The Owlcat Games lead doesn’t point to any one specific asset, but given the broader tone of the interview-fueled article, it can fairly safely be assumed that he’s referring to the collective whole of Larian’s unique access to funding through more than three years of paid Early Access, a veteran team of developers with decades of experience in RPG development, license access, a technical foundation, and probably more factors we aren’t privy to or that I’m not thinking of.
The irony is that some development companies have access to a large part of those resources and they’ve been fumbling for a number of reasons. Bioware is a prime example, with ME:Andromeda and Anthem pretty much killing them. Blizzard is another, just look at Diablo 4, Overwatch 2 and World of Warcraft.
Management doing the job they’re actually supposed to (making the vision of the final product clear to everyone, keeping annoying stakeholders off the workers’ back, etc) can make or break many projects. One success case of that is actually No Man’s Sky after release, where Sean Murray dealt with the shitstorm while the team worked on patching the game.
The irony is that some development companies have access to a large part of those resources and they’ve been fumbling for a number of reasons. Bioware is a prime example, with ME:Andromeda and Anthem pretty much killing them. Blizzard is another, just look at Diablo 4, Overwatch 2 and World of Warcraft.
Management doing the job they’re actually supposed to (making the vision of the final product clear to everyone, keeping annoying stakeholders off the workers’ back, etc) can make or break many projects. One success case of that is actually No Man’s Sky after release, where Sean Murray dealt with the shitstorm while the team worked on patching the game.