According to Andrew Wilson, the CEO at EA, one of the reasons why Dragon Age: The Veilguard didn't meet its internal sales expectations could be because it didn't ship as a live service product. Speaking during the firm's recent quarterly earnings call, Wilson said the RPG "did not resonate" with an audience that "increasingly seeks shared-world features and deeper engagement".
While the CEO doesn't directly link the two points, his comments suggest that to sell the game beyond its "core audience", it needed to merge "high-quality narratives" with the "evolving demands of players", which are apparently those shared world mechanics and "deeper engagement". He continues: "Dragon Age had a high quality launch and was well-reviewed by critics and those who played; however, it did not resonate with a broad-enough audience in this highly competitive market."
Wilson's sentiment is shared by EA's chief financial officer Stuart Canfield, who himself added: "Historically, blockbuster storytelling has been the primary way our industry has brought beloved IP to players. The game's financial performance highlights the evolving industry landscape and reinforces the importance of our actions to reallocate toward our most significant and highest potential opportunities."
While the RPG eventually shipped late last year as a purely single player experience, there was a considerable period of time during development where Dragon Age: The Veilguard was actually planned to be a live service effort from team BioWare. It was altered back to being a single player title in early 2021 off the back of successes the publisher had with games like Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, combined with the failure of ANTHEM.
"Q3 was not the financial performance we wanted or expected," Wilson said. "We know as a leader in global entertainment, great titles — even when built and delivered with polished execution — can sometimes miss our financial expectations."
It's now going to be a significant amount of time before another attempt at a Dragon Age game is made — if at all — as BioWare is now in the early stages of scoping the next Mass Effect entry. The developer has downsized to accommodate the work it currently has on its pallet, with those not currently needed reassigned to other studios within EA. However, it's reported that once those positions are in demand at BioWare again, they won't automatically get to go back. Their new positions are permanent according to a Bloomberg report, and they must reapply for open positions when they come up.
How do you feel about Wilson's comments on Dragon Age: The Veilguard and its apparent failure due to a lack of live service elements? Share your reaction in the comments below.
[source pcgamer.com]
Comments 144
I never played a Dragon Age game but even I can tell that this definitely wasn't the problem lol
EA really living up to the memes people make about them.
How do these CEO's get to become so detached from reality?
Bodes well for the next Mass Effect...
Also, Wilson maybe missed the news on games like Astro Bot or Black Myth.
I love Dragon Age generally, but I bounced off of Veilguard 90 hours in, and it wasn't due to the lack of live service. I've never gotten that far into a game before and found myself unable to keep going with it.
Maybe I'll finish it eventually, but not while I have other games to play.
And the prize for most out of touch CEO goes to....Andrew Wilson!
A surprise to no one, I'm sure!
As a longtime Dragon Age fan, the initial reveal set alarm bells ringing. The aesthetic just wasn’t to my liking. Then I saw Skill Ups review who said it was bland and the puzzles too easy and level layout seemed more like arenas. So I didn’t buy it. The best way to argue Andrew Wilson’s excuses is release a Mass Effect game as good as the previous ones (not Andromeda) and then see how well it sells.
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Sure it did, lil bro. Totally the reason.
Totally wasn't the fact that the project had been restarted 3 different times over the 8/9 year long cycle to release, lost a lot of the original staff, vision and leadership it was supposed to have with Veilguard having to use the remains of the "Live Service" version of the game to get itself over the finish line.
No it was totally cus it wasn't a live service...
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So I've not played much of Veilguard (just got off the boat to the night time market place) and honestly I'm enjoying the game so far - too early to tell if it'll be the masterpiece Origins was however....As for the reception; I'm really seeing a tale of two halves here - countless people saying it's amazing, countless people saying it's dreadful - which can only mean one group is either lying or hasn't played enough to produce a concrete conclusion....Due to this I'm now gonna ignore both groups and just see for myself 🙂
This is some serious delusion. How do you they get hired.
He's clearly not seen the graveyard of live service games from the past couple of years.
Needs to look back and compare Anthem to the Mass Effect Legendary Edition when it comes to BioWare
Or compare Anthem with Jedi Fallen Order or Jedi Survivor.
A game not being live service isn't the issue here.
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Makes me worried for ME5, TBH...
Making a good game isn't enough to make money, you need to make an amazing game. It's not easy. Also, turning DA4 into a live service wouldn't have guaranteed success.
Lastly, if they'd planned it as a normal SP game from the outset, it's budget would have been lower.
@ironcrow86 Honestly I'm sure it's very good. It's just it's hard to fork out the £70 when there's so many games and so little time. I'll probably end up buying it around black Friday 2025.
@ironcrow86 Good idea mate. If you are not seriously into the political wars where this game was targeted, its best just to play and see. I loved it and through the 90+ hours I spent I only saw maybe 30 minutes of what some people would describe as 'woke' - and I thought it was pretty sensitively handled tbh. I hope you enjoy it.
@ironcrow86 one likes and another doesnt? And you are saying that those both cant be truth at the same time? Interesting concept
@ironcrow86 so I was right with you at that point... I could actually get on board with a simplified RPG-lite if it was a real summer-blockbuster feel. However, for me in about 5-10 hours from where you are now, the blockbuster had turned to a school-drama, and the actual drama (world-ending events) seemed like a side-quest to the main show of back-rubs and sharing dreams over a coffee.... that and the combat just felt repetitive (once you get far enough in, you'll see even relatively-mid enemy become hit-sponges).
