Everything is relative. Yes the RPG gamer community is a niche group, but relative to the size of that group yes there would've been a lot of anger. Look at the reaction to something in Beamdog's BG1 expansion that some people got angry about. Their raw numbers were not that much, but from a sales perspective the fit that they threw was enough to damage the game's reception.
I'm surprised to hear that. It's pretty widely accepted that the contingent with forceful opinions often encountered on forums and social media is not just small in number but frequently unrepresentative and not influential. Yes, developers should listen to what they say, but that opinion also needs to be given the appropriate weight. Paying no need at all is potentially reckless but presuming too much importance even more so.
I was quite surprised too when it happened, and initially was sure the effort to damage the game would fail. But they were quite successful in review-bombing the game.
Obviously that's not what I am advocating here with BG3, but at the same time I very strongly believe it is just not right to reboot a franchise (in any media - movies, TV shows, videogames) by telling the fans of the previous entries in that franchise that you don't care about them or their views about what made those previous entries so special to them.
