Josh Sawyer wants to make PoE3, but only if he gets a BG3 budget!

[The_Mask]

When Deadfire eventually turned a profit thanks to its long tail, he was convinced the problem was solely with marketing.

I'm going to give him that one, because for PoE 1 I distinctly remember them giving review copies to many "famous" YouTubers like Angry Joe, Dunkey and Yahtzee, etc... but *didn't* for PoE 2. I'm not sure what they were thinking, but I think he's right: the marketing didn't help.

[Agesilaus]

I like Pillars of Eternity 2 Beast of Winter and I want more Rymrgand content. The creation of PoE3 must therefore go forward. Someone give Sawyer his money.

[Lich]

He's still butthurt about BG3 haha

[Shillitron]

We already ran this experiment. He's rewriting history.
When Deadfire bombed he actually is quoted as saying "I will never work on a Pillars game again because I don't know why deadfire didn't sell well".

When Deadfire eventually turned a profit thanks to its long tail, he was convinced the problem was solely with marketing.

What do you think? Was he right?

Is this a case of Cope or Hope?

[Shillitron]

I was watching MATI and learned ~apparently~ that Josh Sawyer was sexting and flirting with Lowtax's girlfriend while she was still with him back in the 2000-2010's ..

@Roguey did you know this? This tidbit flew under the radar for me.

[rusty_shackleford]

Deadfire sold like **** because it has a terrible setting with bad factions. Almost the entire basis they try to sell the game on ('pirates!!') is just tacked on, the main focus of the story is some ******** finger wagging of colonialism and polynesians.

Marketing departments regularly rejected stupid gamedev ideas for a reason, because they're stupid people.

[Agesilaus]

Pirates are a **** theme, but the Valerians are based as far as factions go. In my current play through, I brought the Valerian bird lady to the other faction's head quarters, and she just interrupts all the conversations with comments about how the other faction is poor. The other faction also just shits on the polynesians and calls them lazy. I'm probably supposed to care about colonialism or something, like you said, but honestly there's two factions that both **** on the polynesians and you're free to join in. According to steam achievements I never bothered trying to complete their questline, although I remember killing their queen at some point.

[General Reign]

Deadfire had more CYOA screens that Pathfinder 1 and 2 combined. It was sad.

[Vaako]

I have played both pillars games and I cant remember one character there, only that 5+ levels dungeon with the big as statue which head was on the surface at the entrance. And a jade dragon inside and who ever thought its a good idea to balance this game that you cant prebuff before fights should be fired. At least you can do that in BG3 with bless and haste.

[Roguey]

What do you think? Was he right?

Is this a case of Cope or Hope?

If his goal is to appeal to enough people to be profitable, then he's correct. Deadfire has good critic and player scores and it turned a profit.

I was watching MATI and learned ~apparently~ that Josh Sawyer was sexting and flirting with Lowtax's girlfriend while she was still with him back in the 2000-2010's ..

@Roguey did you know this? This tidbit flew under the radar for me.

Yes. Josh is the "Kevin" mentioned in this article https://www.somethingawful.com/news/what-learned-last/

She claimed she had never been in a "serious" relationship before; in reality, she spent nearly three years dating some poor sod named "Kevin" when she decided to begin cheating on him with me, then lied to him by claiming she planned on moving to Seattle "for a job opportunity." You know, as opposed to "living with another man." She professed that once my apartment lease ran out in May, I should move up to Wisconsin so we could live together once again and get married; in reality, she moved up to Wisconsin in January and decided to get back with her ol' buddy Kevin, since he is the only person in her life crazy enough to tolerate her insecure, patholigical lying bonus features.

Lowtax wasn't so considerate on the forums itself, he silently banned him for a while until someone undid it years after he had forgotten about it.

Looks like he deleted the tweet telling part of his side, but of course I preserved it.

my co-workers after i tell them about an Extremely Online Relationship i had in the early/mid-2000s that was very tumultuous and also resulted in almost getting matching tattoos:

it's cool to look back at myself in the mid-2000s and think, "wow, what a stupid idiot. what a complete dumbass moron."

and you know, i still am.

it's also cool that at one point this relationship became drama fuel for an internet community and it seemed like such an embarrassing nightmare at the time but in retrospect it was all just stupid meaningless garbage, much like everything we post here to this day.

