EA admit Dragon Age The Veilguard sales bombed, only sold 50% of expectations, Bioware in trouble...

[@YongYea]

Despite being one of Bioware's most technially polished launches, the direction, tone, and aesthetic of Dragon Age: The Veilguard missed the mark for fans of the series, paired with lackluster RPG elements, writing, and combat compared to past entries. The end result is a AAA release that gained little traction and momentum, and it could spell trouble for Bioware's future. PATREON: www.patreon.com/yongyea BLUESKY: bsky.app/profile/yongyea.bsky.social INSTAGRAM: instagram.com/yong_yea TIKTOK: www.tiktok.com/@yongyea TOP PATRONS [BIG BOSS] - Devon B [BOSS] - Gerardo Andrade - Michael Redmond [PRETTY LEGENDARY] - azalea

[@404Errored]

I had massive thoughts seeing this games abysmal marketing and thought I'd be better off just playing dragon age inquistion instead. Goddamn am i glad i decided to stick to that game rather then this bland mess.

[@FerrousAradicen]

Polishing turds still leaves turds.

[@ZurigaSungama]

Thanks for the disappointing update, Kiryu-chan!

[@lukebargodao]

"Polished", but u cant rly polish a turd...

[@tymnj7]

Yong, you have a custom domain why not replace that with your Bluesky account handle?

[@Odelatog]

It didnt even sell 50%, they used the specific language to not include the word sales. They included 10 hour trials, refunds, and even character creator pre release in this number. It likely sold less than 40% of their expectations, and their expectations for a game 10 years in development was incredibly low to begin with. 3m sales would not have even come close to breaking even, as the game likely cost 300m+ in dev hours.

[@RazielTheUnborn]

They likely were expecting the games lifetime sales to get them to break even point and above. Inquisitions lifetime sales was 12mil.

[@EvilOdysseus]

I wouldn't be surprised if the actual purchased number was around the 500k mark.

[@Khasym]

@@EvilOdysseus I think we can limbo under the 200k bar to be honest. I wanna see the Steam receipts, and see if EA counted people who downloaded it on Steam, played for less than two hours, and refunded it, before I say it even passed 500k. At release on Steamcharts, VG had a peak concurrent player count of just over 60,000. Let's be fair and double that for total players on Steam BEFORE refunds. No way VG did that twice over, split between the Xbox and PS4/5.

[@foggy_EQ]

@@EvilOdysseusi mean... even a million sales combining steam and the console platforms, which undoubtedly sold more of this game.... even 1.5 million copies is absolutely terrible for a triple a game. personally i've never cared about the dragon age franchise so i don't have any feelings one way or another but 200K would've probably bankrupted bioware.

[@thesquirrel6141]

Exactly. If they meant sales, they'd say sales.

[@Kant3n]

This game looked bad, sounded bad, was written bad, played bad and didn't mesh with its predecessors thematically, visually, tonally, or at all.

[@AntoinneWilliams]

Perfectly articulated. As a person who loves Dragon Age, I was tremendously disappointed in this game.

[@shadowkhan422]

And was hard promoted by paid shils and "fans" . Yep , same bs as usual

[@badjuju2721]

It's honestly heartbreaking what they've done to one of my favorite franchises. Dragon Age was my first fantasy game, and now it's been turned into a bad parody of itself.

[@traiforse5777]

Last thing I wanna hear in a Dragon Age: A Valley Girl accent. Even though they already established that the Dalish have Welsh and Irish accents. Of course, it would be limited to your protagonist. But at least Bioware could try to be fecking consistent.

[@maximillianlylat1589]

Yeah the art direction was just bad. It couldnt tell if it wanted to be slightly cartoony or grimy resulting in a just plain ugly look that was jarring compared to the previous titles.

[@thatguyfawkes2328]

We have to remember the people who worked at Bioware when they used to make excellent single player RPG games are mostly gone the current Bioware is Bioware in name only it's essentially a skin suit and it painfully shows.

[@fptheghost]

Exactly, definitely not the BioWare we knew and loved

[@grantkeller4634]

Same with what happened to Blizzard after the Activision buyout

[@warbossgegguz679]

Correct. If you want games made by the staff from the golden age of CRPGs, Obsidian (aka Black Isle), Larian, and inXile are all still alive, kicking, and putting out great stuff (save for Outerworlds). BioWare died of a Mass Exodus before Andromeda and Anthem even came out. The last game with the OG staff onboard was DA:I. And unsurprisingly, that's the last good game bioware has made in over 10 years.

[@warbossgegguz679]

@@grantkeller4634 Most of Blizzard's OG staff left during WoW's development actually. That's why Diablo 3 took an eternity to come out, and was more like WoW than Diablo when it did.

[@Flasa]

Ah, I see, it is the BioWare of Theseus!

[@mightylink65]

Remember when every gaming news outlet was saying "Dragon Age is Back!" This is why I don't trust gaming news sites anymore.

[@omnipenne9101]

They did the same thing when DA2 came out. Reviewers were giving 8-9s for that rushed mess.

[@Saint_Wolf_]

I was not acquainted with Dragon Age but people told me it was a gritty and grim dark fantasy setting that really had you choosing the lesser of two evils, or the greater one if you so choose. What I ended up seeing looked like a Saturday morning cartoon, like My Little Pony friendship is magic but the stories and morality are about pronouns letting the mentally ill be annoying and entitled without opposition.

[@RedBearNAaron]

@OP word. We should rip every one of those news outlets to shreds for a quarter but truthfully idc. I know it was DOA when the character creator came out and it appears most of the world did too. 🤷🏾‍♂️ their loss.

[@maverickloggins5470]

Damn it took u this long to stop trusting them? They’ve been complete liars this whole time

[@freshhands9461]

Yes! That was so, dare I say, cringe. They all deserve to find jobs in another industry.

[@kaylemain2006]

It didn't "only sold 50% of expectations" it sold lower than that, because these are "engagement" numbers inflated by stuff that's not a unit sale.

[@lmno567]

It would include sales, but therein lies a problem for them: not everyone that had a copy bought their own.

[@ChrisMorray]

Yup, the engagements didn't meet expectations but that also includes people who used the character creator, people on gamepass, etc.

[@echoesofmalachor3700]

Which naturally brings up the question as to what does and does not constitute a unit of engagement(“# of players engaged” was the actual stat offered in the report)

[@Sereaphim]

@@lmno567 It would also count people that bought and later refund the game.

