I only played BG1. To me, BG3 is only mediocre comparing to BG1 due to the poor resources management and poor adventure pacing.
As for Bioware games, DAO is great, Mass Effect 1&2 are great. The rest of DA and the rest of ME are just terrible if not horrible. But it was not the fault of Bioware or any specific manager of Bioware. It was caused by unrestricted capitalism.
The reason why the free-market economy defeated the planned economy in 20c, was because at the production department of a social economy entity, the production decision making strategy was made differently and the free-market one won due to it was more capable to generate more varieties to cover the most consumer types. In either economy model, production decision making means risk and the consequence of such risk. This risk is that there is a chance that the consumer department doesn't like what the production department produced.
For the free-market economy practice, the decision was made by each private company and the consequence of possible loses were carried by every private company depends on each their own investment, just like the indie studios in today's gaming industry.
Meanwhile, for the planned economy practice, decision was made by some bureaucrats while the consequence of possible loses was carried by all citizen of that country, just like big game developer company's CEO and the board.
Will an indie studio develop a survival game with so many hardcore mechanics that would piss off 100% of casual gamers while pleased 50% of survival game fans? Yes, if the owner of that indie studio wants to do it.
Will a big game developer company with spread ownership of its stock shares develop that mentioned type of survival game? No. Because the board will want the final product to please that 100% of casual gamers and because even 1% of casual gamers is still in much greater number than 100% of survival game fans. The board usually don't care about the game itself, and they probably don't play survival game themselves at all. And if the CEO insisted to make that hardcore type of survival game, the board will just fire the CEO and hire a new one that don't. And this, is the fundamental reason why big game companies or legendary game studios lose their original fan base.