It is however totally fine if you keep enjoying it - and don't let others opinions sway you too much. It all depends on what kind of game you wanted - especially in terms of narrative/writing. It's good if you enjoy a game - even if others didn't (including myself).
I do think however, it's very disingenuous by Andrew Wilso to say it was the lack of live service... I would say, it was the remnants of live service (and the constant looting and bling-bling) that contributed to me hitting pause.
He's joking right!? He must be joking! Ha! Ha! Good one Wilson!...
Please be joking.🙏
@Titntin to be fair - whilst a lot of people are harping on about the wokeness, I think that's not the core problem with the game. While games are subjective... I think this is a bit of a misdirect from what a lot of people (who played it) didn't like.
EA never learn the lesson 🤦♂️
But i guess with this live service statement i can finally put down my hope for a new Mirror Edge or Titanfall.
How can you be CEO and be so out of touch.
If he honestly believes this is why it failed then the new Mass Effect is so f***ed
I would like to know what he believes are the reasons behind Baldur's Gate 3's and Kingdom Come Deliverance 2's success.
Maybe because both are great single-player RPGs?
I had several completed playthroughs of DA:O and DA2 on my 360.
Dragon Age used to have a dark, gritty, fantasy setting, with compelling characters. That's what I liked about it. From what I can see online, they've been moving away from what I enjoyed by trying to make it more saccharine and mainstream.
IMO, that's why DA lost its 'core' audience - it failed to understand who those people were and went after a different audience. Fine, if they're there.
What Wilson doesn't seem to understand about the 'connected world' crowd is that they have found their games already. You have to do something truly amazing to drag people away from Fortnite and the like these days, where they have probably sunk thousands of hours, hundreds of dollars, and made friends with whom they interact regularly. Go after those people if you want, but they'll only ever be temporary visitors to your game (if they come across at all).
No, players want good games with good mechanics and good writing. I've played it (and got the plat) and I enjoyed it, but it wasn't up to the standard of previous DA games. Yeah I had fun, but I would have had the same amount of fun if it wasn't labelled as DA and was its own thing. That's why it didn't do well: it wasn't good enough to be regarded as necessary by either those who love the series or those who have never touched it.
Talk about being out of touch with the own consumer base haha
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Oh, for ***** sake lol
Andrew Wilson: I knew it! Single player games are sooo PS2 era! We didn't have enough loot boxes! Just wait for Mass Effect Theft Spaceship Auto Online! The players will have tears in their eyes thanking us!🙄😂
@Titntin yup it's basically one character in the entire game and you can easily ignore them or don't engage if it's something that's pushes your buttons.
But YouTube being what it is folks went in pushed the button and then acted outraged for what was essentially a views / engagement farming exercise for their channels
Dragon Age Veilguard was one of the better games I played last year easily top 5. I find it a great shame that it got the reception it did and that essentially killed any chance of any follow dlc or content.
And swinging back to the article if the CEO thinks it was the lack of live service that killed the game then EA needs a new CEO urgently.
@Titntin I loved it for about 90 hours, and I do have an itch to go back and finish it eventually, but for me it was that I found the pacing and dialogue jarring sometimes.
My main issue is that I keep comparing it to Mass Effect and how well those games did with the Normandy what Veilguard is trying to do with the Lighthouse. But it's trying too hard or something. I can't quite put my finger on it.
"We need to kill those dragons!"
"Let's talk about coffee. Want some coffee?"
"I need to talk to you about an ancient dwarven secret!!!"
"We should throw stones in the harbour more often."
It made me feel like a kid at a birthday party who had eaten too much cake.
That said, it has one of my favourite sequences in a DA game so far. I don't want to derp it here though because spoilers.
Two or three of the characters are among my favourites too.
Maybe 20 hour in, and am struggling to care about the story the characters or the gameplay.
The slightly cartoony aesetheic just seems a huge mistake, makine it feel like a kid's spin-off from a relatively hardcore RPG series.
I'm 100% woke and DEI and am glad games are more inclusive now - but this one just does it all in a badly written way, along with most of the character interactions through the whole game - it feels like watching a childs attempt to write "how adults talk and behave" or something - can't put my finger on it, but no character and no interaction ever seems to feel authentic.
Pity, the core gameplay starts out fun - but I feel like I've seen pretty much everything the combat had to offer already, and all thats' left is the well-meaning but wooden writing and dull story set in an unattractive cartoony art style.
According to Android Wilson, hu-mons play the games and buy the games but no feel the games? Probably add more hu-mons, equals more feels.
@Drago201 Stopped reading after "bruh"
As someone who actually enjoyed Dragon Age: The Veilguard, I can tell you it not being a live service games wasn't why it failed. Andrew Wilson has always missed the forest for the trees and the mere fact that he thinks this is true speaks volumes about his ability to read the audience. Not that he actually reads any of the criticism directed towards EA or its games.
What are they smokin
@Shepherd_Tallon Oh yeah, Mass Effect is absolutely ***** my friend.