[@BritBox777]

@@lmno567 Also included refunds, free demo players, and pass players. If all that together was only 1.5 mill I can't imagine what $70 sales numbers were.

[@PrincessStabbityPLS]

I think The Veilguard's fate was sealed from the moment its development team committed the cardinal sin of trying to cater to a new audience while completely abandoning the very fans who got this franchise, and its parent company, to the heights they... used to enjoy. As soon as we learned that The Keep wasn't going to be integrated into it, and the only choices we were even allowed to port over from earlier games were... 3... very broad-strokes decisions that offered no room for nuance... Mhm, that was when the game ultimately lost me. I have a very high tolerance for a lot of the other issues The Veilguard is often criticised for, but I've always held the legacy of Dragon Age in a special, sacred, place in my heart. Admittedly, I've forgotten most of it by now, but guess what? 3 games, 4 PCs later, I've held onto all of my save files, with SO many different permutations of the Warden's Hawke's and Inquisitor's stories, waiting for a worthy continuation of the series to make me go over all my past experiences again and agonise over which of those countless routes I'd like to continue first, and then second, and third and... well, you get the idea. But The Veilguard... is not that continuation. And at this point, it is extremely likely that there will never be one. Bioware chose to burn the bridge connecting them to their past, so... I don't think I have a single tear in me to shed for Bioware's future. As far as I'm concerned, it's just some alien parasite that's crawled into the remains of a studio that I used to know, and is now very unconvincingly trying to mimic human behaviour and failing tragically at it. Should it even be legal to continue using a brand's name when it's so thoroughly Ship-of-Theseused? I feel like there has to be some way a bored enough lawyer could make a case for false advertising.

[@AaronWOfficial]

You were so close, but you should have said catering to the modern audience that makes up 1% of gamers. Then your comment would have been based af

[@JardsonJean]

people usually forget that this project started as a live service game. there was no way this could have been saved, because even if the writing was better, the combat and level design still show traces of that live service mentality.

[@Grogeous_Maximus]

They ditched their audience when they went from BG2 to DA1 already 25 years ago. And then they've kept doing that ever since. I'm still salty that we didn't get a BG 3 in 2002.

[@ttuanmu]

Your analogy of alien parasites is apt. That’s exactly what has been going on in BioWare. Their mimicry has been laughable….

[@rateater1857]

@@AaronWOfficial This wasn't that big of an issue, I found the pronouns lecturing and push-ups extremely cringeworthy and annoying, but if you cut out literally all of that, the game would still suck such immense balls, both as a standalone and more so as a Dragon Age game.

[@StryderK]

And remember, this is NOT 1.5 million SOLD, far from it, this is 1.5 million ENGAGED players. I guess they’re counting sales, promotional giveaways, free review codes, anyone who played the previews etc. if you tell me the full sold games is like 500K…I would say, no surprise.

[@RazielTheUnborn]

Don't forget EA Play and Game Pass.

[@gabrielgomez5528]

Probably lower cause it looks like it only sold around 10k on Playstation (looking at psn trophy tracker website, don't know if it's accurate or not) so imagine if instead of 500k like you, it sold 125k

[@Junmitis]

True, I wouldn't be surprised if they included refunds as "engaged players"

[@Handler47walter]

They also gave away veilguard with nvidea now and engaged does include people who refunded The game. They used the term engaged cause they are ashamed to publish the actual figure

[@chaddixon9764]

Yeah that is a good point but I would think that is closer to 1 million.

[@FredThePhoenix]

I'm replaying the Commander Shepard Mass Effect trilogy now. We didn't know how lucky we were back then :(

[@Revenant-oq9ts]

I mean if we really think about it... we don't need ME5. Sometimes stories just need to end.

[@NoorAgafia]

I feel the same way about the Deus Ex & Dishonored series. Though Mass Effect was great too. These corporations have destroyed nearly everything. Those games were unicorns, and the new generation rather plays Fortnite. ​ @Revenant-oq9ts - Some of the old Bioware people are currently working on a game called Exodus. Some have compared it to the real new Mass Effect. So far it's looking very impressive and it has great lore as well.

[@BlackBinderGames]

@@Revenant-oq9tsYa but the world was so amazing. A legitimately good space opera game. It’s a shame there isn’t a company that can continue it at least somewhat competantly

[@nummulite99]

Ah yes, let’s have a moment to reminisce the incredibly weird wave of ‘star child’ hysteria. In a few years, everyone will look back at the weird reaction to Veilguard as similar to ME3. Weird. Some folk need to learn to put things into perspective.

[@BlackBinderGames]

@ You seem not to have a good memory. The star child “hysteria” ended in a win for the consumer. Veilguard bombing will also be a win for the consumer

[@Phoenix-e3h]

IGN gave this garbage a 9/10. WTF.

[@EldritchErik94]

And that’s why no sane gamer trusts mainstream games media anymore.

[@cmdraftbrn]

gotta kiss ass to get those early demos

[@oleksiistri8429]

money..money..money..money..money..money..

[@gg_v2]

Nobody takes IGN Seriously, I’m not understanding who cares about ANYTHING They have to say. Payolla corporates, bought and paid for

[@Yurgir-p1q]

And then fired I think 40 people. Shows how meaningless they are. 😂

[@duckdongjd9458]

That's because that one character only did 50% of the push ups.

[@mexreax4493]

its sir

[@Xxsorafan]

Please let’s not go there. It’s bad writing. Not politics

[@Zerovin]

​@Xxsorafan its both. bad writing influenced by the political beliefs of the director and writers that made veilgard bad.

[@LoxD123]

@@Xxsorafanis politic lmao

[@BOLP]

​@Xxsorafan Of course, let's just ignore it and pretend that it doesnt effect sales when they push THE MESSAGE, I get where your coming from as it does spark a fire storm when this stuff is talked about in the comments, but attempting to shut down discussion because it offends your personal sensibilities doesnt help get us back on track nor really tackle the multiple issues plaguing the industry. People want to play games, not sit and play a moral lecture simulator and if people want to discuss that they should be allowed.

[@arg_9584]

Dear Bioware, please leave Dragon Age alone because its quite clear that you and EA had no idea what to do with this franchise over the course of 4 games and 15 years.

[@maofria1452]

Larian or Owlcat should buy this IP after Bioware shotdown.

