All of this is unsurprising if you followed DOS2 development. "Larian EA" is a mislabeling at best and an outright marketing lie at worst -
This whole take
I'm not convinced you read the whole take, since you immediately went into exactly what I described with...
Unfortunately, this invites portions of your community to dismiss any feedback they disagree with by mischaracterizing anyone giving it as "entitled." I've been playing games with forums for a long time and I genuinely can't recall a single instance of the "you just want your feedback to be listened to and other feedback ignored" accusation being remotely based in fact - except occasionally when leveled as a response to the first person tossing out the accusation. I can recall quite a few examples where it manifested as a sort of projection from people with their own entitled mindset of "I got/I expect to get the system I wanted, so I don't want them to listen to any feedback that might change it, so anyone who disagrees is entitled and must be dismissed."
...when you went off against an imaginary poster who "expects obligation" (i.e. literally the "ur entitled" refrain) here:
No matter how upset you may feel about some of the changes they did, listening is not the same thing as doing whatever you wish. They listened carefully to all feedback, and disagreed with some of it, which they have a right to do. Listening to what players say does not oblige them to do anything. And ultimately Divinity Original Sin 2 was a huge success for Larian both in terms of sales, player reception, and critic reception. Overwhelmingly most people loved the game.
This is not even remotely related to what I said, except where it repeated what I said here (while pretending I didn't say it):
one of the few major criticisms leveled at a game as well-liked (even by those complaining) as DOS2.
I apologize if you simply misunderstood it, but I can really only conclude here that you stopped at the first line and responded to what you assumed the next few paragraphs were. I didn't even complain about BG3 for crying out loud, I just described the similarities with the development process of DOS2 and BG3 and hoped that the end content landing would be better for BG3. I supported what I said with what I know about the industry and the internal production structure of different parts of games within (and outside of, in the case of contractors) game studios - this goes beyond "not listening" to feedback and includes industry pressures that make post-release
responding to feedback in certain areas difficult, whether it's listened to or not.
You responded by lambasting me as disingenuous for being too expectant about my own BG3 feedback - which I did not discuss or mention. For the record, I am pleased with most of the direction, but I
absolutely understand why some people expected an early access experience from an infrequently updated kickstarter demo that Larian labels "early access", and are displeased with the difference. It isn't bitterness to describe a discrepancy between a product's reality and its label, it's just a fact. If that label has changed so that it is more applicable to Larian's quasi-kickstarter model of demo-funded development (something that Larian is honest about and does
share with many "EA" business models - but is by no means the defining feature of "EA" models), then that is a change in the definitions of these (admittedly, rapidly evolving over my years of gaming) terms that I was not aware of. In that case, this isn't me misunderstanding, this is my understanding being outdated - which, if it is, that's fair enough.
My understanding was that "EA" is a content release model, not a business model, and is characterized by the focus of development generally being on updating and adding to the
already released content. This is different to Larian's model, which I described as "kickstarter with a demo", where proceeds from a paid access demo that is
not the active focus of development are used to fund the development of
unreleased content that
is the active focus of development.
And if I was unclear, I'm not saying Larian's model is inherently bad - I'm saying it takes a risk with its lack of pre-release feedback for the unreleased content (since it is difficult to respond to it after release, especially in certain areas of game production) and does not operate the way "early access" titles (again, as I currently understand them) do. The accusations of "foul play" were meant to be somewhat tongue-in-cheek, but... tinged with a bit of cynicism for what I've seen from marketing departments in this industry.
And hopefully that's no bad blood between us, the community's going to be wired with anticipation until release and for some time after I expect, so I don't fault you for reading a bit too much of your concerns about what I might've said into what I did say. Excitement can get us all a bit jumpy, and I'll admit I started writing this response before I'd finished reading yours. Putting words in my mouth is about the only way to legitimately aggravate me, but I should probably try to first assume it was unintentional.
