The decade-long drought of classic computer role-playing games between Baldur’s Gate 2 in 2000 and the crowdfunded CRPG renaissance of the 2010s wasn’t because players lost interest. According to Josh Sawyer, director of Fallout New Vegas and Pillars of Eternity, developers stopped making Infinity Engine-style RPGs because physical retailers told them no one wanted to buy those games anymore. When developers asked to see the research backing up these claims, retailers basically told them to trust their judgment. This gatekeeping by brick-and-mortar stores nearly killed an entire genre until digital distribution changed everything.
The Retail Stranglehold on Gaming
During the late 1990s and early 2000s, physical retailers controlled which games reached customers. Major chains like Walmart, Best Buy, and GameStop decided shelf space allocation based on what they believed would sell best. Big-budget action games with massive marketing campaigns received prominent displays and multiple copies, while niche titles like CRPGs got relegated to tiny sections or rejected entirely. Retailers viewed these text-heavy, mechanically complex games as part of a bundle of lesser titles that wouldn’t move units.
Sawyer shared his perspective as someone who worked in retail during that era, explaining that store managers received promotional materials and incentives to push blockbuster titles. When Quake III arrived with giant cardboard displays and promotional budgets, it dominated floor space. Meanwhile, quality RPGs from studios like Interplay got minimal shelf presence despite consistently strong sales among their dedicated audience. The asymmetry wasn’t about actual demand but rather about marketing muscle and retail relationships.
Interplay’s Bankruptcy Despite Quality
Interplay Entertainment serves as the tragic case study for how retail gatekeeping destroyed even successful studios. Despite consistently producing high-quality RPGs including Baldur’s Gate, Planescape Torment, and Icewind Dale, Interplay filed for bankruptcy. These weren’t commercial failures in absolute terms – they sold well to their audience and received critical acclaim. The problem was they couldn’t achieve blockbuster numbers when retailers refused to stock adequate quantities or provide prominent placement.
The company invested resources into games retailers categorized as niche products overshadowed by massive promotional campaigns for mainstream action titles. Even when Baldur’s Gate became one of the best-selling PC games of its era, doing very well wasn’t enough. Publishers needed massive hits to justify continued investment, and retail dynamics made achieving those hits nearly impossible for CRPGs. Interplay lost the Dungeons & Dragons license, and its internal studio Black Isle closed, taking unfinished projects like Van Buren with it.
Why Baldur’s Gate 3 Never Happened in 2002
The original Baldur’s Gate games sold exceptionally well by any reasonable metric. Baldur’s Gate moved over 2 million copies, while Baldur’s Gate 2 sold similarly strong numbers. Both received universal critical praise and maintained active communities for years. Yet there was no Baldur’s Gate 3 for over two decades. The reason wasn’t lack of interest or poor performance but rather industry dynamics that made very well insufficient for publishers to greenlight sequels.
Multiple attempts at creating Baldur’s Gate 3 failed over the years due to licensing issues and financial problems. Black Isle started working on Van Buren as a potential Fallout sequel before the studio closed. Josh Sawyer attempted to revive the Black Hound project within Neverwinter Nights but ultimately shut it down. Later, Overhaul Games (Beamdog) tried developing a Baldur’s Gate 3, but the license was revoked and eventually transferred to Larian Studios, who finally delivered the sequel in 2023 after the industry landscape had completely transformed.
How Steam Changed Everything
| Retail Era Challenge | Digital Distribution Solution |
|---|---|
| Limited shelf space allocated by retailer preference | Unlimited virtual shelf space for every game |
| Retailers decided which games customers could buy | Players browse entire catalogs and discover niche titles |
| Marketing budgets determined visibility and placement | Algorithm recommendations, user reviews, and word-of-mouth drive discovery |
| Geographic limitations meant some games unavailable in certain regions | Global distribution accessible anywhere with internet |
| Minimum order quantities made small print runs financially impossible | Digital copies cost nothing to reproduce and distribute |
The Crowdfunding Renaissance
Steam’s launch and growing dominance throughout the 2000s gradually shifted power from retailers to developers and players. By the early 2010s, platforms like Kickstarter enabled developers to bypass traditional publishing entirely by directly asking fans if they wanted classic-style CRPGs. The response was overwhelming. Obsidian Entertainment’s Pillars of Eternity Kickstarter campaign in 2012 raised nearly 4 million dollars from almost 74,000 backers, proving massive demand existed for exactly the games retailers claimed nobody wanted.
InXile Entertainment’s Wasteland 2 raised over 2.9 million dollars, while Divinity Original Sin from Larian Studios secured nearly 1 million dollars in crowdfunding. These campaigns demonstrated that a substantial audience actively craved old-school CRPGs with deep mechanics, text-heavy dialogue, and turn-based or real-time-with-pause combat. The supposed market research retailers used to justify not stocking these games turned out to be completely wrong, or more likely, they never bothered conducting real research at all.
Baldur’s Gate 3 Proves the Market Exists
Larian Studios’ Baldur’s Gate 3 became the ultimate vindication for everyone who knew the CRPG audience existed despite retail gatekeepers claiming otherwise. Released in August 2023, the game sold over 15 million copies, won dozens of industry awards including multiple Game of the Year honors, and maintained player counts rivaling successful multiplayer live-service games. A text-heavy, turn-based, mechanically complex RPG became one of the biggest hits of the decade.
New Blood Interactive co-founder Dave Oshry articulated the shift perfectly, stating that Baldur’s Gate 3 proved people are not stupid and don’t want dumbed-down RPGs. Larian demonstrated you can sell 50 million copies of a deep CRPG that takes months to beat. The success challenges two decades of conventional wisdom from publishers and retailers who insisted games needed streamlining, voice acting for every line, cinematic presentation, and action-focused gameplay to achieve mainstream success. Turns out players just wanted good games with depth and strong identity.