[@smgofdvld]

I’m worried about mass effect 👀🧐

[@CanterlotCrusader]

I'm an outsider, never played any Dragon Age game, but my friend does and it seems to me like every game besides the first one has been either bad or mixed. Soooo is this even really a franchise that people like tbh? Or do people like the first one and it's never lived up to that potential since?

[@Clanduris]

@@CanterlotCrusader More or less the 2ed. Everyone loved the first, and its kind of been a bit worse with every game afterwards.

[@RazielTheUnborn]

​​@@CanterlotCrusaderOur of the three before this one, only Dragon Age 2 was disliked. Inquisition may have had "mixed" opinions at start but eventually it corrected ship much like Cyberpunk 2077 did and that game is the most sold in the entire franchise. Origins only sold about 4mil units, Inquisition sold 12mil. So, no, despite what Origin meat riders like to claim, Inquisition was a massive success.

[@LKRTM]

As someone who never played BioWare games as a kid but played a lot of Command and Conquer, Dungeon Keeper and SimCity, it’s actually in a way quite annoying to see BioWare get this many chances. A decade of nothing but failure after failure meanwhile Maxis, Bullfrog and Westwood were shut down the second they didn’t release a 10/10 game, killing many great franchises doing so.

[@unkown34x33]

it's disgustingly unfair... I know:(

[@allthenamesiwantedweretaken]

Imagine a sequel to Spore.

[@italianspiderman5012]

@@allthenamesiwantedweretakentbf, it probably would be worse than the first one.

[@sandy120]

Bullfrog shutting down felt like a little piece of my childhood being taken out back and shot. So many great titles over so many years just to get eaten by EA...

[@frogjog8822]

Oh command and conquer. How we dearly miss it.

[@manynukes11]

It does make me happy to see EA's gambling simulator being a cause for decline

[@DaneInTheUS]

Shouldn't have gotten rid of the FIFA name for that casino lol

[@El3ktroHexe]

@@DaneInTheUS Yeah, probably this is the only reason for its failure. People don't understand that FC is the same as FIFA. EA wanted to save license money, and now they lose money instead. At least some good news :D

[@KairosObj]

This is definitely a W.

[@Korijenkins1414]

"Doesn't deliver to the target audience" That's because games no longer care about their target or captured audience. They constantly want to "grow" into a new audience. There's this pervasive belief in the game dev industry now that there's this elusive "general audience" you can capture and make billions. The El Dorado of the game industry, so to speak. They think they can somehow get the Madden, NBA2k, COD crowd to engage with these fantasy RPGs if they dumb them down and make the story goofy and brainless enough. Meanwhile, Elden Ring which was neither of the two was a smash hit and actually captured a lot of players who normally wouldn't play it. They're going in the wrong direction, constantly, because corporations fundamentally do not understand human beings.

[@gg_v2]

You just wanted to find a way to mention those 3 communities just to shit on them, you’re not slick

[@gg_v2]

Nobody in those communities care about dragon age 😂 they’re too stupid to invest time in something productive

[@zeuel]

Great games will bring in loads of players. BG3 got people to play RPGs that normally don't care much about RPGs in the same way.

[@ApahtieParty]

​@@gg_v2 For good reasons

[@anonymousperson1771]

They do understand humans. They just think humans are wrong and should get in line with the "social responsibility" agendas they impose - the opposite of how games were formulated decades ago.

[@blakel8121]

Oh boy, I don't understand why another juvinllie, silly, poorly written RPG, where every character interaction ends in some variation of "erm did that just happen?" Sold poorly.

[@bubblegumxo]

He's right behind me, isn't he?

[@Banaani0]

What are we, some kinda sewerslide squad?

[@blakel8121]

So uhhhhhhhhhh, yeah.

[@warlordbasil5873]

I mean, somehow Palpatine returned, so it's pretty much par for the modern audience course.

[@kharmachaos667]

the only somehow someone has returned that i give a free pass is darth maul. i want him to keep on coming back like the badass cockroach little meow meow he is.

[@LewdCowboy]

Make stupid games, win stupid prizes 🎉

[@atkshow2111]

Crazy how I used to pre order games. But in the last few years I now absolutely refuse to until I see user reviews

[@christopherboye5498]

Only game I pre ordered was GTAV, and that game turned out to be a disappointment compared to its predecessors. Learned my lesson then and there.

[@Garrus1995]

@@christopherboye5498 I am so glad to hear someone who feels that way about GTA V. After Rockstar set the gold standard with games like San Andreas, GTA IV and Red Dead Redemption, I was expecting GTA V to be amazing. But it just wasn’t. It was a sandbox game that had little interest in being a sandbox and the plot was vastly inferior to their previous games. I hope GTA VI will be great, I really do, but GTA V didn’t give me much hope for the future of the franchise.

[@ChrisMorray]

I've been burnt twice by pre-orders: Fallout 76, and No Man's Sky. The latter is a better game now, the former is still an unfinished buggy pile of garbage.

[@trashdakid3682]

​@@ChrisMorray Same. No Man's Sky is the last game I pre-order without checking reviews or any gameplay besides what the studio showed.

[@lesliehaigh6765]

I pre order every souls games by from software never been let down yet

[@justadream1256]

Remember IGN gave this a "9/10"

[@waltblackadar4690]

"BiOwArE iS bAcK" "rEtUrN tO fOrM"....*giggle*

[@ShiningWolf88]

I mean idk what EA expected? They forced BioWare to make yet another live service game, points at anthems failure, then scrap it. They use the bones of a LS game for a single player game (never do that). Massively charge the art style yet again into a dumbed down version. Screw up character designs. Hire writers and game directors that decided to write a poor fan fiction. Then disrespect classic characters and the built up story of the DA universe. Yeah I’m glad it failed. Screw them

[@FiksIIanzO]

They fully expected this failure. They're doing this on the barely perceptible chance of this game suddenly exploding for no reason into a massive live service franchise with popularity of GTA. Artistic integrity and fans of the series be damned. AAA publishers have mastered burning bridges to gamble.

[@robovinefilms1811]

The art style is a direct byproduct of the live service DNA. Assuming EA cynically mandated a shift to Fortnite imitation with Dragon Age, the art style then makes a lot of sense.

[@Gaming_Media00]

Give dragon age to Larian bro, if they made dragon age, shit would be baller

[@brunoauriema5561]

Larian is not interested in making another game that is not their own IPs. They said after baldur's gate 3 that from now on they'll focus on their own stuff.