[gerey]

I really shouldn't be surprised that Josh Sawyer is a degenerate, bottom-feeding cockroach. Imagine being in a competition with Lowtax of all people to determine who gets to keep the sloppy seconds.

The best thing Sawyer could do for the cRPG genre is to never make a cRPG again, ever.

[Shillitron]

What do you think? Was he right?

Is this a case of Cope or Hope?

If his goal is to appeal to enough people to be profitable, then he's correct. Deadfire has good critic and player scores and it turned a profit.

I was watching MATI and learned ~apparently~ that Josh Sawyer was sexting and flirting with Lowtax's girlfriend while she was still with him back in the 2000-2010's ..

@Roguey did you know this? This tidbit flew under the radar for me.

Yes. Josh is the "Kevin" mentioned in this article https://www.somethingawful.com/news/what-learned-last/

She claimed she had never been in a "serious" relationship before; in reality, she spent nearly three years dating some poor sod named "Kevin" when she decided to begin cheating on him with me, then lied to him by claiming she planned on moving to Seattle "for a job opportunity." You know, as opposed to "living with another man." She professed that once my apartment lease ran out in May, I should move up to Wisconsin so we could live together once again and get married; in reality, she moved up to Wisconsin in January and decided to get back with her ol' buddy Kevin, since he is the only person in her life crazy enough to tolerate her insecure, patholigical lying bonus features.

Lowtax wasn't so considerate on the forums itself, he silently banned him for a while until someone undid it years after he had forgotten about it.

Looks like he deleted the tweet telling part of his side, but of course I preserved it.

my co-workers after i tell them about an Extremely Online Relationship i had in the early/mid-2000s that was very tumultuous and also resulted in almost getting matching tattoos:

it's cool to look back at myself in the mid-2000s and think, "wow, what a stupid idiot. what a complete dumbass moron."

and you know, i still am.

it's also cool that at one point this relationship became drama fuel for an internet community and it seemed like such an embarrassing nightmare at the time but in retrospect it was all just stupid meaningless garbage, much like everything we post here to this day.

To be clear the "he deleted the tweet" is Sawyer.

Lowtax is not a reliable source of information. He bends the truth and embellishes to always prop himself up.

BUT if that article you posted is real.. this is actually worse.. it means Josh's girlfriend dumped / cheated on him to go be with Lowtax..? Then she continued flirting with him and talking to him after that? Then got back together with ropekid and lowtax responded by banning him..

I assume this is not the same girl that dumped sawyer around the time deadfire released..

[Roguey]

I assume this is not the same girl that dumped sawyer around the time deadfire released..

Yeah that was multiple girlfriends later. He and Emily remained friends, but they split apart not long after the drama, recognizing they were bad for each other.

[maidenhaver]

Josh Soyer, is that you?

[Sweeper]

This ******* guy...
Sawyer is, strangely enough (or not), quite heavily sucked off on /vrpg/, and whenever I see someone shilling him or the **** he creates I just naturally assume that they're ********.

[Segata]

Sawyer is, strangely enough (or not), quite heavily sucked off on /vrpg/

It's ironic bro. Sawyerposting is the easiest method to farm (You)s on /vrpg/

[Sweeper]

Sawyer is, strangely enough (or not), quite heavily sucked off on /vrpg/

It's ironic bro. Sawyerposting is the easiest method to farm (You)s on /vrpg/

There are boundaries no one should sink to, regardless of (You)s.

[Roguey]

This ******* guy...
Sawyer is, strangely enough (or not), quite heavily sucked off on /vrpg/, and whenever I see someone shilling him or the **** he creates I just naturally assume that they're ********.

I started a cult I then abandoned, these things just happen.

[rusty_shackleford]

If Sawyer is talkin, he's lyin
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/baldurs-g ... sh-sawyer/

RPG devs stopped making games like Baldur's Gate 'because retailers told us no one wanted to buy them', says New Vegas and Pillars of Eternity director Josh Sawyer

"The reason we stopped making Infinity Engine games was because retailers told us no one wanted to buy them," says Josh Sawyer—who now serves as Obsidian's studio design director but cut his teeth working on games like Icewind Dale—during his keynote speech at GCAP 2025 in Melbourne, Australia. "We asked if we could see the research and they basically told us to trust them" he adds to sad chuckles from the crowd.

They were right. There was no market for these games IN THE CONTEXT OF WHEN THESE STATEMENTS WERE MADE.