@soyabean135876 The thing that's most resonated w me, as far as describing the off-putting tone of DAV, is the constant "therapy language." Ie, instead of really attacking real problems, directly what is in front of the characters, they will instead say "well, so long as we have each other, blah blah blah." Or, "Yes, the Gods are bad guys....but we will never be able to take them on unless we face our own demons," etc. I work with a very disenfranchised group of people, and my peers that speak like that are the ones I don't trust. Seriously, an idiot or abusive idiot armed with therapy language is a real menace.
It's just videogames, but it all seems desperate and cloying.
@LordGlarc I said it here already, but ME passing through fewer hands than any recent Bioware game can only be good.
Corpos, don't you dare blame it on single player
Idiots, don't just fall back on blaming DEI or woke because it's trendy
Let's be normal and blame it on simple meddling corporate c*ckwombles who clearly told them to make it like a live service marvel-like, probably by saying the words "just make it like fortnite, but also a marvel movie, because that sells, right?" Leaving some weird cartoonish mess. That and an overall decline in writing talent knowing how to be f***ing nuanced, of course, and thus writing dialogue as detached statements thrown out into the ether.
Duh! does the CEO are living under the rock? Lol
@LikelySatan I really hope so. I've been dying for a new Mass Effect game and I really want this to succeed.
@Pat_trick I don't know man... everything I hear about Zaslav, from Warner Bros, makes me think he might take the cake!
Ironically, it’s the lingering live service-like aesthetics that had me disinterested in the game, personally. I also no longer trust BioWare as a developer with a pedigree for making excellent games, as I did years ago when Dragon Age and Mass Effect were in full swing, nor do I have any trust whatsoever that EA publishes games that value me as a gamer. The game has an art style that put me off, but I’ll try it if it lands on Gamepass or PS+, I suppose, though I don’t know if I’d be able to get past the fact that I dislike how it looks for 40+ hours, and I know I’m not alone feeling that way.
@soyabean135876 When I saw the first preview, I thought it looked like combat would run it's limit very quickly. I've held off from picking it up (the only DA game I haven't played immediately!), and I'm not that keen to get it, but I think a lack of nuance is a criticism that could be levelled at the whole game.
Yes this is why big RPG's like Balder's Gate 3 and Tears of the Kingdom failed, oh wait...
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@J2theEzzo That's fair! He should be at least nominated!
Dragon Age "failed" because EA had unreasonably high expectations for a game that shipped a decade after its last entry that had been through substantial development turmoil precisely because of an attempt to make it live service. Stop expecting everything to sell twenty million. Stop wanting everything to be a forever game. Stop obliterating teams because upper management made terrible decisions.
@Oz_Who_Dat_Dare
Well each to their own mate, and whilst undoubtedly some people did not like other aspects of the game, I saw a lot of that parroted by the 'go woke go broke' crowd with no basis in experience except watching a few videos with an agenda.
Given the format here, I didnt go into details as such a post could get long! 😊 But I'll comment a little further...
The two things I've seen criticised other than the 'horrors' of them having a gender confused she hulk with horns, were the stylistic look they went for, and the standard of writing.
I actually really liked the look a lot, and far prefer a game with artistic vision than yet another 'we want to be real world' game, but that's definitely subjective.
I found the writing to actually be more variable in the first few hours than in the rest of the game, where it varied from OK to pretty good!
I've seen the same people that went for DA Veilguard heap praise on 'Eternal Strands', a game that looks worse and has worse writing. I fell off that one real hard
Ultimately it's always going to be subjective, but I dont think its unfair to say the game would have done better had it not been the poster child for targeting any DEI writing, something I'm not hugely keen on myself, but didnt have an issue with this game for that reason.
Can I ask if you played it yourself, or are your views based on 3rd hand knowledge? That's not a loaded question mate, I'm just genuinely interested, and your view is valid whatever your answer. 😊
EA is going to follow Ubisoft into the grave.
@Shepherd_Tallon Thanks for your answer, a balanced view as I usually expect from you!
I hear your issue with the quests, but I find this with almost any game which balances story progression quests with 'make friends and level up' quests. It's exactly the same issue you can find with a title like 'Midnight Suns', and it comes with many titles that have a main story and lots of side quests - do you take away player choice to force them down a path that's more narratively coherent, or do you let the player pick and choose when and how they tackle quests, in which case it can be a little jarring depending on how you pick.
I personally let the main quest stew a while whilst I did a lot of the side/befriending quests. They gave me more to care about, and often some more useful options for the main questline. However, I agree that can be a little immersion breaking (I'll let a dragon ravage that city for a while as I have to help my friend with her overbearing mum - not an ideal situation)
Not sure how you fix this without having a more linear quest system, but it is a good point you raise - as always 😊
I bounced off Veilguard hard. Maybe 6 hours in. It's just NOT good. The writing is entirely the reason. I ended up hating my own created character. The dialogue was so bad.
@Titntin "I'll let a dragon ravage that city for a while as I have to help my friend with her overbearing mum - not an ideal situation"
Yes exactly this.
I agree with what you're saying though. I found myself focusing on the side stuff a lot, and for about 85 hours I was happy to do it.
And the thing is, those little side plots to go have dinner with your friend's mother etc were legit interesting and endearing. Your friend is going through serious emotional turmoil and needs a shoulder. That's the kind of thing that pulls you into a story.
