As an older professional with very little time to play video games, I almost exclusively play cRPGs. [...] But up until D:OS2 I never ever saw Larian as a dev that I needed to pay any attention to, including even relative to small indie devs. [...]And so for me, the ONLY reason I am on this forum is because Larian's current project is named "Baldur's Gate III." Anything else and Larian would not even be on my mind as a cRPG developer.
So no, Larian is NOT the be-all-end-all of cRPG devs, and to make such a claim only serves to shred the credibility of the person making such a silly and lame claim.
Edit: I might also add that as a hardcore cRPG fan going on 25 years, I despise Skyrim. And yet I'd much rather play a Skyrim-like RPG than D:OS2 any day.
This seems more like your personal preferences of Larian's games, which is different than the impact Larian had on the crpg genre.
I agree that saying "Larian is the be-all-end-all of cRPG devs" is an opinion, and thus changes with each person. However, DOSII inarguably sold incredibly well, bringing Larian's name onto the map for many people. It seems to have done well enough for WotC to grant Larian the D&D/BG license after rejecting Larian multiple times. You've been on these forums - there are plenty of people who are playing BG3 solely because of their love for DOSII.
Do you think there is another dev/game that can be said to be significantly more influential on the newfound popularity of the crpg genre since 2010? PoE...died, and other very popular crpgs (Disco Elysium, Wasteland 3 [is it a crpg? or just a squad-based tactical combat game like XCOM?], Solasta, Owlcat's Pathfinders) were released after DOSII.
I suppose you could also categorize crpg fans into "classical crpg fans," who possibly enjoyed & think more highly of PoE & P:Km/WotR than DOSII, and "new crpg fans." As DOSII seems to have done a lot more to bring new players into the cRPG genre than any other recent game(?), I'm giving it more points for
expanding/revitalizing the cRPG genre. It's more popular in general, even if other games might be more popular within the "classical rpg fanbase."
Edit: You mentioned "relatively small indie [crpg] devs" that you thought more highly of than DOSII. Any recs of such games that are small enough I might not have heard of?