Mid-2000s was the era of High Console, PC sales were at an all-time low. The only game PC had of note was World of Warcraft.

[rusty_shackleford]

It's actually a bit ironic because soyer knows first hand they had to add a turn-based mode to deadfire when porting it to consoles because rtwp is awful with a controller

[Roguey]

They were right. There was no market for these games IN THE CONTEXT OF WHEN THESE STATEMENTS WERE MADE.

Mid-2000s was the era of High Console, PC sales were at an all-time low. The only game PC had of note was World of Warcraft.

Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 sold 2.5 million copies each. NWN sold 3 million. Those were pretty good numbers for their time and budget, but they wanted to chase Diablo 1/2 numbers, action game numbers.

[Vaako]

I rather hope obsidian gets closed down soon once outerworld 2 flops like avowed. As if they could make any decent game these days. Even vanilla BG3 is only tolerable because you can kill every npc you dont like. And that game probably sold so well because of the graphics and the romance stuff that even more women tried it. Dont even wanna imagine how pillars 3 looks if it gets turned into expensive gooner bait.

[rusty_shackleford]

Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 sold 2.5 million copies each. NWN sold 3 million

NWN sold 3 million after around a decade, BG2 did 1.5 million after more than two years.
Copies sold after the first year are near meaningless, people are paying pennies on the dollar at that point.

IE games weren't even close to being the best selling PC-centric games, let alone best selling altogether:
For comparison, Diablo 2 sold 2 million copies in less than two months, and 4 million copies in its first year.
Morrowind did 4 million copies in about the same timespan as BG2.

[rusty_shackleford]

Basically every analysis of why BG3 sold well is essentially this:


Soyer thinks it sold well because of turn-based combat because it confirms his biases. BG3 with action combat probably would have sold at least as many copies!
I'm not going to claim to know why BG3 sold so well, but I will say it probably has a lot to do with copying things that worked from when bioware games used to sell a ton of copies and combining it with what people liked about larian's prior titles.

(And yes this is directly related to soyer still melting down over BG3 years later)

[Tweed]

Morrowind did 4 million copies in about the same timespan as BG2.

PC sales, Xbox sales, or both?

[rusty_shackleford]

Morrowind did 4 million copies in about the same timespan as BG2.

PC sales, Xbox sales, or both?

Both

[TKVNC]

Basically every analysis of why BG3 sold well is essentially this:


Soyer thinks it sold well because of turn-based combat because it confirms his biases. BG3 with action combat probably would have sold at least as many copies!
I'm not going to claim to know why BG3 sold so well, but I will say it probably has a lot to do with copying things that worked from when bioware games used to sell a ton of copies and combining it with what people liked about larian's prior titles.

(And yes this is directly related to soyer still melting down over BG3 years later)

It sold well because it was, to the normgroid mind, it's just Lord of the Rings, but with 'romance' in it.

It might also help you understand when you realise normgroids also consider Skyrim and the Witcher 3 to be Lord of the Rings.

[Tweed]

I'm sure brand recognition helped it along as well.

EDIT: Even normgroids who never played BG are probably aware of the name and clout also keep in mind titles like Dark Alliance. They see the name, even if they never played the game.

[Cedric]

5th edition is huge; bigger than all that came before. Normies growing up with Critical Role (the most popular show on Twitch) have been wanting a 5E + danger hair game for a decade. There are millions of shows and podcasts that use 5th edition, dwarfing easily all other systems together. Almost all the popular RPG shows use it. Dimension 20, Dungeons and Daddies, NADDPOD just to name some of the biggest that aren't critical role.

That's my guess! It doesn't hurt that, as much as I hate that garbage game, the combat is actually competent and there's a lot of choices.

[Tweed]

5th edition is huge; bigger than all that came before. Normies growing up with Critical Role (the most popular show on Twitch) have been wanting a 5E + danger hair game for a decade. There are millions of shows and podcasts that use 5th edition, dwarfing easily all other systems together. Almost all the popular RPG shows use it. Dimension 20, Dungeons and Daddies, NADDPOD just to name some of the biggest that aren't critical role.

That's my guess! It doesn't hurt that, as much as I hate that garbage game, the combat is actually competent and there's a lot of choices.

That's probably a safe assumption, I remember seeing reports of players bitching because BG3 actually uses the rules instead of handling like Critical Role.