I doubt that. People making fan posts on social media are not a representative group of casual players, these are usually the most dedicated (or obssesed) fans. If you engage only with them it might leave the impression this is how it is for most players. Most players are casual gamers, and don't bother obsessing over a game to this extent. I am an older player and don't even have social media where I could make 'fan posts', btw.
Not really. Casual players use social media too, and they will post all sorts of nonsense they find interesting.
It's not indicative of playerbases at all, but it's at least something. Something that happens to line up with other factors, like other games that happened to have the same success and share a similar quality as well as the very well known fact of "Sex sells" which is why it has been a marketing strategy since time immemorial.
Larian likes to post their statistics, but that is just a count of how often players do something in the game. This tells you nothing about why the bought they game in the first place either.
No, but it shows a trend. A trend that the most gushed over characters in the game are literally the most popular ones by players of the game.
There's only so many trends that line up you can pass off as mere coincidence before you have to start considering that it might actually suggest something.
I've bought BG3 because I am an old fan of the original series and I like turn based combat. I have tried the romances, because why not, but it would not be (and never was) the deciding factor in buying a game for me.
And you're here on the forums. Meaning that 1) You're an RPG player and 2) You're a fan enough to engage in discussion of said game.
Thus, you are not a non-RPG gamer and thus are not representative of said group of non-RPG gamers. Meaning that just because YOU personally didn't' buy the game because of romances, doesn't mean that NO-ONE at all did.
I think the main reason for BG3 popularity is the one Larian named themselves, their co-op model. This gets the players to invite others, who might not even have heard about the game before. So even if someone has no social media, does not read gaming news or watch yt, or whatever is popular nowadays, they might have heard about BG3 from other people.
I doubt that. Many games have co-op systems and are very good games yet have not had massive success like BG3 did.
In addition, I'm skeptical that people would suddenly pick up a game from a genre they don't normally play simply because of co-op. In addition, not all the similar breakout success games had co-op (Only ER does) meaning co-op itself isn't a defining factor of success.
Most of my game purchases are made because of recommendations from others. There is just too much sponsored content on social media to follow any trends there.
But many games get recommendations. Basically all good games get recommended to others. Yet not all recommended games achieve critical success and enter mainstream playability.
Also, MANY people follow social media and trends. That's why sponsored content on social media exists, because it works. If it didn't work, they wouldn't bother with it... The average joe schmo is not all that discerning when it comes to social media and trends (I mean... Just look at all the brainrot that goes viral. Even dumb things like the tidepod challenge which was so popular that some confectionary brand even made special edition tidepod shaped chocolates to cash in on it...)