[@niallreid7664]

They did. Dragon Age was meant to be a spiritual successor to Baldurs Gate. Larian made BG3, why would they care at all about Dragon Age?

[@badjuju2721]

​@@niallreid7664because they are done with baldurs gate as a franchise. Wizards of the coast is a pain in the ass to work with.

[@aimeeinkling]

I expected Veilguard to be more like BG3. It was super disappointing when I realized it was not BG3 or Dragon Age.

[@DaneofHalves]

It's too late for that fella. Because this game exists. It's out there. So, that is yet another IP ruined by DEI nonsense.

[@polerli18]

It did not sold 50% of expectation, it had 50% of the reported expectation "engaged"...small semantic but big difference.

[@chinchilla505]

additionally 3 million was the revised target, down from over 10million target

[@Blodhelm]

I expect "engaged" to include views of the trailers, that's how some of the analytic companies have been presenting criticism of various under-performing shows, as in people talking about them even in a negative way is somehow a great thing, almost as good as a sale. Except for the part where there's no money involved and they're killing franchises.

[@kev1nno]

@@Blodhelm Their statement said that it engaged 1.5 million *players.* So I wouldn't think that includes people watching trailers or streamers or anything like that. However, it most likely does include stuff like players playing through second-hand copies, library sharing on Steam, PlayStation Game Share, the EA play trial version of the game and players on Steam that went on to refund the game

[@Boss_Fight_Index_muki]

Dragon Age Veilguard: _Brought to you by the studio who fired the developers of Dragon Age Origins_

[@Lucie-Baha]

Yes it's EAware

[@spaceythehuman5530]

When Dragon age doesn’t feel like Dragon age, than this result was inevitable

[@kevingame3198]

Well simple it's written by activists who are dei hire featuring they/them pronous bs

[@warbossgegguz679]

To be real, Dragon Age has a mixed average already. DA:O is probably the best Bioware CRPG, DA2 sucked, and DA:I was good but not amazing. And that's WITH the OG Bioware staff. This game was destined to be awful.

[@Sharpester-m4o]

​@warbossgegguz679 With Inquisition, it was Bioware's first game where they used the Frostbite engine instead of the Unreal Engine. They used the latter for the core Mass Effect trilogy. Alongside the game also being developed for the PS3 and 360 alongside PC, PS4 and Xbox One. Whereas Witcher 3 had the luxury of being developed for just PS4 and Xbox One alongside PC.

[@Kant3n]

@@warbossgegguz679 The OG Bioware was *not* there when DA:I was made.

[@Aleara27]

@@warbossgegguz679 Yeah, that's the thing I find really funny in this conversation. People are talking like a Dragon Age game should have been an obvious smash hit when no DA game has been since the very first one. If anything, The Veilguard falls exactly where it should have been expected to based on the franchise's history and the declining trust in companies like EA.

[@Howlrunner82]

Loosing THIS Bioware isn't a loss at all.

[@ratedRblazin]

L O S I N G* There's only one 'o' in LOSING, it's not a difficult concept to grasp ffs.

[@robovinefilms1811]

@@ratedRblazin You figured out what he meant just fine you pedantic turd.

[@WSS_the_OG]

@@ratedRblazin Triggers me too, but to be fair, not everyone who posts comments on KZbin has English as their primary language, and words like loose and lose can be difficult for them.

[@witecatj6007]

It wasn't Grubbs that broke the Corrine Bush departure. It was Smash JT. Please give credit where it is due.

[@gulfofmexico1569]

No one cares.

[@LeslieCheyanneAnderson]

I fking care

[@Kant3n]

@gulfofmexico1569 You did enough to reply to it.

[@luske2]

Smash JT might be a bit of a knob, but he does actual journalism in a field where it's usually all about stroking publishers and developers enough to throw you a bone now and then. For that I'll keep watching him despite disagreeing with a lot of the things he says on a personal level.

[@Tompa8411]

@@gulfofmexico1569 man imagine not to care when main media comes and grabs/ takes credit for someones else news story ..... kinda sad its not called out enough

[@ScootaGray]

Remember the game director saying “the game doesn’t let you control your party menders because it would be too much” SMH while FF7 rebirth is walking around as a game of the year nominee. Not a smart move removing the entire party feature.

[@Hazard2005]

Played Dragon Age Origins back in the day and wouldn't touch this game even if it was gifted to me...

[@TheAsylumCat]

Funny you say that because origins was gifted to me by my grandfather.

[@badjuju2721]

Don't, I played the demo today just to see how bad it was, and I stopped after an hour. The combat is awful, the story makes absolutely *NO* sense, and the dialog is cringe worthy.

[@Hazard2005]

@@badjuju2721 Yeah, been hearing the same from trusted reviewers and gamers about this game. Even YongYea touched how it feels like a kids Disney game. A real dam shame though, since I think the DA IP had such potential for greatness but ruined by modern day EA/Bioware...

[@17Watman]

Shame, to me now even Origins, 2 and Inquisition feel tainted, no pun intended.

[@bcastillo179]

Im gonna play it lol idrc what yall say​@@badjuju2721

[@martinatzejensen6787]

@YongYea Wording matters. They wrote "Player Engagement" not sales. They are likely polishing the numbers to make it look like it didn't fail as hard as it did.

[@Skyler.142]

I am so scared for the Newest Mass Effect

[@123Juniiorr]

Why fear the inevitable?

[@TikiDragon1]

Another ME? Is it after Shepard, or the reboot from Andromeda?

[@ragmanx6256]

Just let go. Bioware's been dead since Andromeda.

[@lmno567]

​@@TikiDragon1After Shepard, but technically before Andromeda.

[@kaylemain2006]

If you think ME5 is going to be any good, then I have a business proposition for you regarding a bridge that I am positive you will find very appealing.

[@mohamedh.guelleh630]

The veilguard was supposed to be a live service game and they changed mid development because Anthem flopped hard. You can't chase trends in video games because the landscape changes faster than development time. By the time a new game is released, there are new trends that gamers like and sell well

[@Stukov961]

Something I wish the executive leeches would learn at some point. How many studios broke trying to clone Word of Warcraft back in the day? I sure wish I could have a job where I would rake in millions whilst making the stupidest possible decisions.

