Yeah, looking at the archive link shows that it was posted in the āRantsā section of the old forum, which would have definitely made it a victim of the purge.
Let that be a lesson to everyoneā¦ if you see threads/posts that you think have value then head to the Wayback Machine and archive them, just in case!
There are even add-ons to make it easier, for example
(you just right click and select Save to Wayback Machine)
Hereās an āofficialā one for chrome-based browsersā¦
I hope that if civilization is ever destroyed these posts will be found on some hard-drive spared from the catastrophe and used as guidance to rebuild the world of Grim Dawn.
Ah, I see. It was a forum follow-up post to the 2011 Rock Paper Shotgun article I had linked above. I donāt know why I imagine a permanence that doesnāt exist when it comes to the web. Ah well.
Early on, Brian Sullivan who was one of the owners, frequently talked about how he wanted the game to be accessible, so that even his grandma could play. It was an argument for reducing the amount of stats in the game and not having any blood or overly grotesque / evil enemies. He felt that the character sheet looked too much like a spreadsheet and we shouldnāt have so many numbers.
I countered this by asking how many ARPGs his grandmother plays, which of course was zeroā¦
I forgot whether it was Sullivan or THQ that had the no killing humans rule.
In the end, he relented on much of those ideas or we found ways to work around it but I definitely feel like the lack of hit and death effects contributed to peopleās feedback that combat lacked impact.
Such is the madness of other companies Iāve worked at.
Always nice to read your insights into game development big M. 
When you finish the Crate story hint hint maybe you should then write the TQ/Iron Lore story. 
Thanks boss! Assuming thereās no NDA in place I would gladly read the memoirs of developing TQ.
Well, he has been talking about it pretty openly for all these years (heās been vocal in interviews across the internet) and he definitely hasnāt been holding his punches on what he thinks about it. If there ever was an NDA it died with Iron Lore, and then a second time with THQ.
Just looked up Brian Sullivan on my linked inā¦heās a 3rd removed contact for meā¦donāt think Iāll be adding him. 
Itās pretty crazy reading that Iron Lore didnāt think much of TQ and TQIT. I mean, why develop a game as a company leader if you have no idea what a good game would look like? TQ was an unqualified success, and no doubt could have had much more success with some marketing behind it. Of course, if that had happened then I wouldnāt have just found this amazing quote on the Crate Entertainment wikipedia entry:
In a live dev stream on Twitch on 19th April 2019 Crate announced that Forgotten Gods had sold over 100,000 copies and collectively between all of the DLCs and the base game Grim Dawn had sold over 3 million copies.
THREE MILLION COPIES!! Thatās amazing, and it gives me great hope not only for the continued success of Crate but also for perhaps another game that might follow in the footsteps of Grim Dawn, I dunno, like a 2nd version of the game with an updated engine, something like, um, Grim Dawn 2 maybe??
Amazing job on this game guys, I canāt wait to see what you do next.
As far as the interview, I loved it. The Holy Grail reference, the ātake care of your employees and they wonāt stab you in the backā stuff, the no deadlines at all. I mean, Art might be the best boss in the freakinā world.
To be clear, Iron Lore did think a lot of TQ and TQIT, it was THQ that basically decided at some point that isometric ARPGs were a dying genre and PC was a dying platform.
Also, weāre nearing 5m copies sold now for GD and all DLC. ; )
Could ya give us a ballpark on how well the expacs have done? Iāve been interested in that and Iāve seen others wonder the same as well. Be interesting to know. Wonder how much the Definitive bundle has contributed to recent sales too.
Im actually pleasantly surprised to hear itās already at 5 mil. Not sure how long ago it was that Z alluded that it was around 4 but it doesnāt feel that long ago. Congrats.
See Grim Dawn FAQ - Compilation of Dev Feedback for feedback on that
Also check out medierraās response to a discussion on Steam.
That is amazing. Looks like continued development pays off. I hope other game developers learn from this example 
its kinda dumb how the publishers never mentioned (at least in that article) diablo 2 success as arpg hackslashloot trendsetter and having titan quest try to follow diablo 2ās successā¦
or how they think dota & lol is too niche and wonāt bring much profit in the market.
or how they think pc games are dying, and consoles are the only thing gamers would buy and play (pc players including me cries loudly but the publisher donāt hear it).
i donāt know why those publishers act like that. or are there some sort of great vid game industry financial depression around 2010?
Only 5 million copy??? Steamspy say ONLY STEAM owners 10-20 MILLION USERSā¦ + GOG
So i cant understand why so few 
Crate did a free weekend a while back so a lot of players probably tried it out then. Their numbers get counted as āsalesā even if they didnāt buy the game afterwards. Itās not a very good indicator really.
I completely forgot about that free weekend thing. Should definitely do another one after the next patch with item mod in the base game.
exactly the same, very surprised,
So happy for you !! 
Thatās pretty amazing. GD is the little engine that could, and did, and is still doing.