Obsidian and BioWare veterans explain how retailers killed the isometric RPG: "Truly vibes-based forecasting"

Genre veterans have explained how retail companies (Best Buy, Walmart, GameStop, and more) contributed to the death of isometric role-playing games. 

Obsidian Entertainment's Josh Sawyer - who also happens to be the director behind Fallout: New Vegas, Pentiment, and Pillar of Eternity - kicked off the discussion on social media, when he attributed the death isometric RPGs to the influence that retailers had on the games industry in the early 2000s. Essentially, Sawyer's point is that retailers would create self-fulfilling prophecies and lower stocks for games in certain genres, thus leading to a lack of sales, rather than the reverse. 

"BioWare made Baldur's Gate, which sold well, and [Baldur's Gate 2] sold very well. Black Isle made Icewind Dale, which also sold well, but after BioWare announced Neverwinter Nights, retailers decided that 2D iso games were dead,” Sawyer recalls. “Temple of Elemental Evil was the last for a long time.”

Sawyer claims that he'd often hear sales representatives “declare a genre/style/look was dead with zero supporting data,” leading to reduced stocks in said genre, obviously leading to lower sales. "Truly vibes-based forecasting, which resulted in self-fulfilling prophecies," Sawyer continues. 

BioWare's former lead writer David Gaider also gave his perspective on the problem. "It wasn't just retailers," Gaider explains. "There’s an 'industry wisdom' which creeps into dev teams where some things are simply declared dead or too old-fashioned, and there's no opposing this certainty up until someone else comes along and proves it's 100% untrue."

Isometric RPGs may have suffered from a lull period, triggered by seemingly nonsensical sales forecasts, but the subgenre is now more popular than it's ever been thanks to Baldur's Gate 3's smashing success. Larian Studios staff have said they hope other teams can point publishers to Baldur’s Gate 3 to chase funding for other, weirder RPGs. Josh Sawyer himself has said he's open to making a third isometric Pillars of Eternity game, as long as there's a Baldur's Gate 3-sized budget attached. 

Want more? See our best RPGs list to find other greats in the genre.