Dragon Age: Veil(GARBAGE)

[@UpperEchelon]

To support the channel: PATREON: www.patreon.com/UEG LOCALS: upperechelon.locals.com/support

[@crashzone6600]

Hope you can get a refund.

[@CleverCodger]

@UpperEchelon you have no idea how glad I am to see a video talking about this stuff (aside from all the poor storytelling I mean). I was a playtester for this over a year ago. I am an Origin and Books fanboy. Keeping queit about this was killing me but part of me was dead already "because what could have been but never was" broke my heart. Great video, thanks.

[@jeremiahkisimba5938]

You are wrong

[@deltasca]

return to form !

[@5226-p1e]

actually wokeness would explain all the things you mentioned wrong with this game, you have to think about the kinds of ppl they hired as talent to make this game, just as Ubisoft does, wokeness has a big part in why these games have gotten worse on so many scales, it's not just due to the content in game, it's due to the very ppl they hired to make the game.

[@Gray-beard]

The dialogue seems like trauma dumps from a teen's diary.

[@jfkst1]

That might be the best description yet.

[@markygray]

😂👏🏻

[@Zeegoku1007]

Woke teen*

[@Unapologeticweeb]

that and it gives me fallout 4 vibes i.e yes sarcastic yes no but actually yes

[@Holycurative9610]

Exactly what it sounds like, the whole game is made for 13 year old kids.

[@1un4cy]

If it wasn't dragon age, it wouldn't even sell a thousand copies.

[@ryanvacation7319]

They rode on mostly on brand recognition

[@BroBomba]

One of the best ways, if applicable, to judge a game is to separate it from its brand recognition and ask how well it would have done on its own. If the answer is bad, then the game is bad. Simple as.

[@MortiXD09]

yhm, cuckcord is good example.

[@BlaineCraner]

Exactly. For me it feels like a scam.

[@maxmillion7634]

Because your woke fanboy

[@yhoo1234]

This isn’t dragon age we gotta start realizing our favorite franchises are gone and dead

[@liamberthou-lochet6880]

Darksouls? Halo? Red Dead? GTA? Baldur's Gate? And i don't understand why, but CoD? Every good things comes to an end, so ofc franchises are gonna die, but cmon now... Still plenty to choose from.

[@yhoo1234]

@ halo hasn’t been good in 10 years Darksouls,red dead redemption,and gta haven’t dropped a game in 6 years im interested to see what they put out in this new gaming industry Baldurs gate was amazing Cod same game every year We are in a severe media quality decline

[@liamberthou-lochet6880]

@@yhoo1234 So you didnt like halo infinite, mildly hyped about DS, RD and GTA's next game but still fault them for not pumping up more games like cod, wich you criticize for making the same game every year... At least we agree about BG3. "havent droped a game in 6 years" dude, how many genre defining master pieces do you need per decade?!?!? Wheres the decline?!?! And what about cyberpunk/CD Project?

[@Relhio]

Dragon Age pretty much died after the first game... I don't see how none of you understand they wanted to take the game in a very different direction. The desperation and hopelessness thematic of Origins was gone in the second game that just focused on a civil war between Templars and Mages and was made into an action rpg instead of a crpg. DA is just a series of 4 vastly different games that tries to aim for different audiences every single time. You either understand and accept that already or you can just pretend that it was Origins being mangled and twisted and be angy about it.

[@amalekedomite]

@@liamberthou-lochet6880 GTA will be woke slop. If you don't already know this you are being willfully ignorant. Darksouls is a rarity, and one franchise. The last halo was crap and the TV show was worse. Woke crap. New Cod is also crap. Bad networking, awful map design, woke narrative. Etc. Cyberpunk is one game. And CD project proved they cannot be trusted with it's release. You need a longer memory. Stop resetting it at the behest of marking executives.