For me though there was a moment where I was just back from walking the "pup" and straight away I was asked, "Hey you wanna go walk the pup," and for some reason that moment broke me.
Still, talking about it makes me want to go back and finish it.
Maybe a much younger me would have just put it down for a few days and played something else, but an older me only has time for so much.
Players want "shared worlds" and "deeper engagement"....."that would have benefited our investors and our business by having a machine that generates more money for us but we would still close it down if that didn't good either but at least we may have earned more"
I have to share this world, gaming is my escape from people
If that's their conclusion then onwards to the next failure!
Hmmm not quite sure on that point Mr Ceo, I would like to keep some games as single player.
As some have already stated and for which I share the same sentiment, the writing was just not good. It was bland and most of the companions had the personality of spoons.
The locations had some pretty moments, but there wasn’t much exploration and some very weird pacing moments and story beats - nobody can do anything themselves, and it’s entirely the player characters fault when something happens and nobody else!!!!. (Sorry still slightly mad over that)
The only good idea was to keep it from being a live service game, granted after several rounds of teams.
I’m a massive Dragon age fan and Veilguard sadly to me felt like a cheap knock off. Whether or not it gets picked back up in the future only time can tell. I hope at least EA learn from the continued failures, but I think from previous experience this won’t happen.
“We weren’t predatory enough!” - EA, somehow.
Of course EA said that, they were never going to admit to shareholders they're incompetent and tried far too hard pushing an agenda also these are the same clowns that proudly declared singleplayer games are basically dead already.
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Oh yeah and that's why Anthem was an absolute success. That's totally the reason
No one going to mention the elephant in the room?
The fact EA fc also didn’t do as well as expected… you know that live service football game, loved by millions, filled to the brim with micro transactions and predatory loot boxes?
What’s the excuse for that? The fact it isn’t single player game?
@Shepherd_Tallon Thanks for the reply. Understand, limited time and all that. Given where you are though, I'd urge you to push through with the main quest if nothing else as I found the end game really good!
Wow, surprise surprise, EAs learned nothing from any of this.
Dumbest take ever. It failed because it LOOKED nothing like Dragon Age, SOUNDED nothing like Dragon AGE and was filled with rubbish virtue signalling.
CEO's are possibly the stupidest people on the planet.
That’s crap and they know it. So many live service games are failing. That would’ve made it worse, not better.
Wilson is completely wrong, but people in the comments saying it was because of "woke" ideology are feeding a self-fulfilling prophecy. I've put maybe 20-25 hours into Veilguard and the "woke" stuff is totally overblown. The reason I bounced off the game was because the writing is BAD. It doesn't really have anything to do with the social politics of the game. If the writing was of a higher standard than fan-fiction-slop, no one would have cared. Every Dragon Age has some of that, but the writing was just better in all the others, which turned that social commentary into a thought exercise, rather than a sermon.
Again, the writing and tone of Veilguard were what sucked, not the social commentary.
So, the writers of Veilguard are all fired because the game was not a live service? Hahahahah Good one!
Yet another out of touch take from an CEO, honestly the gaming industry needs a massive shake up....... Or go play KCD2 JCBP🙏
As a huge fan of Dragon Age who didnt buy it, yeah this aint it chief. Worrying if thats what they really think
If KCD: II hadn't loomed on the horizon, I'd probably have bought DAV.
Sad to see the game won't be padded out with awesome DLC, and I think corpos overreact with such shortsighted strategies. A good game will have legs that carry sales for many years.
Lol yeah. That's uh... That's what did it
Andrew, there are still two months to go until April Fools' Day. Get yourself an accurate calendar.
@Titntin yes I'm one of the comparatively few (that are complaining) that have bought and played it. I didn't finish... So I would say the game is a 6-7/10 because:
(1) the writing is bizarrely variable - there are some good lore/ Solas bits; but the companion talk is immature and clearly targeting a younger audience... and I'd have to say there's cringe all the way through (not just the "woke" bits). And yes - some of it was downright condescending.
(2) the game really seems unable to brush off the live-service heritage; the constant requirement to loot; the purple pimple mechanic; the constant bling every time you "kick open a chest"... None of that appealed.
(3) the very hit-spongey enemies - especially earlier on when you fight the Champions (painfully long rinse-n-repeat fights). The constant area attacks were just boring. Not a lot of variety either. I didn't gel with the game as a mage - and that's weird. I didn't like any of the flow of combat - even when I got used to it.
(4) The RPG elements were pretty poor - myself, I don't like being able to re-spec skills at the drop of the hat - and the game kinda encourages (if not requires) the skill-tree to becomes a tactical element. Small things like you being able to inherit companion special skills - why? I really felt the companions were more or less superfluous to the gameplay. And there were no real decisions that mattered (at least to me).
(5) But perhaps my biggest bugbear is the inconsistency of the overall narrative - the complete dissonance between "saving the world" and "becoming friends and better people"... I gave up after about 25 hours when I realised that the companion quests that I'd been suffering through were going to be the major component of Act 2... the majority of the game.
There were many positives - the robustness of the coding, the environments, and some of the set pieces. I really enjoyed the early parts of the game that felt like a rip-roaring summer-blockbuster... but by the 25 hour mark, that magic and pacing had all but disappeared (for me). If the game had been pitched at 35-40 hours in TOTAL, then I think it would have been much better. Instead I would prefer to play games that I enjoy.