[@korhanaydemir8366]

They've got the modern audience they wanted

[@projectvaporz]

Yup

[@TheSuitness]

Nobody 😂

[@prdeadpool1380]

Define "modern audience"

[@92JoseR]

Yeah all 10 of them

[@jonathanpretty5031]

​@prdeadpool1380 the idiots creating Dragon Age Veilguard.

[@amplifymysound]

Having a character do pushups for misgendering someone in a video game is still wild to me.

[@Darkkfated]

That kind of nonsense might sort of work in a trash fire like Dustborn, but it has *absolutely no place in a dark fantasy world facing an impending apocalypse* .

[@seiferblade9180]

Man my jaw almost dropped when I saw that

[@urekmazino6800]

Most cringe crap I've seen in a game in many years

[@TheHK_47]

When I saw this, I just stared at it thinking "wot..."

[@kls701]

lol what is this now ?

[@Sam.1tolv]

Isn't EA always down in their expectations? They'd always shove more microtransactions if they could.

[@Khasym]

There's down, and there's "We can't tell the shareholders how much we've been screwing up our business with meetings and junkets paid for with company money....Let's just lie about what we call SELLING the game, and then we can say it's just a little 'oopsie'"

[@Sam.1tolv]

@@Khasym it's EA we're talking about, when have they ever not been scummy in their practices?

[@cmdraftbrn]

squeenix is always below expectations

[@AsaelTheBeast]

3 mil is actually a very reasonable expectation for a modern AAA. There are tiny indy games that get more than that and don't even go viral.

[@popcornfilms1]

Joking aside, this is unironically the take that they’ll have. Too few micro transactions caused lack of player engagement

[@pb6703]

"Engaged players?" Corpo-speak for "everyone that touched the game".

[@Sweet_Tooth_Art]

When will game companys learn. It's not like we haven't been telling them for years

[@chrish7308]

Can't learn if they have learning disabilities. DEI is just a loophole to misdirect the incompetency that comes with learning disabilities

[@Khasym]

AAA gaming is absolutely stuffed with overpaid corporate mouthpieces right now. There's almost no one talented in CHARGE of making a game. They answer to contract signers, to marketing teams and Focus Group experts. Because that's who the Board pays to follow the same trends, and make their stockholders keep doling out the money. Look at Doom: The Dark Ages. Announced by Marty Stratton, the man who almost single handedly kicked Mick Gordon out of gaming, refused to pay the man, spread vicious lies about Gordon's work, and refused to apologize when he was called out. THAT is who iD Software and Microsoft said, "We need a FACE to announce this new greatness...MARTY!!!!!"

[@CPE1704TK5]

They won’t they are waiting for us to pass away so they can push their slop unfettered to the future generations that don’t know any better

[@popcornfilms1]

@@Khasymit’s the corporate cancer known as design my committee - can only produce soulless, expensive slop.

[@seinfan9]

Corporate executives have to fire their marketing and HR departments. They are morons telling them to steer the ship into the rocks.

[@КириллСолоненко-в3ы]

Where's that fabled modern audience? Why didn't they buy the game?

[@potentianox1573]

100% turnout actually, all 7 of them showed up😂

[@Latinkon]

Too busy watching reruns of _Star Wars: The Acolyte_ 🙃

[@blinkusfishus2052]

Duncan died for this.. 😔

[@LulaRu]

What did they expect? Layoffs, loosing money over a live service project and then back tracking, studio execs meddling, ignoring core-fanbase. EA kills everything it touches

[@Rough_Estimates]

They put money into this dud of a project instead of a new Dead Space game, they had it coming

[@KabegamiTheGreat]

Dead space remake underperformed too by EAs standards. And did worse than below 50% expectation, they wanted at least 5 million units sold but only sold 2 million. And hence scrapped plans for dead space 2 remake.

[@christopherboye5498]

​@@KabegamiTheGreatYeah, should have kept Isaac quiet. I would have bought the game then.

[@RawkL0bster]

@@Rough_Estimates They only had themselves to blame!

[@calliopeshif7581]

​@@christopherboye5498To be fair, I'm pretty sure a lot of people LOVED the Dead Space remake. I guess your point stands if that led enough other people to not buy the game... But I just don't think that would've accounted for a THREE MILLION unit deficit compared to their expectation.

[@IntrusiveThoughts838]

@@christopherboye5498that’s kind of a dumb reason to not buy it but that’s my opinion

[@tomvu1470]

On sale for "as low as $54?"....you'd have to pay me $54 to play Veilguard.🙃

[@williamgan2616]

i've been so sad at the state of bioware since EA bought them. i played most of the games that they developed till that point: baldur's gate, neverwinter nights, jade empire, KOTOR, mass effect 1 and 2, dragon age origins. all incredible stories. just like maxis and westwood studios of the 90s, i mourn the bioware of the 2000s with every release under EA

[@Tompa8411]

YEP EA ruins studios somehow Maxis was my go to dev studio back when the sim city series was done correct now the only title left of Maxis OG games are Sims that EA milks to its extreme

[@lonerider6175]

Is EA dumb or what? Dragon Age Origins was and is still a masterpiece. How hard it is to replicate that formula?

[@WSS_the_OG]

Probably rather difficult, considering all the minds behind Origins are no longer with the company. :( Also, Bioware is being driven by bean-counters now, and we all know what a diluted product that kind of influence results in.

[@AerynWalk]

its very hard for the political checkbox triple AAA(A) studios nowadays! pressing agenda into a game seems more important to them than making a great story + game

[@WSS_the_OG]

@@AerynWalk I miss the old days when political satire / incorrect humour were taken as intended; commentary, and with good humour. Everyone's way too careful about what they say now, and it has made its way into video games, and diluted the experience tremendously. It's all made to appeal to the lowest common denominator, while navigating the minefield of not offending anyone, being inclusive, or whatever the issues-du-jour happen to be. I haven't actually played Veilguard, and I'm not compelled to try it (as a long time fan of Bioware's older titles) at its asking price. Maybe, one day, when it's on sale for $20 I'll give it a go.

[@1011skarn]

It's only difficult if you have no intention of doing it. People are saying that that crew is gone. Sure. Someone made baldur's gate 3 though. So it is entirely possible if it's your intention to do so.

[@FlaviusUrsus]

- The writing sucks, you retconed the previous games - If you don't like it, don't play it !! - Ok. -WAIT not like that !

[@praisetheoak]

Weird, only a few days ago you had a very sizeable part of the community that would tell you that the game was a both a commercial and critical success. Seems like outlets running defense and giving it unreasonable & undeserved high scores didn't work out, but I expect something similar will happen with AC shadows..