[@shaicat]

A lot of the dialogue in game does 100% feel like the characters aren't talking to each other, but are talking directly to _you,_ the player. And usually in a way that is patronizing at best and outright insulting at worse. It's childish, it's not Dragon Age, it's garbage.

[@macrohotline8834]

The Best dialogue directed at player iv seen is in honkai games, man those devs like talk to players and troll them Hard

[@GoldenChild_jpeg]

100%, Well said.

[@kev95]

Well said.

[@marxs1032]

👏👏👏

[@judgywudgy]

For real, it's like they designed the dialogue solely for tiktoks and creating "viral moments"

[@Davitron_87]

Skill Up saying “Every conversation sounds like HR is in the room with you.” is possibly the most damning critique of the writing in this game.

[@Julenissen117]

I think the writing reflect the writers, how they interact with other people. Imagine having to work with these people.

[@parkinsonvibes3812]

is there an original comment in the room w you

[@Escalusfr]

​@@parkinsonvibes3812Why be original when someone else already has found a better way of saying it? The truth is you're mad that people call out your beloved "modern audience" game

[@ThomasAndy-qu8dp]

such a great sentence to trully tell you how bad the dialogue is going to be.

[@stephenmeinhold5452]

it looks like they are getting writers from DEI the people that have openly said the the message is more important.

[@DreamsOfLegend]

"Commercially successful"? I dunno about that because with 9 years of development and an estimated 200-300 million development cost. They need to sell 4-5 million JUST to break even. 89k Steam player count for launch weekend and being generous to say it sold a million copies means they're STILL $150+ million underwater

[@CatsOverdrive]

And even if, _somehow,_ it manages to become a "top seller" now, it would actually spell doom for the series in the future; What's worst than a good game that didn't sell? A bad game that DID. Because unlike the former, which most likely get a cult classic following and reputation(potentially getting them a good second wind). The latter would slowly sour and erode the series' reputation in the long run as it goes under popular scrutiny as time goes. How many times have we seen other movie, tv, and videogame franchises die this way; as alot of people suddenly dropped out because they got burned out from seeing one big sh!tty title/sequel/episode.

[@Izbiski_]

Remember they had a superbowl ad for this game, and the bribery money for large outlets, and the other marketing costs, it needs to make half a billion dollars to break even, think about that, this isn't as bad as Concord, but it's still a massive failure.

[@GaijinMecha]

Yeah between marketing and development this game is going to lose money, it's not commercially successful.

[@bluecalx40]

You get it broke records for ea and bioware right?

[@bluecalx40]

​@@Izbiski_this is just baloney.

[@DragonfoxShadow]

Bioware will not go back to making good games, because people who made those good games no longer work there

[@TheSuperappelflap]

Exactly.

[@abovewater6918]

Speaking of which, I highly recommend everyone go check out the upcoming "Exodus" space game. It is made by the old and real Bioware team, the ones that left the company after making the Mass Effect Trilogy

[@drip1orddior]

Only Drew Karpyshyn can save them

[@FFTM155]

​@@abovewater6918 keep you hype checked, they are under wizards of the coast publisher.

[@HiddenStr3ngth]

@@drip1orddior Nothing can save them. 0 chance.

[@wetalkinb0utpractice]

HR: The RPG

[@TheOrangeRoad]

The HRPG?

[@randomka-52alligatorthatis34]

Human Resources: The RPG​@@TheOrangeRoad

[@allenwalker957]

​@@TheOrangeRoad that is a very different kind of rpg....and a better written kind as well 😂

[@The_Primary_Axiom]

@@TheOrangeRoadHR PR RPG

[@TheBlackSeraph]

@@The_Primary_Axiom PCRPG?

[@michaeltalpas]

It’s like I keep saying. They make bad games, then use their identity as a shield against criticism.

[@michaeltalpas]

“But the games were woke before!” Sure. But they were also good, fun games with interesting dialogue.