And yes - it's all subjective.This game really felt like it was 3 different games all squashed together, and it didn't know what it wanted to be. The positives were entirely eroded by the many, many negatives... IMHO.
@Oz_Who_Dat_Dare Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I agree with many of them, but in my case the positives out weighed the negatives and I was glad I saw the game through.
Shame (to me) that that's the end of DA.
Have a great one!
These people will never learn.
I think it was more to do with the awful writing, modern dialogue and bland characters. For a Dragon Age game, all three of those are a no no.
Another out of touch moneygrubber in a position which he shouldn't be in and making ridiculous statements, a lot of these companies are ran by people who've previously held corporate positions in fast food chains and other places where the quality has gone down and the objective is to fleece the consumer.
Lmao they are beyond clueless…
I haven’t played the game, but anyone who’s been following it knows that its “failure” has nothing to do with it not being a live service game.
HE'S LYING AND HE KNOWS IT.
Anyone who's not familiar with the development hell that was DAV, go read up on what actually happened and you'll begin to understand why it failed.
Dragon Age 4 failed for a number of reasons.
1. It took to long to make. It took a decade for the sequel to Inquisition. People moved on
2. Lack of faith in Bioware. EA forced Bioware to change in order to maximize profit. Bioware were forced to change the way they make games and as a result lost alot of key talent.
3. EA interference. Dragon Age 4 had to restart so many times because of EA interference. No wonder it had issues.
4. Polotics. People are upset with Identity politics. Im not going to state my opinion on the matter but certainly some of the writing effected the sales.
5. It was a large departure from what the franchise was. So old fans didnt like it and there wasnt alot of interest outside the fan base.
I do not believe Dragon Age would be better as a live service game. In fact I think it would have done worste. EA please stop butchering Bioware and just let them do what they used to be the best at. Making 5 star singleplayer RPGs. If you do that I promise you Bioware will make you tons of money.
That guy is so high
It was a decent game. I completed it, but not sure adding a live component would have increased my enjoyment.
@Titntin
The fall out over this game continues to horrify me as a gamer of many, many years.
I really enjoyed it, and have said many times it was my 2nd best game of last year. I never played the 1st 2 games, and found DAI OK, but nothing special.
Did DAV have issues, yes, but that didnt mean I didnt really enjoy my time with it. I get where some people (the genuine ones) are coming from in the story/scripting point of view - but if I never played a game with these issues, I would be playing very few games! Even games I considered masterpieces like GOWR, and Hogwarts (imo!) , had the "lets get distracted by this meaningless quest, while the world etc is ending" thing. Im really enjoying DWOrigins atm, and the scripting/VA is just plain bad!
First we had the 'anti woke' BS - I have argued many times here why this game clearly has no real agenda, but that there was an agenda against it, mostly imo by hateful people, and attention seeking streamers.
Sadly it seems this clearly led to sales not being what they could have been - which is just sad in my opinion, particularly as it shows some gamers actually listened....
You even have people who have never played the game wishing the studio closes, based on 1 short video, pushed time and time again. Sad.
Now we have this... EA saying the game failed because it was SP, not live service.... If I didnt know better I would think they were trolling.
We know higher ups wanted DAV to be a live service, but didnt get their way in the end and the game switched to SP - it just looks to me that some in EA will use the 'didnt meet sales expectations' to 'prove' it should have been Live Service so they can force this on future games (eg ME).
@StrickenBiged Entirely agree. Origins is still my favourite and I still wish I could play a Origins 2. DA2 still retains some of the dark grittiness of the first game, but it was much smaller in scope, due to the ridiculous 18 months development deadline EA forced upon BioWare. Then Inquisition and Veilguard were even bigger departures from Origins. And while I enjoyed Inquisition and am enjoying Veilguard, I was also disappointed by them. I cannot shake off the feeling that something is missing, that I'm not getting what I want, that the world, lore, characters and art style of the first game are what fascinated me and is actually what has kept me locked into the series all these years. But we never got more of that, and as you say BioWare lost sight of the audience it had for this series while chasing the one in their heads or EA's heads. Or a combination of both. Thus, we got to where we are.
@AlexPorto Great point and hilarious timing with KCD II's release.
And this will be another studio that shuts down because they were never able to figure out why people aren't buying their games.
Nobody wants live service rubbish at all
In the film Margin Call, Jeremy Irons plays the top man.
He asks his subordinates why he gets paid the big money.
He explains that his job is simply to know what the music is doing. I.e. he needs to have his finger on the pulse and know which way the wind is blowing in the market.
The senior guys at the big publishers are all failures in that regard. From EA to Sony, they were out of touch with market trends.
Per Laura Fryers excellent latest video on YouTube, they simply followed trends.
Well anyone can do that. You don’t earn millions a year for following the herd.
Much like the Jeremy Irons character, you need to know what the music is going to do.
Only not tomorrow, or next week. But in 5 years time, as that’s how long a game takes.
@Rich33
Yes mate I have sympathy.
I also worked for EA so I can tell you first hand how they didnt get it 20 years ago and have not woken up yet. They continue to make money hand over fist though ...(smh).
