Divinity: Original Sin II - How Larian is branching out the modern RPG @ Eurogamer

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Richard Cobbet talks about Kickstarter, RPGs, Larian, Divinity: Original Sin II and more options for gamers:

[...]"We have Original Sin 2. It's funded," Vincke states. "There's no doubt about that. Original Sin was a success, and we're putting everything from that into Original Sin 2. We don't need publishers, we don't need investors. But, what defines a great RPG is freedom of choice - and choice means options, and options mean features and features obviously translate into budget. So, what are the options that Kickstarter let us increase? We can increase the number of origin stories. Every one is going to be a lot of work, with a lot of choices to make. We can have more races, each with custom armour models and animations and voice, and since there's no point if characters aren't reacting to that choice, that's a whole lot more writing to be done. Then we have skills. We already have a lot in there, but there's a lot of skill trees people would like to see and we just can't do all of them. Same goes for systems. There's a lot of systems we could add... If people give us the room to do all this extra stuff, then we'll happily do all that, because we like our RPGs! We're also offering people the game at a lower price, and with Kickstarter, if you back it, you know that your money is going into the game rather than just into someone's coffers. We're not doing this to grab money. It's all going into the game."

Despite this, Larian wasn't always going to return to Kickstarter. Last year, Vincke's opinion was that while it had worked well, and the company wanted to harness its community again in future games, Kickstarter specifically was a one-time thing. "Yeah. For a long time, it was a much debated issue. Originally I wasn't a big fan of the idea, but then I had a big argument with Brian Fargo, of all people, who convinced me. My argument was that Kickstarter is there to start something, not to continue something. He said that wasn't true. He pointed out that big Kickstarters are necessary in the current ecosystem, and he's right." As just one example of that, "When we do an update on Kickstarter, people see that immediately and then they get involved." Also, "A large project on Kickstarter is not necessarily a negative for the others on there." [...]​