Development Info Pillars of Eternity II Q&A Stream #8

[Trashos]

Sure, a factor is marketing. I said so myself above for Tyranny. But an important question here is whether the product itself allowed for better marketing. Can anyone answer the question "Who were Tyranny's intended audience?". I sure can't.

Anyway, the claim was made above that the wave is over and done with. I am not buying that, until I see a decent game fail. And even if the wave is over, who WAS the wave, anyway? It was Obsidian and InXile (Larian are doing their own thing as always, they didn't change their ways to ride any wave). If the wave ended, it is those guys who fucked up.

 

[Quantomas]

Brian Heins on PoE2 indicates that they have shelved their plans for a Tyranny trilogy indefinitely.

Spoiler

Forcing the player to oppose Kyros just to set up the sequelbait ending was outright insulting

Ah, that makes sense. I wasn't aware of that.

I always wondered why Fredrik Wester attributed such significance to Paradox' failure marketing Tyranny as the game where evil won. After all even dysfunctional marketing is just that. If the game is a gem, you can always improve the marketing.

It seems there is more to this, as if Paradox had a hand in the direction of the game, redirecting its focus and triggering the inclusion of the degenerate brutality to match its marketing concept. It's an interesting question whether Tyranny was originally conceived as a classic back and forth reminiscent of Star Wars, that you play a protagonist who is simply caught in the moral dilemmas of the war. Would possibly have made more sense.

Maybe Tyranny was originally meant simply to be an introduction to a new world and IP to allow Obsidian to break free. And it was again ruined by a publisher. Maybe it's no coincidence that they chose for PoE2 a publisher called Versus Evil.

 

[Bohrain]

And it was again ruined by a publisher.

The game had nonexistent marketing, but on the other hand the quality of the game was so low it didn't lead to notable sales through word of mouth.

 

[azimuth]

Quality of the game is so low it has positive user reviews on every single retailer and Metacritic.

 

[Diggfinger]

Quality of the game is so low it has positive user reviews on every single retailer and Metacritic.

I agree with your snarky comment, Mr. AssInMouth