Sure, let’s keep ignoring the elephant in the room. 🤦♂️
@Dan12836666 Do you mean apart from all the most played games on this and every other platform?
Like it or not (and I really don't), live service games are the most played games on playstation by a HUGE margin.
If nobody wants to play them, then why do all the metrics show most players playing them?
@Dan12836666 wrong. the top games in the world are all live service. live service is the reason $ony can even make their blockbuster film exclusives. take away live service then you take away majority of ps5/ps4 sales
No it’s became games have become more expensive and we already had a large backlog why pay more for things we never played anyway !!!!
Oh ps let’s not forget filler content and unnecessary 50-100hour game plays for rpgs / open worlds these days. You sap our time then wonder why lol *****!
@nomither6 they are still garbage either way in my opinion
Andrew android Wilson talking out of his ass again as per usual so if that's what he thinks prepared for the next Mass Effect should it ever actually come to be a LS game since that's what he thinks would sell games
With leadership like this, I have close to zero expectations for the new Mass Effect.
What an absolutely out of touch comment.
I can't believe this dipshit is still the EA CEO, what a mental gymnastic he must have done to link the failure to live service game when most live service titles have failed, including their own rebranded FIFA games.
I also completed Veilguard and it was an enjoyable game. Albeit one of your team member literally never shut up about her sexual identity and how she doesn't belong anywhere in the middle of a LITERAL world ending threat.
"I don't know who I am?"
"Oh yeah?? well my people are being kidnapped and murdered by a blood cult, sit down!"
Maybe that's why it failed.
This is almost as dumb as WB games claiming that live service is the way to go after Hogwarts Legacy dethroned 2 decades of Call of Duty dominance in sales, whilst Suicide Squad failed using such a bankable property as Batman.
Pretty sure the main cause of supposed failure was the game costing as much as it did. 1.5 million units in a few months ain't nothing. While I'm not going to check, I'm pretty confident Dragon Age has never been a top seller; maybe they should've based its budget around precedent rather than contemporary industry leaders.
Anyway, no one is going to step away from GTA V and Fortnite for live-service Dragon Age. Baldur's Gate 3 sold exceptionally well even with 'woke' themes (I see you, mobbies). And I reckon the game was good enough that people shouldn't be acting like this was a question of quality. To me, it seemed the game was confused during development and lacked directed marketing. Also, not many were even asking for Dragon Age in 2024 to begin with; this would be like if Nintendo made a new Star Fox and expected it to sell like Breath of the Wild. Niche franchises need a miracle to become IP titans.
ah yes, the two Jedi games also failed because they weren't live service... Oh wait...
@nomither6 to be fair, the top games in the world (your words) are at the top because they're free to play, not because they're live service. People want free s**t, simple as that. It doesn't also mean they want live service garbage.
I got this on Saturday. Enjoying what I've played so far. It's accessible and combat is easy to get to grips with and find it engaging.
It's ideal for me as doesn't look as in depth as other RPGs.
I can say this for certain though. If it was a live service I would not have got it and feel I'm definitely not alone in that
@tangyzesty Ok, free or not, multiplayer games still dominate gaming & console sales, even the non-free ones such as sports games, GTA, and COD (not warzone).
oit of all possible conclusions they made the one most stupid.
Cuz Anthem was a success right?
I think the EA CEO needs to stop snorting the lines...
In all seriousness, if it was live service, it would've bombed regardless because then it would've alienated most of the actual Dragon Age fans that would've bought it. Even if different people bought it, they'd still be in the same spot.
I for one still look forward to playing this someday down the road when I catch up with the series. Even though it may end up being the death of the series, I could care less about the negativity.
Please just say that ME5 will be Live Service so that I can totally forget about it and lose all hope in the franchise...
Removed - inappropriate
Actually, the game flopped because it didn't have big-head mode.
It's as good a reason as his.
@Titntin I think it's perfectly reasonable that people like games that aren't that popular by the masses. I've liked games that the learned majority hated. I think the problems with DA:V are complicated - a lot of my complaints I would use against a lot of modern games. So why did it have such a bad reaction? I think it's because there were just too many combined - but also, I think it's development was too fractured to come up with a consistent vision... and yes, I think the mood/patience has turned amongst the user base. Part of that was social politics - but I think it's more about gamers views on games in general.
Unfortunately - I get the impression that gamers are losing their love of 'traditional' games. They just don't sell enough; unless you're a big event game. I get that they're trying to expand the gamer-base, but the way they are doing it is by ignoring their foundational bases. So a lot of new games coming out just have problems lined up because they don't know who their market is, and are ripe for pushing back (even before the culture stuff kicks in). Add the anti-woke negativity, and I think EA/BioWare lost control of their own game's future.
Edit - for me, I think it's a shame that the publishers couldn't understand their game - or the market - and that's why i think that the game eventually flopped (comparatively - in terms of it's revenue vs development cost... which must be absolutely huge).
I can't say I am surprised.
Snub the polished high quality single player game, get the back of the hand live service.
That's what you get. 🤷♂️
@HallowMoonshadow the ceo thinks critics are more important then the actual gamers.
While the gamers disliked it because of the narrative
Just like the next halo will fail.
Because they hired leftovers from the concord team.
