My take:
Baldur's Gate 3 launched in Early Access on Oct, 6, 2020. It was first streamed by Larian as early as Feb, 27, 2020, during PAX East. So the general audience has been knowing about the game for at least 2 years now.
They needed Early Access to set expectations. The original BG games are 20+years old now. Any player could imagine all sorts of stuff regarding a potential next game in the series (and as the practice shows, oh boy people surely did). So they needed to showcase the game as early as possible, so that players didn't expect Pillars of Eternity or Pathfinder: Kingmaker, but in Faerun.
On Aug, 18, 2020, they streamed Baldur's Gate 3 during the first Panel from Hell involving Geoff Keighley. He's one of the most well-known people in gaming, and his presence meant the game was visible now to millions of people.
So it's not a coincidence that even the Early Access version of BG3 was purchased by more than 1 mln of people on Steam alone in less than one month. That's a huge number of people, absolutely huge (especially comparing it to how PoE 2 and P:K got their first million years later after the full release).
However, each next Panel from Hell became more and more niche stream. It was wrong to expect the Geoff Keighley level every time, but even with that, I felt every time the stream became more and more indie. They added RP elements to it, trying to make it a show, and it looked fun, it looked funny, it looked very much Larian-like (what I usually like), but it happened because the progress on what they can showcase to people slowed down substantially. You can still have only 4 levels in Early Access, it's still only the first Act, it's still only the limited number of companions, etc.
This Panel from Hell (the 5th already), I think, was the best example. Even while CP2077 is a game already released and known to many players, its stream during the same day was watched by 80k people live. Larian's stream later that day was watched by 10k people live - and that's the game that still wasn't released, so in theory, it should be more interesting. The reactions to these streams also show how niche BG3 is currently (among general gamers):
2k comments and 7k upvotes for CP2077 vs
340 comments and 1.5k upvotes for BG3. Of course, it's still not that niche as, say, P:WotR, that, while being one of the best RPGs of 2021, is still largely unknown to gamers.
And what do people discuss about BG3 currently the most? Not the Barbarian class or other awesome features showcased, but that it won't release until 2023, and that's not a guarantee it will actually release in 2023. That's understandable. Yes, now everyone knows how BG3 looks and feels (that it's not isometric, doesn't have RtwP etc). But what is the difference between looking at it in 2020 and now, if the game will be released in 1, 1.5 or 2 years from now? People don't want to see spoilers for a story-based RPG.
Now, let's look at the niche audience (the hardcore BG3 audience).
One of the most discussed comments regarding the stream is again about 2023. You see the wildest speculation that Larian might be running out of money there, even while Swen mentioned burning down on the list of features etc., not burning down on the money. And that's totally understandable.
Are 2 years of extra development (and when BG3 launched in EA on Oct, 6, 2020, they mentioned they wanted to stay in EA for 1 year) expensive? Would the money from even insane sales of BG3 during the EA be enough? Those are valid and reasonable questions. So
@BelgarathMTH actually might have a great point there.
What can they realistically showcase not to spoil the game in upcoming months to keep the flow and at the same time not to give away extra?
Then we can also look at the Larian forum, the most niche place of all places regarding BG3. There, we can see that the biggest complaint players have is the lack of communication. They mean daily communication, you know, responses to players' questions, the roadmap, - something more than an occasional stream in 2-3 months and periods of silence in-between.
So it would be fair to say that Larian has a lot to decide now. It's evident the streams don't bring many more new people from the general audience, and it's also evident hardcore players run out of new approaches / things to try with the limited options of the EA.
There is also a risk that while Act 1 will be greatly tested because of the EA, subsequent Acts won't be as much tested, and thus the EA is not a guarantee from bugs and myriads of problems similar to P:WotR that is still being heavily patched 5 months after its release. How would higher-level spells work? What will the balance be when the party members are of 7-9 levels for example? Low-level combat has got a lot of rebalance during this Early Access, but it's impossible to test higher-level content with millions of people now just because it's not present in the EA build.
My hope, though, mirrors
@Urdnot_Wrex 's thoughts: let them have all the time they need to create a great game. If they manage their finances, there shouldn't be any problem. After all, DOS 2 got criticized for balance problems and bugs in Acts 3 and 4, and they had to release an Enhanced Edition where they rebalanced content there and fixed those bugs. So Larian's record shows they are hard-working people, they love their creations and they try to implement players' feedback.
