. If you compete on the market of mainstream RPGs, you will sell more-compare PoE sales with Fallout New Vegas sales-not the same ballpark at all.

The mainstream RPG market has endless potential-The Witcher series (33+million copies), Skyrim (30+million), Mass Effect series (14+million) etc are a completely different market. Obsidian can either try to tap that mainstream market (like it tried and failed miserably with Alpha Protocol, but succeeded rather well with Fallout New Vegas), or they will fade into obscurity with releases for a market of 700 000-1 million buyers.

 

[Vault Dweller]

2-man studio operating from a basement doesn't. We're talking about developers operating in a AA space. Good luck keeping lights on in 50-man company if your marketing consists of regular Twiter updates.

Who said anything about Twitter?

Why would I be talking about design in a conversation about marketing?

Because talking about design IS the most effective form of marketing these days. It's the reason I was very interested in aforementioned Battle Brothers, for example, It's also the reason I was never interested in the new Underworld game.

It's a video game. Tech is always relevant, unless you're planning to showcase your design, scripting and writing in a text game with no graphics.

Darkest Dungeon. It outsold even D:OS. What fabulous tech it must have been running on, eh?

 

[TemplarGR]

Who said anything about Twitter?


Because talking about design IS the most effective form of marketing these days. It's the reason I was very interested in aforementioned Battle Brothers, for example, It's also the reason I was never interested in the new Underworld game.


Darkest Dungeon. It outsold even D:OS. What fabulous tech it must have been running on, eh?

Darkest dungeon was cheaper. Half price IIRC. And it is not a CRPG, and it can run on lower end machines... Plus it was hyped a lot by the "hard=good" culture of modern teenagers.

 

[The Great ThunThun*]

The reason why Witcher 3 flopped was that it was a direct sequel to Witcher 2.
The reason why BG2 flopped was that it was a direct sequel to BG.
The reason why Arkham City flopped was that it was a direct sequel to Arkham Asylum.
Yes, guys. PoE 2 flopped has nothing to do with its quality.

 

[RRRrrr]

Because talking about design IS the most effective form of marketing these days. It's the reason I was very interested in aforementioned Battle Brothers, for example, It's also the reason I was never interested in the new Underworld game.

Do you consider yourself in any way representative of the RPG market? You aren't. You are a hardcore player, a niche within a niche. The current releases show the maximum potential of the market, after extensive hype and the use of older, known IPs with much nostalgia value. If under these most favorable circumstances they cannot achieve sustainable sales, the market will not get much better. It is overstretched as it is, and anything else (if every hardcore RPG fan bought 3 full-priced RPGs a year, it would be sustainable!) is wishful thinking.

 

[TemplarGR]

VD, I think you are misunderstanding the RPG market. The niche RPG market definitely cannot sustain more than 3-4 "classic" RPG releases a year. PoE sold 700 000k, D:OS2 sold about a million and is an outlier. In the current state of the market, this is the maximum potential. What you consider a "better" designed RPG does not have a bigger market than that, probably the contrary.

And the games that will sell more are those closer to the mainstream market RPGs, not those closer to the classic ones. If you compete on the market of mainstream RPGs, you will sell more-compare PoE sales with Fallout New Vegas sales-not the same ballpark at all.

The mainstream RPG market has endless potential-The Witcher series (33+million copies), Skyrim (30+million), Mass Effect series (14+million) etc are a completely different market. Obsidian can either try to tap that mainstream market (like it tried and failed miserably with Alpha Protocol, but succeeded rather well with Fallout New Vegas), or they will fade into obscurity with releases for a market of 700 000-1 million buyers.

Yeah i am surprised most people don't realize this. Especially industry people. It is not a lack of money, it is a lack of time, mostly. It is also a matter of accessibility.

When someone installs and begins Witcher 3 or Mass Effect, he can play instantly. You don't need to know anything about the combat system, you learn as you go. It is very easy to just begin playing, it has a great presentation, it is like watching a TV series! Something like this can get many sales because it is more accessible to more people.

Now compare that to Divinity Original Sin: You need to know the combat system in order to choose the 2 characters to play! In order to upgrade them, you need to learn about skill books and who sells what, you need to wonder a lot around the map and learn where you can go and where you can't, you need to talk to all npcs for clues, you need to learn all the rules for the combat system, you need to pixel hunt and open every chest and barel... It definitely takes a lot of trial and error and a lot of work compared to a mainstream RPG.

Obviously hard core games have a smaller audience, and that audience has limited time. It would be great if everyone could dedicate 10 hours per day every day just to play video games... But when 3-4 RPG releases happen per year that have 300+ hours playtime combined, this means that even someone who can play 10 hours per day will need 30 days to complete all of them once... This is not feasible... People have families, friends, work, school, other games, other hobbies, chores, etc...

There is only so many copies of hardcore crpgs you can sell in a year, and that's that.

 

[Vault Dweller]

You've lost me there. You wonder why a game that offered more of the underwhelming same sold 200k copies and not 400k or 600k copies and present this as the ultimate proof of the market's oversaturation?

Yes, oversaturation for a particular caliber of game.

It's like Tigranes said. I don't think it's realistic to plan a business around hitting it out of the ball park every time, so the average amount of sales you can expect to get matters. I guess it's sort of a populist approach.

I'm not talking about hitting it out of the ball park every time. I'm talking about not expecting to do well just because. PoE 2 is a good example of that. It's not a bad game but it's a game that failed to offer anything new and interesting to the player, which is a cardinal sin that will always be punished with poor sales. Compare BG2 vs BG1 to PoE2 vs PoE1.

Because talking about design IS the most effective form of marketing these days. It's the reason I was very interested in aforementioned Battle Brothers, for example, It's also the reason I was never interested in the new Underworld game.

Do you consider yourself in any way representative of the RPG market? You aren't. You are a hardcore player, a niche within a niche. The current releases show the maximum potential of the market, after extensive hype and the use of older, known IPs with much nostalgia value. If under these most favorable circumstances they cannot achieve sustainable sales, the market will not get much better. It is overstretched as it is, and anything else (if every hardcore RPG fan bought 3 full-priced RPGs a year, it would be sustainable!) is wishful thinking.

How do you market RPGs then? How do you achieve these sustainable sales? Just by making games and hoping for the best?

The reason why Witcher 3 flopped was that it was a direct sequel to Witcher 2.
The reason why BG2 flopped was that it was a direct sequel to BG.
The reason why Arkham City flopped was that it was a direct sequel to Arkham Asylum.
Yes, guys. PoE 2 flopped has nothing to do with its quality.

The problems with sequels is that they go for more of the same. That's not what Witcher 3 did at all (a very well done sandbox vs a mostly linear game with a chapter fork in the middle). BG2 built quite a lot on the fairly generic BG1 foundation, making a much better game than the original. PoE2 went for more of the same.