Baldur's Gate 2 / Brad Wardell interview

The interview with Brad Wardell on Gamasutra touched something interesting. Why were there never any more games like Baldur's Gate / Icewind Dale?

GS: ... I was talking with Simon [Carless] and we were talking about how you make games for a very specific market. Do you ever think you'd like to do something with more mass appeal?

BW: ... There's a market for that. We also want to make a role-playing game at some point. Not in an Elder Scrolls style, but more of a Baldur's Gate kind of thing.

GS: Yeah, that would be very popular. There's been a big movement away from that kind of thing.

BW: Didn't Baldur's Gate 2 sell like a Gajillion copies?

GS: It was huge. I don't know why they haven't made any more. They made Baldur's Gate 2 and Icewind Dale.

Earlier in the conversation, Brad refers to Master of Orion 3 and how the developers shouldn't have pursued their own vision, given what the previous versions were like and what players expected. If he applies this in the more general sense to actually making a game with the same appealing elements that Baldur's Gate 2 had, rather than just making something with the same look and feel (the look and feel difference between it and KOTOR for instance), Stardock might actually make a game I would want to play / buy for a change.

I have to take a look at the Infinity Engine modding scene and see where they are in terms of a editing toolset someday. This looks like a good site to start with.