[@chrish7308]

The same people will tell you a man is woman, so naturally anything they tell you is delusional and not based on reality

[@rileymachelle4088]

Seeing how well AC Valhalla sold I don't think that'll be a similar story. Plus people have been asking AC to go to Japan for ages

[@Cassandra_Solidor]

It's funny how every time we get a game with a clear focus on modern day "issues" the defense squad comes out, screaming phobia this and racist that yet once again, sales numbers don't lie. Veilguard's failure had nothing to do with wokeness. It's simply a poor game that disregarded its fanbase for a "modern audience"

[@GameTimeWhy]

I'm so glad this finally came out. They didn't care about any of the steam numbers for anything. I'm glad the game tanked.

[@numerobis2178]

@@Cassandra_Solidor Bruh you NEVER played a Bioware game and it shows HARD

[@Deckyx]

I took a shot every time "Dragon Age: The Veilgard" and "Bioware" were mentioned, and now I'm in hospital.

[@victorcharles27]

Along side the critical drinker 😂

[@bradley7674]

Dragon Age Veilguard is an MA15 game but they can't show nudity.

[@wholockedholmes]

didn't get good companions, didn't get a good story, didn't get good world building, didn't get a decent protag, and on top of all of that, I didn't even get to see my rook's titty. just for that alone it deserves that 0/10.

[@grantkeller4634]

I don't want to see any of the freaks in that game naked

[@mexreax4493]

they have a nude pc mod. the chars are horrifying nude

[@Kat1kafka]

Reminder that monster hunter wilds beta had way more players than veilguard at its launch.

[@Garrus1995]

Deservedly so I’d say, and I’m not even a fan of Monster Hunter.

[@thefiresworddragon927]

And the release will have massively more players than Veilguard's all time on Steam, even if DEI slips in, purely because of the gameplay.

[@jigglypuff5480]

Theres no DEI in MH: Wilds

[@Satsaru]

As a note, Jeff Grub did NOT report on that story. Credit to the scoop was a collaboration between Mark Kern and youtuber SmashJT, which has been improperly credited to Jeff Grub for seemingly no reason

[@roe_k]

The reason is gamejournos are all garbage people who can't exist outside their echo chamber.

[@aod_derekjeter4493]

Yong isn't gonna give the ones trying to save gaming credit

[@shadowkhan422]

The reason was that Grub stole the story and posted under his name(without crediting SmashJT)

[@theotherjared9824]

Those dozens of articles saying the veilguard is a massive success and we're all wrong for thinking otherwise sure look foolish now.

[@Derp_Foxxo]

Also the phrase a return to form to bioware from all articles

[@gg_v2]

*corny typical gaslighting, reverse psychology bullshit* “if you don’t agree with me, you’re wrong and here’s why” smh

[@senormarston]

That's the only tool they have, gaslighting, just like they gaslight themselves to believe in the fantasy reality where these diversity and execs live

[@nunyabusiness8000]

It’s so fucking said that this franchise is probably dead because they phoned it in with a mid ass sequel.

[@shin_roku5696]

Don’t expect a sequel it’s not going to happen

[@Makocat]

​​@@shin_roku5696good. If this is what they are doing with the series. It's best not to follow up

[@Darbley92]

We need a video game crash.

[@Garrus1995]

About 5 years ago, I’d have said such a viewpoint is crazy. Now, though? An industry-wide crash may be the only way these companies are finally going to get the message that we don’t want what they’re selling. Let it burn, there are plenty of classic games to rediscover while they try to rebuild over years.

[@gg_v2]

@@Garrus1995rebuild? We need a clean house, EVERYONE MUST GO!

[@ApahtieParty]

Greed will bring us there quicker than you think.

[@JardsonJean]

with gta6 coming around, this will never happen... live service is crashing before our eyes though

[@archersterling6726]

​@@gg_v2Who is everyone? Capcom and Fromsoft too? Indies or double As? The market is diverse, a "crash" is impossible

[@chefcc90]

It isn't Bioware. It is the corpse of Bioware

[@TestAcct46]

BREAKING: Veilguard undersells. OTHER NEWS: Water, wet

[@Raytheus]

It does not matter either way; the BioWare we all knew and loved had long since passed.

[@noodleman4555]

9:42 Ah. Roaching off to poison another studio. No surprises there.

[@cormoran2303]

Like a plague of locusts moving on to the next fertile crops.

[@Darkkfated]

@@cormoran2303 Them talking about "good characters" like they didn't just helm a game being universally panned for it's one-note characters, forced self-inserts, and fan-fiction-quality, millenial-speak-laden writing.

[@mahumia]

I just want to know which studio, so I know which one to avoid. Busch doesn't have a good track record with The Sims either, so...

[@Jugeum]

I'm betting on Bethesda

[@vpelno2077]

Honestly, it sucks to say but I’m glad. I’m tired of the flood of creators blowing smoke up Bioware’s ass because they like smaller aspects or choices in the game but refuse to admit that the overall game is below standard. We have to keep showing these companies we won’t accept half assed projects with our wallets!!!

[@haunterdragon4580]

Go ahead and rejoice that it failed. Gamers have been telling companies that they don't like AAA games so guess what? In the future they're going to put even less effort into them knowing that they're so open to fail. You guys are gonna kill Ubisoft and when you get EA out you're going to see how the industry reacts. Btw modern gaming is all about money nothing else. So if they see it as a lost cause that's the quality you're going to get

[@haunterdragon4580]

And then KZbinrs like him know this and they're gonna milk your views with that negativity

[@Makocat]

​@@haunterdragon4580it failed. It's over.

[@surft]

​@@haunterdragon4580 Good. Then the indie scene gets attention.

[@Aleara27]

@@surft Way more indie studios could succeed if even just a fraction of the money spent on AAA games went to them instead. As an indie dev, I'm hoping to see a shift in the coming years.

[@da_ocsta1452]

Yong dodging the elephant in the room like a champ.

[@fruhmann]

For real. He's going to have to pull a barv for this one.

[@damenwilliams1769]

He sucks Im starting not to like how he dodges real issues

[@Chibicat2024]

Part of the course. I stopped watching regularly years ago. I come here when there is something outrageous to see how he is going to dodge the real problems.

[@armyofray8096]

He'll acknowledge it when it becomes safe to do so

[@allthenamesiwantedweretaken]

I knew I wasn't going crazy.

