I don't think the success of OwlCat would ever hinder Larian's own success in any way. Outside of truly zealous fans, you're not really looking at any consumer exclusivity here between the 2 games. In fact, your audience for BG3 is most likely coming from WoTR and vice versa. The CRPG market is simply way too product starved, and the relatively cheap "one-and-done" nature of the product simply won't foster that kind of consumer base. It's not like MMOs or the live-service franchises where there's a tendency for consumers to commit and sink most of their time, attention, and money into just one product.
If anything, I'd argue that there is a bit of a "network effect" in the CRPG genre. I.e. the success and exposure of a few companies/products will helps improve the visibility and viability of the entire genre. Not to say there is no competition, but CRPG releases are basically few enough and spaced out enough that the consumer base heavily cross pollinates. So many of the smaller, indie-developers in this genre basically relies on the bigger names to generate word of mouth and sales. From a videogame standpoint, the CRPG genre's biggest threat isn't each other - but competition that threatens to make the entire CRPG genre mostly forgotten (i.e. think the dark days of the early 2010s when everything is about Skyrim, titles like DA deviating to be more "action focused" to appeal to more casual gamers, etc).
In terms of evaluating the financial success of WoTR vs. BG3, and OwlCat vs. Larian, that is tough as nails just because both companies are completely private and we don't have any solid information outside of highly speculative numbers. But that's all we have, and I think the above discussion is very interesting. Some things I'd like to point out:
- ROI is definitely a good starting indicator of project success, but the project size absolutely matters too. It's simply harder to coordinate bigger projects with more teams and people, so you never fully expect the same amount of return. Valuation of companies/success is something pretty difficult to do EVEN if we had the numbers (just due to the varying risk levels each company can take on, different goals and markets), and is basically impossible with just speculated numbers.
- In terms of comparing sales, the price point and time of sale is pretty important to factor in too. BG3 obviously starts at a higher price point (I think for the U.S. it's just 20% more - 60 USD vs 50 USD). Frontloading sales is pretty important in terms of determining financial health of a project. There's obviously the time-value of money, but also because tail-end sales tend to be driven heavily by discounts. The 1-2 million+ EA sales is actually a massive success for BG3 due to its effects on company cash flow (2 years before launch). ​
The overall company health of both is even harder to discern. As a complete outsider, Larian's aggressive expansion scares me. As per the investment issue I pointed to above, the more employees, the more the culture and talent pool gets diluted. It's simply much easier to find, maintain, and manage a high performance team of 20 vs 100. Over-expansion is an easy way for a relatively successful company to falter. However, one thing that Larian has on their side is their own Divinity IP (which has value of its own). It makes taking on a project like BG3 less risky and provides more upside (it's putting the company into the spotlight). Whereas Owlcat doesn't have that fallback and has yet to make that "franchise-leap", which can be a pretty big risk factor for a company (especially if they were forced to, i.e. Paizo went exclusive with someone else).
Ultimately, the 2 projects/companies likely have pretty different goals (speculation, of course), and thus different definitions of success. WoTR seems heavily targeted to CRPG core, and I think with its heavier than POE2 sales numbers, they've been relatively successful. Whereas BG3 is clearly trying to expand the current CRPG consumer base, pushing towards the "mainstream" and the old base of the peak Bioware games, and maybe a bit towards newer base within the rapidly growing Table Top world. Realistically, I think the next Owlcat game will benefit hugely if BG3 is successful.
