In an interview, Sven said that when he told his people about the BG license with excitement, their answer was feedback was "what is BG?"
That’s an odd thing to admit to, and not necessarily damning depending on who said it. CRPG genre isn’t sprawling enough for BG1&2 not to pop up among foundational RPGs - even if one didn’t play it for fun, one would expect to run into it during research - but not everyone on team needs to be informed, immersed or even like RPGs to do their job well.
At the same time if key figures are unfamiliar with genre’s history, it would explain some bizarrely inefficient designs, like the control scheme.