I haven't played it and recently resisted buying it steeply discounted. The CEO comments are silly, but they have to say something to explain why they failed their shareholders. I think scapegoating lack of live service features is easier than explaining why a generally good but not exceptional entry in a dormant franchise didnt break out.
Again, I haven't played it, but it seems like everyone has a theory for why it didn't break out like DAI, which I think is Bioware's best selling title. There are tons of factors for why it's core audience didnt show up, nor the greater community, and I think most of us can agree that lack of live service elements is pretty low on our lists, if present at all.
So Baldur's Gate 3 succeded because it was a live service? Why is it that in our day and age (pardon the pun) quality is ignored? Astrobot was live service? is any From Software game live service?
It is so much simpler than that, it truly is. If your triple A game is GREAT, it will succeed. Shocker, right?
Dragon Age The Veilguard was a mediocre game with some good combat mechanics. And the writing was so bad it couldn't even be ignored. At some point people have to admit that bad games, even decent ones, have no prayer of becoming massive successes.
@Petrecis24 I think there's a mis-understanding amongst gamers - when they compare everything to BG3 - or Elden Ring - or BotW.... most games aren't those mega-hits. They are the literal unicorns of gaming.
People should be critical of how games respect gamers time - and the quality they put in - but we shouldn't expect everything to be in the top 0.1%. That's just not realistic.
DA:V had the problem that it was fundamentally an 8/10 game that got mashed up in the churn of development. In my opinion that mess in development sunk it to a 6-7/10 game. That's not horrible - but it IS uneconomical from a commercial perpsective, considering it's development costs. I think (or at least suspect) no one on the exec team could likely come to grip what the game actually was, so everyone kinda made it their own thing.
But I don't think it's fair to compare it to BG3. If that's the yard-stick for 99.9% of games, then gaming is already dead.
@The_ghostmen the reality is that in the current environment - critics and YT'bers are actually more important than the game's quality. Edit - maybe not to you or me - but to the overall success of the sales. Word of mouth might save something (sales-wise) in the medium- to long-term, but having bad reviews/first impressions can kill the first week sales where they make most of their money.
To put it bluntly - SkillUp's review killed DA:V... not because it was a bad review, but because all the people looking for an excuse jumped on it. And ignored what he said, and just used it as justification for slamming the game. I was actually skeptical of his review - then bought and played the game - and I think while he went too far, he actually summed up a lot of the problems fairly.
To put it bluntly - SkillUp's review killed DA:V.
gamers said no to the game because of all the modern stuff that was put into it.
skill up is normally easy on looking away when that stuff is put into a game.
but if you make missions where you are forced to do push ups to better yourself then i get why it's the worst selling dragon age.
Looks like EA Ceo needs to retire for the company's sake.
@The_ghostmen I sub to SkillUp. He’s a good reviewer and I’d agree that he usually gives a very soft touch to such issues in games, so if it’s too much for him then you know it’s a problem.
@KillerIsD34D nothing will happen though they should fire anyone willing to hire the narrative and social media team they crewed things up so much.
ubisoft is on the same track.
I just want to point out that while people are rightfully bashing him, he only said these things because someone under him fed him a paper with bulletpoints explaining why the game failed. Corpo politics at its best.
CEOs don't know everything that goes on in the company they manage, ironically as it sounds its not their job to know.
The complaints about wokeness are due to horrible writing. The people that produce this stuff should not be employed in this industry.
They could have made the points they were desperate to make by intelligently weaving in themes of acceptance, but instead, you have medieval characters talking completely literally about ideological concepts from the current day. It's like they don't understand the concept of a metaphor at all.
Overall I enjoyed the game, the open zone style and the gameplay. I actively liked it more because there was no mtx or live service elements. This Dragon Age game didn't connect with a broader audience because it wasn't dragon age, just an RPG.
Andrew Wilson, the CEO at EA wrote:
Not from their single-player, story-driven RPGs they don't, mate. Now kindly p!ss off back to your ivory tower.
I was afraid they'd take that point away.
Battlefield, Apex/Titanfall, Medal of Honor could be a strong get for a live service game. But traditional RPGs don't have to be shoehorned into that to be successful. Just make a solid game ffs.
It failed because it was a mediocre RPG and not great writing for majority of the game. It's more having "Disney-fied" conversions which just the structure of them gets old fast. I've heard the ending is good though but myself haven't made it that far.
The gameplay is fun, really fun. It's one of few bigger budget games that didn't have technical issues on any console or even PC, which is extremely rare.
Also people didn't buy it in some capacity because the art style didn't match what they expected or wanted it to have.
It just sounds like poor management and creative decisions on the core of writing and visuals, that's it. Otherwise it was a success.
So it wasn't the tonal shift, badly designed companions, the jarring change art style, and the need to completely re-write the game from a live service to a single player RPG that were the problem, it's customers that obviously only want shared universes and huge endless games with Microtransactions.
Why do studios seem to be completely oblivious to the state of their own industry and what the buzz is currently? I get that game design decisions have to be made with the idea that they will still be relevant in 3-5 years, but this is a modern take from a current dev in today's landscape.
To the CEO. In the immortal words of CM Punk. "Either you suck, or you're dumb as f***."
Of course an EA employee would say this, I mean EAs the next Ubisoft right?