[@kurisutina9304]

Who would've known creating a divisive game with mind numbing gameplay and next no role playing elements would bomb in today's market.

[@k3salieri]

El Psy Kongroo

[@noahgolden-cv1pc]

Who exactly is the target audience?

[@archersterling6726]

The devs

[@QuentinMajor]

Kamuttla voters (read: losers).

[@admiralmuhamad3109]

The game that put on a pedestal by western mainstream media, lauded as "return to form" to bioware's golden age, praised for its great combat, story, character, visual. Doesn't matter how much mainstream media fluff a game, bad game is still a bad game, and bad game doesn't sell.

[@Dankus_Memeus_II]

You can tell tourists made veilguard

[@Harvey_Dent]

They lost customers like me who have played their earlier games. What a sad way to go out.

[@meischoice]

5:17 “Player count” is the best metric they could have report to shareholders. Player count ≠ Sales. Just like when MMORPGS report “Registered Users” instead of “Active Players”

[@lordbeerus462]

It bombed like the crap I just took

[@dmittleman9757]

Grubb did not break or report this story first. It was done by Grumz and SmashJT, and Grubb plagiarized their work.

[@dpv007]

All the reviewers going "DA Veilguard is a genuine return to form!" is the funniest thing to me, because it makes me want to exclaim: "A return to WHICH form?!" Dragon Age is one of the most inconsistent gaming series ever made, with each entry being radically different to the previous one, Veilguard included. You can't be a return to form if you didn't have a form to return to in the first place!

[@ec6565]

DA:I was an extremely ambitious project that did well because you can feel the love and care the devs put into crafting its story. Veilguard is a sterile, half-baked mess in comparison. They should have committed to a firm ending where nearly all of the major plot threads were tied up with a few small openings for a sequel. It still stings that I won’t ever see the true ending of the story set up so well across the previous three installments.

[@OmegaFox09]

Mass effect? It’ll probably be more like A$$ Effect

[@craserx6267]

and not in a good way if u know what i mean

[@k3salieri]

Ass Effect? Miranda has to be in it.

[@coffeefiend9492]

As other commenters have pointed out, the wording used didn't reference "sales", it referenced "number of players engaged", which includes Origin subscribers who got the 10 hour free trial, and of those the ones that chose not to continue to purchase. This implies the number of actual sales is far lower than the 1.5 million number of engaged users that is being used. Add to this the move six or seven years ago to Bioware being a one product game developer. Prior to Anthem, Bioware would release a game every two years or so, with two teams working concurrently on different projects with an overhead team that would develop DLC and move between the projects as necessary. This changed during Anthem's development, when Andromeda launched and there was a corresponding Dragon Age project to move to, the developers were piled into Anthem which bombed horribly compared to its development costs. Andromeda was a PR and reputation hit, as well as a financial disappointment after sales of around 3 million being less than half of Mass Effect 3's 7 million (pre-legendary edition). Still, Andromeda would have floated the company well enough through Anthem's development, but then the bloated development cost of that game (with reportedly around 800 developers in comparison to around 200 for Andromeda over 5 years for each), and the disappointing microtransactions sales (est 3.5 million) which wouldn't have met long term earning expectations, and it's easy to assume Bioware might be in the red. Fast forward to the only full on success story the company has had in 10 years; Mass Effect Legendary Edition would have brought in a lot of money, selling 14million units with a development cost of not very much considering the vast amount of the work being already done. This would likely be good enough to offset EAs feelings about andromeda and Anthem, and would have covered the veilguard development cycle, however I do not expect it was enough to float the company for the next 6 years while they work on Mass Effect 5 (which is an estimate based on Bioware's lengthening development cycles over time, their average dev cycle is now 6 years). My expectation is that EA are currently crunching numbers and deciding if the revenue from legendary edition will keep Bioware in business till the next Mass Effect game; if it can be ready for release by 2028 (earliest projected date), then the answer is probably yes (I don't think they'd need to do the maths if this wasn't the case). However, if they (as reported) are currently at the very early stages of Mass Effect 5's 6 years cycle now, (as is expected with the current state of development being reported as early pre-production), I expect the answer will be no and Bioware will be shut down. As of November 2024, the game was still reported to be in early pre-production, which has necessitated the redistribution of staff as reported this week in Eurogamer. With the vast majority of the Devs having already been repurposed to other EA projects while the ME 5 project begins pre-production, it is not a difficult stretch to expect that by April this year we may find that a large number of Bioware devs have either resigned, been laid off, or been absorbed permenantly into their current temporary assignments due to the impending closure of Bioware. In short, I am not hopeful for ME5.

[@markomejac8172]

Fact!

[@betacrest10]

Yeah, EA keeping quiet but i bet they're sharpening that axe. That's 3 strikes for bioware already.

[@01nm]

Close down Bioware. They don't deserve to stay open anymore.

[@alexschmitz3414]

They say 50% but we all know it was 25% at best.

[@MihaiKrieger]

I love seeing people finally vote with their wallets. It took long enough.

[@danieldochniak823]

The problem here is before EA buyout. BioWare was considered a small/moderate sized developer. Being bought out by ea and forced to all of a sudden start smashing out AAA games was a bad idea.

[@Courier_Eris]

7:20 the peoblem is that Bioware didnt know what audience they were creating for. Its nothing like the previous games so the loyal fanbase didnt want it, and the new players they were trying attract didnt know the series well enough to care.

[@IntrusiveThoughts838]

Remember everyone: they canned anymore dead space games because it “didn’t sell well” despite the remake having been a massive hit

[@silveraustinluna]

NEVER use Grubb as a source as he stole this story from Grummz and SmashJT.

[@inoel75]

I don't know... since both Grummz and SmashJT have proven to be highly unreliable in the past with their claims, I certainly wouldn't use them as scources, either. Yeah, sure, they were right in this case, but normaly they spread unverified rumors faster than I can say my name and most of those just turn out to be klickbait...

[@ChaosWolfRider]

@@inoel75 Dunno who Smash is, but Grummz is a known grifter, dude's been pumping an unfinished game for years, on top of having shit take after shit take.

[@maofria1452]

This 1,5 mi are not just sales, but engagement with the game throught EA play, Nvidia free game with graphic cards sales and so on. This game bombed harder than EA is admitting.

