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Marcin Iwinski, Cofounder of CD Projekt is part of the interview. :)

Interesting article, but didn't really tell me anything I didn't know.
It's the publishers, and the lack of profit potential, that scares away a repeat of the "golden days" of PC RPGs (where a large number of high quality RPG or RPG-like games were released in a few years, in the late nineties and until around 2000/2001.).
It's not that RPGs (of old, "hardcore" perhaps), can't make a profit, but they can't make enough of a profit to interest larger publishers unless you can make them multiplatform (e.g. oblivion/fallout 3).
I have high hopes for indie developers though, and every time I feel like RPGs are fading, I look over at Iron Tower studios, Spiderweb or similar, and I know that so long as there are others like me who want such games, and play such games, those games will be made.
Now I'm going off to play Dragon Age :).

Every time I read that kind of article, I think it's sad that they only talk about big budget games. Not that big games are all bad, but the indie scene shouldn't be neglected. Especially rpg games, which are often more interesting than blockbusters.

As long as it's open world or highly interactive I don't care. Just me though. =)

Fantastic little GOG plug there Marcin Iwinski. Well played.

The claim that RPGs should be shorter because players have less free time is ridiculous and completely contrary to what a sizeable portion of the core RPG player base actually wants. If I am enjoying every minute of a game I don't want it to ever end. I play RPGs for the journey in and of itself, with the ending being merely the conclusion of a hopefully enjoyable experience. If I wanted to sit through fantasy tale that goes from beginning to end in only a few hours I'd rent a movie. In some games--like the Elder Scrolls series--the main quest is almost an aside to all the other quest lines you can take part in and many players won't even bother "beating" that part of the game.

Very much part of my point (and one of the points in the article), DAO was made with the intention of putting it across all the major formats, in order to maximize revenue. This is the only way such things will be made.
My hope is for indie devs to fill the rest of the gap left, producing RPGs that don't require top-end 3D graphics and voice acting.
Making a good RPG usually takes more time and effort than other types of game, so they do tend to be thin on the ground.

There is, unfortunately, a major "but" here. EA is now cutting 1500 jobs, and have canceled over a dozen unannounced games. The new EA-policy is (quoting their CEO):
Anything that doesn't measure up to be in a very high profit contributor and unit seller got cut from this point going forward
We can only hope that Dragon Age Origins will be "a very high profit contributor and unit seller". Because if it isn't, it's going to be the last game of its kind from BioWare (owned by EA).
(not that I think they'll leave the genre entirely, there's always Mass Effect, but Dragon Age is... well, a bit more hardcore to say the least)

Did you catch that part at the end about distribution on mobile devices? Then Good Old Games in brackets? I wonder if GOG are looking at the iPhone...

http://www.irontowerstudio.com/ -- The Age if Decadence... just seeing it and reading there FAQ made me want it SO BAD.. whens it coming out.. also i wanted everyone to know about
http://basiliskgames.com/
and
http://www.soldak.com/
There are also indie devs with great great games with are in the vein of singleplayer RPG's...

EA's been hemorrhaging money for the past couple of years, with the net income for their 2008 fiscal year being a loss of around $1.1 billion, and FY 2009 not looking much better. They're selling plenty of games and bringing in plenty of money, but it seems like they just end up spending way too much in doing so, and I don't think their strategy of just focusing on blockbuster titles is going to help with this. This is because, it seems to me, that while large development budgets and massive marketing campaigns can produce blockbuster hits that move a lot of units, the cost involved shaves down the profit margin way too much, and the resulting net income just isn't enough to support a company as monolithic as EA. Basically they've just gotten too big to support their own weight.
I think that as we go into the future what we'll see with RPGs, and many game genres in general, is a move away from cutting edge, big budget titles, and a move towards smaller production budgets and games more targeted towards specific niches (instead of trying to be everything to everyone), resulting in games that, while bring in lower net income, have significantly higher profit margins. There are simply so many games being produced now that companies need to narrow down their market focus, produce what may have classically been considered "niche" games, and be satisfied in capturing a significant portion of their target market at a reasonable production budget rather than trying to capture a numerically larger but proportionally smaller slice of the overall market at the cost of a budget that eats up most of the game's revenue.

Dragon Age is an all but guaranteed cash cow, and EA is taking every step possible to ensure this is the case. EA has been whoring it relentlessly with trailers and whatnot showing off its gore and sexual content, and they plan to have two years' worth of DLC. All of Dragon Age's "free" starter DLC is non-transferable (you get a single-use code when you buy the game new, otherwise it's another $20 or so).
Additionally, all the non-bundled DLC is DRM-protected--you must be connected to the internet to be able to load saves that have been made with premium DLC content, and this reportedly even applies on the console versions. If you lose your internet connection for any reason or the DLC verification servers are offline you can't load any saves. Seriously. The forums are overflowing with players on all platforms complaining about the inevitable problems this implementation has caused. While this was easily cracked on the PC (the DRM data seems to be defined by human-readable XML!) it forms a very effective barrier on consoles and mostly prevents "casual piracy" in the form of loaning the DLC to a friend by installing it on his console.
BioWare will also be releasing a modding toolkit and is even considering the possibility of offering PC-created mods to PS3 players (perhaps with some fee attached?); with or without PS3 support, modding tools will inevitably attract a large number of players interested in creating new content, and this active community will help sell even more copies of the base game.

I agree that developers should shoot for more targeted audience/smaller RPG projects rather than feeling obligated to make everything a big budget production like Dragon Age. One area they could certainly save money on is the graphics. Maybe this isn't true for everyone around my age (30ish) but I personally couldn't tell you what 75% or so of the options in the video interface of a game do. I laugh when I see people grumble about how a game will look 'terrible' on slightly older cards and/or quibble about particle shading or a dozen other things I don't even know about.
Don't get me wrong, despite playing the Gold Box series and Fallout back in the day I do find it hard to return to an extremely antiquated level after playing modern releases. And while I'm not pushing Borderlands as an example of what an RPG should be in terms of gameplay, I do think its graphics are a good example of striking a middle ground. They are stylized and interesting without being insanely demanding system-wise. I could also do without voice acting. It's nice, but hardly necessary and sometimes can totally ruin a game if it's really bad. Lots of places that publishers can trim the budget and possibly release a game for around ~$30 to a targeted market. The relatively good success of Torchlight proves it's possible.
In terms of game play I think the industry is shifting more towards the FPS RPG single player genre -- certainly Witcher is an example of this. Although I appreciate the fact that Dragon Age tries to carry on the tradition of semi-turned based combat in a real time perspective I just find it awkward that you can (and invariably do) pause the game sometimes to issue a queue of commands. On the other extreme I do think Witcher's combat was a bit too simplistic and could certainly use more tactical decisions.
I think something like Dragon Age would work really well in a multi-player setting (maybe I'm dense and the game already has it!): four people could play together similar to Borderlands but obviously they'd each be their own distinct classes with the whole slew of traditional RPG abilities.

I think single-player RPGs will continue to thrive, and the 100+ hour game length isn't necessarily required in order to create a quality RPG. For example, 80% of Planescape: Torment takes place in a single realm (a multi-layer "town"), and it took me only a few weeks to complete. However, the plot, characters, and writing were absolutely spot-on. The game, of course, is also consistently ranked as one of the best, if not *the best* CRPG ever. (Check the GOG wishlist lately?)
Fallout 3 was also a bit short, I completed the game at lvl 18, but the characters and plot were also of high quality. I also liked to see an RPG set in a futuristic/near-futuristic locale, as most are set in medieval/high fantasy realms.