@IronCrow86 heck or just like movies, some enjoy it and other do not, I doubt people are lying mate!
If it failed, it's because the series deviated so much from Dragon Age: Origins and the art style isn't where it should be. Additionally, Baldur's Gate 3 exists.
Obsession with player growth, like final fantasy. So obsessed with with growth that it ends up alienating the people who helped it become popular in the first place.
Meanwhile, franchises like dragon quest and persona stubbornly stick to their turn based tactical roots (much to the dismay of some of the more 'progressive' video game journalists) and grow stronger with every release.
Lol EA it's because you have no faith in Bioware at all. It's because of the other stuff in the game during marketing, the mentality of players, the artstyle, beacuse even fans were questioning if it was good. Some fans like it, others don't. Got bored and went nah, not this one after playing.
Youtubers as well can. But then again I play retro games for gameplay quality & ideas/very few modern games in certain genres.
Duh as if past SP games/Indie games haven't made you money/got praise. Idiots that don't learn/forget those comments, we remember EA.
Was clear online, was clear with DA fans around me. Was clear with Origins fans then those into Inquisition/other elements more deeper in the games what they did right/wrong in their mind.
Does EA want more players? Do they want babies to be born and age faster (or just buy the game somehow) to meet the demand then and magically be teen or adult age to buy it? XD Weird to say but keeping it in.
Do they forget human beings have comfort with games they play, 1 game a year,, treat games differently, or a mentality to play other games? There are player gaps/only so many people with access to a console, phone or PC to access your game/let alone want to buy and play it.
You can't force an audience/pull a magic trick to convince them EA. Live service words are not what customers want to hear either, they aren't magic words, just telling us how stupid you are.
We are a sizeable amount hardcore gamers, versus live service audience. Get your statistics right & read people's minds the way you can't it seems.
Do they know how much wait the series had, reputation Bioware had as if Mass Effect trilogy remaster was enough, isn't for Dragon Age fans with no trilogy due to a different engine yet many are forced to use Frostbite to save money & scrapped the old one (even if a good engine if used right, the hypocrisy is hilarious, Unreal 2 sure but older engine using excuse, just don't want to dig it up & don't care about Dragon Age even though it always sold better/had deeper elements then Mass Effect unless maybe US sales for Mass Effect, so forget EU customers then).
How busy the market period was last year then others changed their minds or had prior backlogs even/other games waiting for on other dates, how casuals/hardcore are very difference audiences?
They seriously don't understand how humans work, EA execs/other high end staff must be aliens seriously. It would fit the description very well and they have just as brain dead marketing teams. XD I'm not a humanologist but I can at least understand enough besides my bad social cues too. But I also don't care either XD
There is money & there is how people think/act. Not hard to understand gamers, second hand market works & why Piglet's Big Movie game got expensive either.
Be interested in a western fantasy RPG when many others exist out there now. Major staff leaving wasn't a sign. As if Eternal Strands doesn't use the same terms in it & made by past Bioware Dragon Age staff which is so on the nose it's a bit ridiculous but still has cool mechanics. Let it go developers seriously, make something original for once. XD
Part 2:
Some like it, others think the dialogue/quests have less meaning and are terrible. I can see why.
I haven't played it but the linear design makes sense but also feels like a DA2 kind of step.
The quests seem kind of odd and the environments are fine but still.
The dialogue is just a bit all over the place too.
Seeing some characters from past games is nothing new but even still some new ones were a bit hit and miss.
But EA doesn't understand what an RPG is, just sports/shooter/racing, those work, RPGs can be live service but not in EA's mind.
Busy release period. Get these business heads out of the company now, I'm sick of laughing at their takes. XD
As if 2042 was or wasn't a live service decision making didn't make that game have worse development of 'should it be a normal Battlefield campaign/multiplayer game, nope live service, nope back again', and was a mess/rushed so hard. Idiots.
Veilguard failed because it was embarrassingly self indulgent, out of touch with it's target audience and about as likable as heart disease. Making it live service would not have changed the outcome one iota. In my opinion one of the most deluded and ill advised business decisions ever made, how the execs and producers expected that game to be a success is utterly insane. So this guy's equally deluded response to the backlash is absolutely no surprise.
EA thought they had a banger on their hands. They had a false sense that it was good because of all the dodgy reviews. Reviews that could only have been written by people who had never played a DA game before.
BS. It's because people don't believe in Bioware and EA anymore. My wife loves VEILGUARD, but she had no idea what it was. I got it for her for Christmas. Let's hope this does not mean they are going to shove "live service" elements into MASS EFFECT....
@Titntin I'll tell you what, the last 5 hours or so felt a lot like a classic Bioware game. I started from the point of no return after work tonight and just finished up now at close to 2am. Couldn't put it down once the final sequence began.
That ending did things to me that no game has done since Mass Effect 2.
I finished with one trophy missing for the plat too. Just nabbed that now before bed.
Glad I went back to it.
@Shepherd_Tallon
I'm really delighted you went back to it! I felt the same about the end sequence - even if you had issues with story pacing before, it's a classic bioware finish that few other developers can match.
Congrats on the Plat too, I never checked, but I believe I'm a few trophies away from it and may never go back and get it. 😊
I'm really pleased you went back to it and experienced the end!
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