[@WarHeroA21]

Preemptive R.I.P. to whatever project Corrine gets involved with next can I get an F in chat

[@FoxHoundUnit90]

F

[@gulfofmexico1569]

What chat? You are in a comment section.

[@FoxHoundUnit90]

@@gulfofmexico1569it’s a meme bro…

[@WarHeroA21]

@ Blud is actually acting like he didn't know what I meant. lol nevermind straying from the meme, "Can I get an F in the comments section" just sounds like aids

[@QuentinMajor]

​@@gulfofmexico1569It's called the Gulf of America, BTW.

[@EvenstarTV]

You can see how they said 1.5 million players instead of "shipped and sold digitally". I don't believe it even sold that many copies to begin with, do they count people that borrowed the physical copy from a friend, or bought a pre owned copy as players too? As for the game, we know damn well why it failed.

[@gregoryrousseau5155]

EA: "Live Service Games" Gamers: 🤢🤮 Game Devs please take the hint...

[@someguy6152]

3:23 "As low as 54$", that's barely a sale, 4$ is practically nothing, "over 20% off", wait what? Oh, right publishers still think 70$ for a trash game is an acceptable price. Than again with recent rumors they think people will pay 100$ Good luck with that, as Legendary Drops said, 100$ is a mental cutting point, 60$ is easily acceptable, 70$ is pushing it, 80-90$ is debatable, but just hearing 100$ sends red flags, because it's a large round number, it's a very commont line that people draw when it comes to disposable income spending.

[@R1Prev]

They catered to the 1% of people and it shows 😂

[@zyphon551]

It's been 8 years people BioWare isn't turning it around at this point

[@oleksiistri8429]

yep, same fate as Blizzard

[@EskiZagra]

Where did the Bioware magic go? I thought there were wizards over there, with DEI spells and message bashing that somehow turns into gamer entertainment! This company is such a far cry from Bioware of the past...

[@vanyadolly]

It's ridiculous for them to claim Veilguard is the best performing DA game on Steam, because none of the others were day one releases on Steam.

[@drointhewind480]

Some marketing asshole got paid alot to draft that. And saying "engaged" instead of sold. Its not a spaceship

[@captainp367]

Another reason to never take Ign seriously They gave this game a 9

[@Blur4strike-2]

ign are the 'Faux News' for gaming and entertainment. Flash and no substance.

[@X5452MG1]

Great video 👍 maybe you can tidy up your display shelves a bit? You have a great collection but it's difficult to see all the cool individual items as it just looks like a giant pile all melted together

[@thatguyfawkes2328]

It's not even half of what they projected to sell they counted engagements not exclusively sale's in that report engagements means a combination of people playing on EA subscription and people who paid for it so it's actually much worse than they are outright admitting.

[@metadude1234]

EA: *pulls out all the stops for a consistently failing Bioware* Also EA: Dead Space remake did pretty good; no more for you.

[@F4n74.]

Remove Failguard from DA lore, plz.

[@shadowuaw-0001]

Mass Effect Andromeda is remembered as a dumpster fire, because they dropped all prromises and support for it almost immediately

[@brunoauriema5561]

And the sad thing is that ME: Andromeda is considered a good game nowadays, if you compare it to all the crap that was released later.

[@k3salieri]

​@@brunoauriema5561The only thing good about Andromeda is the Nomad. And Bioware didn't even make that. The NFS Team did.

[@alpotenciano4437]

Yeah. The part about the Disnified tone is exactly how I felt when I saw the very first trailer last year. It just felt like the game wanted to be fantasy Guardians of the Galaxy and that was a big nope from me.

[@Darkkfated]

Those character intro trailers are pure cringe. Goofy slapstick nonsense in what's supposed to be gritty fantasy game with racism, slavery, and world-ending threats.

[@Milocinia]

Veilguard doing more numbers on Steam than other Bioware games is a bullshit stat. The older Dragon Age games came to Steam YEARS after their initial release. Inquisition came to Steam after a year.

[@SparkyPokemon]

As a long term fan it hurts badly to see Bioware keep hitting misses since Inquisition. I joined the series back in DA2 which i know can be considered a problem child for many fans. However, i really loved the game & story it had. Veilgaurd was absolutely littered with so much lay offs and changing of hands im not surprised we got something of a mess. It should be highlighted that EA was trying to force Bioware to make it an online game that was multiplayer. It was the fans who pushed hard back and because of that EA actually listened. This is something you mentioned too. Unfortunately, this resulted in something of a reset for the production. This isnt something to easily come back from so it makes some sense for time frame. Even though it was 10 years since Inquisition, they probably only realistically got 3 years of production. My anger is mainly focused on EA and the higher ups who caused the huge layoff cycles. While i am mostly disappointed in what i had expectations for the story i am forever grateful we got something. Something of a conclusion is better than nothing imo. Of course others can say its better not to now that we have it but im glad those who worked on it got to see their work fulfilled instead of taken never to see the light of day.

[@davemorgoth9633]

If you push propaganda into your games and don’t listen to the playerbase and fans you deserve to get sacked. Plain and simple.

[@deanrichardson5460]

Honestly I don't want Mass Effect 4/5. 3 wrapped up the story decent enough and I don't trust current Bioware not to fuck it up.

[@mariovoid3909]

You would think someone at EA would look internally after such large blunders from BioWare and Dice and say what are we doing wrong here?

[@Darkkfated]

Admitting they might be wrong might hurt their ego though, and the narcissistic maniacs who run these companies can't even conceive of ever being wrong in even the slightest way about anything.

[@jbutler8585]

EA doesn't know anything except buying functional studios and hoping they magically stay that way. In extremely rare cases that has worked, so they think it's a winning and proven strategy. Besides, these days the core talent runs for the door the moment EA buys their studio. EA has no talent pool to replace them so the doomed studio needs to learn how to swim with its legs missing, or sink.

[@k3salieri]

Could it be because we fired all the developers? No, it's the players that are wrong!

[@Darkkfated]

@ Forget EA for a second, Herman Holst still has a job. He lost the company almost HALF A BILLION DOLLARS because he thought Concord could be the next (70's era) Star Wars. No one in a leadership role at Sony has the faintest clue what the fuck they're doing, and yet they're raking in all the money and prepping their golden parachutes for when the walls finally cave in and the rest of Sony can't absorb these horrendous live service losses anymore.

[@MoonBunnyLovers]

Nothing of value will be lost. BioWare is obviously not the same studio that made games you liked before. So they are already lost.