videogames themselves were one nerd culture. i think you are spot on that its shifted to popculture now... all of this.
okay nerds lets pick up a new concept to be laughed at for till they realize we are awesome and it starts trending again
Avant garde interpretive dance. The next frontier of nerd culture.
Originally Posted by kanisatha
Originally Posted by Warlocke
RPGs haven’t been a cult genre for a long time.
Turn based tactics and RtwP RPGs aren’t super popular, but RPGs in general are a major mainstream genre.
Here's something we have agreement on. You are absolutely correct. Ultimately, it doesn't matter whether the game is TB or RTwP or isometric or whatever. cRPGs are a very small niche in video games these days even while RPGs (and especially action/first-person RPGs) have become much more mainstream and popular.
This is why I don't accept the D:OS2 sales numbers point that D:OS fans like to throw around. Being the #1 seller in a very small niche is not particularly impressive to me. If the niche is small, then even the #1 seller within that niche is small, and being "bigger" than another small competitor means nothing. Within the overall RPG genre, the sales numbers for games like TW3, Skyrim, and now CP2077 are staggering. So the question for me with BG3's anticipated sales goal is whether it is meant to be in the cRPG league or the RPG league?
While I am not fan of DOS2 I did buy that and it got super excellent reviews even better then TW3 or Skyrim reviews.
I never bought TW3. I bought Skyrim because they have been milking it to kingdom come and you can get Skyrim for less then 10 euro easily.
Oh and I am not fan of Elder Scrolls games have never had the patience to play through them.
Cyberpunk 2077 is I find a bit different niche it is to begin with SCIFI and does not have Magic. Cyberpunk 2077 have ground breaking technology ray tracing graphics etc. and it is a bit unfair to compare to that. Well not to mention Cyberpunk 2077 has been hyped to kingdom come. In addition last I checked there are not many games like Cyberpunk 2077 in that particular niche.
There are lots of games out there that are not turn based that dont sell way so long list I dont want to mention them.
What do I care? I care to buy those games I want and I am sure as hell ready to pay for this game much more then Skyrim that I paid for less then 10 euro.
Fortnite had at some point 125 million players, but does not me make me love that game. Baldurs Gate 3 does not need to be the biggest sales out there. It has popularity through DOS2 fans and then Dungeons Dragons fans like me and other potential players.
You are missing my point, which is that if one makes a claim that game A is popular, therefore it is a great game, then that argument has to also apply to games B, C, and D. And trying to separate out games into separate genres is just a fake way of ensuring a game one favors does not suffer an unfavorable comparison.
All RPGs are one genre. Within that one genre there is one sub-genre, namely cRPGs. The RPG genre is very big, very diverse, and nowadays very much mainstream and popular. The cRPG sub-genre is very tiny, very niche, and decidedly not mainstream. That's it. All other ways of separating these games are false, imo. And in this context, I am simply asking if BG3 is in the (very big) RPG box or in the (very tiny) cRPG box? That's it. A very simple question.