The Industry Dumbing Down Trend
The retail-driven fear of complexity pushed many RPG developers toward action-adventure hybrids that sacrificed depth for broader appeal. BioWare’s trajectory exemplifies this shift. After Baldur’s Gate 2, the studio moved toward Mass Effect’s action-RPG mechanics with voiced protagonists and simplified dialogue wheels that constrained choices into Paragon, Neutral, and Renegade categories. Dragon Age followed similar patterns despite originally positioning itself as BioWare’s return to classic CRPG design.
Square Enix openly admitted that Call of Duty guided their design philosophy for Final Fantasy XIII, prioritizing streamlined action over traditional RPG mechanics. Publishers became increasingly risk-averse as development costs soared, preferring to chase current trends rather than serve dedicated genre audiences. Everything started converging toward the same action-adventure template with light RPG elements, spectacular graphics, and cinematic presentation designed to appeal to everyone while satisfying nobody in particular.
Will the Lessons Stick
Former BioWare executive producer Mark Darrah warns that Baldur’s Gate 3’s impact on actual game development may be more muted than outsiders expect due to industry conventions. He argues BG3 resulted from a perfect storm of factors including working with Dungeons & Dragons at peak popularity, unique studio structure, licensing advantages, and Larian’s willingness to go against conventional wisdom about RPG design. Other studios may struggle to replicate those conditions even if they recognize the demand exists.
However, industry reports suggest publishers have become more open to CRPG pitches following Baldur’s Gate 3’s success. Larian founder Swen Vincke expressed hope that more studios will create CRPGs now that BG3 proved the audience. Whether that translates into actual funded projects or remains wishful thinking depends on whether lessons about retail gatekeeping and artificial market constraints truly stick with decision-makers who spent two decades believing the opposite.
Modern Turn-Based RPG Renaissance
Opening the Steam store in 2025 reveals countless promising turn-based RPGs that would never have existed during the retail era. The genre isn’t just surviving but thriving with innovative mechanics and fresh ideas. Developers no longer need to convince retailers or even traditional publishers that their games deserve to exist. They can release directly to players through digital platforms, build communities, iterate based on feedback, and succeed based purely on whether their games provide value to audiences.
The success of games like Divinity Original Sin 2, Pathfinder Kingmaker and Wrath of the Righteous, Wasteland 3, and dozens of indie CRPGs demonstrates sustainable markets for different scales of production. Not every game needs to sell 15 million copies to justify its existence. A well-crafted CRPG that finds its audience of 500,000 dedicated players can generate sufficient revenue to fund the next project and sustain a studio. That diversity of successful outcomes simply wasn’t possible when physical retailers controlled access to customers.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why did retailers say nobody wanted Baldur’s Gate-style RPGs?
Retailers claimed CRPGs didn’t sell well, but they refused to show developers any research backing up these claims. The reality was that retailers allocated shelf space to games with massive marketing budgets and promotional displays rather than based on actual customer demand for different genres.
What are Infinity Engine games?
Infinity Engine games refer to CRPGs built using BioWare’s Infinity Engine, including Baldur’s Gate 1 and 2, Planescape Torment, and Icewind Dale series. These featured isometric perspective, real-time-with-pause combat, deep character customization, text-heavy dialogue, and mechanically complex D&D rulesets.
How did Steam solve the retail problem?
Steam provided unlimited virtual shelf space where every game could exist regardless of retailer preferences. Players could browse entire catalogs, discover niche titles through recommendations and user reviews, and purchase directly without geographic or inventory limitations that plagued physical retail.
Why didn’t Baldur’s Gate 3 come out sooner?
Multiple factors prevented BG3 for two decades including Interplay losing the D&D license, Black Isle Studios closing, failed projects like Van Buren being cancelled, and the license changing hands multiple times before finally reaching Larian Studios, who had the resources and vision to deliver the sequel in 2023.
Did Baldur’s Gate 3 really change the industry?
BG3 proved that deep, mechanically complex CRPGs can achieve mainstream success and sell 15+ million copies. This challenged two decades of conventional wisdom that RPGs needed dumbing down to reach wider audiences. However, whether this translates to more studios actually making similar games remains uncertain due to industry conventions and risk-aversion.
What was the crowdfunding CRPG renaissance?
In the early 2010s, developers used Kickstarter to directly ask players if they wanted classic-style CRPGs. Campaigns for Pillars of Eternity, Wasteland 2, and Divinity Original Sin raised millions of dollars from tens of thousands of backers, proving massive demand existed despite retailer claims to the contrary.
Can modern developers still make successful CRPGs?
Absolutely. The combination of digital distribution, crowdfunding options, early access development, and demonstrated audience demand creates viable paths for CRPG development at various scales. Not every game needs Baldur’s Gate 3’s budget to succeed – sustainable mid-tier and indie CRPGs thrive in the current market.
The Power Shift From Gatekeepers to Players
Josh Sawyer’s revelation about retail gatekeeping exposes how artificial barriers nearly destroyed an entire genre that audiences genuinely wanted. Physical retailers wielded power over which games reached customers based on their own preferences and marketing relationships rather than actual demand. Digital distribution fundamentally changed this dynamic by eliminating gatekeepers and allowing direct connections between developers and players. The CRPG genre didn’t die because people stopped caring – it was systematically strangled by retail dynamics that prioritized shelf space for games with bigger marketing budgets. Now that those barriers no longer exist, classic-style RPGs thrive again, proving that good games with depth and identity can achieve both critical acclaim and commercial success when given the chance to reach their audiences.