Weirdeness combined with odd mechanics failed to kill Soul Reaver
Well, the last Legacy of Kain game dates from 2003, the story of the series is and will probably remain unfinished, and meanwhile I have no idea what number the Tomb Raiders are up to. Although that may equally be a side effect of the sequels' heavy focus on the story. Kind of like Torment, actually.
I'm currently replaying Torment, to see how the past several years of my life have affected my perception of the game; and, seeing it with fresh eyes, I think that the main reason why it didn't sell is simply that it can be summed up as -- demanding.
I think it's less that 'people are dumb', it's more that - that game doesn't make itself easy to love, either. There's the art, which can be called, 'possessed of a unique style' or can be called, 'fugly'. There's the verbosity: just as, let's say, LotR, it delivers at the same time a world and a story; and it
requires immersion in the world and understanding of the world to play the game well (so no playing, let's say, 15 minutes in between breakfast and going to school/work). You can, technically, avoid all those lengthy explanations about the nature of the Planes and how they affect/are affected by the nature of the man - except that no, really, you can't.
The LotR comparison is here because I've read people write they haven't read LotR because "the action moves at snail's pace, and it's far too heavy on the background detail". In other words, 'we love what we know already. We don't need any world-building details, thank you very much.'
I've also read people write that a 30-hour game is
long.
So, in a word, Torment's a game which requires one's care, time and attention. A willingness to accept a lot of facts/ideas and really existing faults, e.g. the graphics. And what it offers in return - the story - may not be enough of a payoff for everyone. It's just as with everything else: you may spend your precious free time creating a concordance for Finnegans Wake, or you may spend it mountaneering with friends and dog.
So far, I think, the matter's obvious. It's tough love, people like it the easy way, because they get enough tough love from their bosses and spouses...
...or not. IIRC, 10 years ago, gaming was mostly a teen-/young adult- targetted industry, wasn't it? And male-targetted industry, too; and men, overall, mature emotionally later. Torment is fantastic, because it really allows one to role-play; but at the same time, it
requires that one role-play; just as it requires an investment of one's time, it requires an investment of one's emotion.
I think that it requires a horrid lot of empathy, actually. Read the text in Deionarra's sensory stone without any emotional investment; what do you think? She's emo (precisely!) and pathetic (the Practical Incarnation even thinks that). And so is the hero, who, let me remind you, bursts into tears once the sensation ends. There's no option not to do that. He just does. And if the hero's emo, then, by proxy, so's the player...
It's once you empathise with TNO that you can read the scene and
feel the scene without thinking it's all ridiculous.
And so, the game demands involvement; and the protagonist isn't the easiest person to identify with, because that's not the fireball-hurling sorceress you'd love to be after watching Buffy; not unless you've made a serious error sometime earlier in your life, and regret it - and that's not your average teenager; they haven't made their errors
yet.
So, to sum up the ramblings: I think that the easiest explanation is that the target was all wrong for the type of story. For the jaded 40-year-olds in their midlife crises, it would have been perfect - if they had known of it!