[@bluemutt9964]

​@@michaeltalpasI would argue part of what makes something "woke" is presenting a dilemma to you, but only wanting you to choose one side from the start. Not letting you think for yourself and lecturing you, I'd look at old Star Trek vs New Trek for comparison.

[@michaeltalpas]

@@bluemutt9964 There are degrees as well. A certain amount of politics or 'pet ideology' of a writer is acceptable. Where, if the story is good, but gets a bit preachy on one topic, you can roll your eyes and move on. But when the entire thing is preachy? And you aren't even allowed to disagree? That is way too much. I would argue that makes it a bad game. But, either way you look at it, it is unacceptable.

[@panemon187]

Reee! If don't like this game then you are a hughite supremacist. Reeeee!

[@therdku]

If you think about it, let's be real, most of these people in charge of diversity and inclusion, have absolutely no qualification or competence, not only for the job they have, but for any job. Thus, it makes sense that they want the writing to be bad, so it generates controversy, so they can then point fingers and say "look all the baddies hating the game because of x identity politics reason" and justify the existence of their job. People who make money and thrive off controversy and discord, have absolutely 0 interest in making good things that can bring people from various backgrounds together.

[@anonanon3112]

The Taash character is absolutely a furry self insert for one of the mentally deranged writers. The "rawr nuzzles U" writing on that character throughout is absolutely shocking. This used to be Dark Fantasy.

[@R-SXX]

Furry?

[@ephraimwinslow]

@@R-SXX It has phoquing horns.

[@R-SXX]

@@ephraimwinslow But...horns arent really...furry? I hae no clue, but I thoguht furries are cats and stuff

[@ephraimwinslow]

@@R-SXX A furry is any anthropomorphic mammal. Basically. Scalies are lizards. I do not and *ACTIVELY DON'T WANT TO* know what it is for birds, fish, or invertebrates.

[@ephraimwinslow]

@@R-SXX All anthropomorphic mammals fall under that heading. "Scaly" is for reptiles. I don't (and don't want) to know what the terms are for the rest of the animal kingdom.

[@patnor7354]

Cringy dialogue and modern issues IS a valid critique and a giant negative for a dark medieval fantasy rpg...

[@levishaun8334]

Dragon Age has always been very progressive for a strictly medieval fantasy setting and had modern-ish lingo, - not quite unlike The Witcher books really. It's a feature. Problem is, it used to be very tasteful and mature about it, as opposed to aggressively lecturing the audience and treating them like actual children.

[@ephraimwinslow]

@@levishaun8334 Oh shut UP. They had lesbians and gays who acted lesbian and gay. Calling that "progressive" is such a phoquing misrepresentation of what progressivism even is. Favourable examples of people from a given demographic have NOTHING to do with progressivism. Progressivism insists that: 1) The writer DIRECTLY LECTURE THE PLAYER THROUGH THE SCREEN IN A COMPLETELY NON-DIAGETIC FASHION EVERY CHANCE THEY GET. 2) The writers tear down and VILLIFY given demographics in order to make others seem sympathetic.

[@keqet12]

​​@@levishaun8334The first game didnt have scenes lecturing about gender identity. Also the scene where Taash is increasingly angry at her confused mother for not immediately understanding what a non binary is just plain bad writing and self inserting.

[@Bluelyre]

​@@ephraimwinslow that was what being progressive was two decades ago: having people in your media that were homosexual and not making a big deal out of it. What we have now isn't progressive by any definition of the word anyway. It's by far the most regressive rhetoric to ever assault my eyes and ears.

[@ephraimwinslow]

@@Bluelyre I'm going by the word as it's used presently. Not its historical usage a quarter of a century hence. Because doing the latter would basically achieve nothing except running cover for the former. (I know, it sucks, but there's no getting around it.)

[@derekgunnels4856]

The gameplay actually looks like a mobile game. The companion "control" or lack thereof and entire UI looks so simplified and cartoonish

[@bluecalx40]

Wow, you clearly have no clue of what you're speaking about

[@Litepaw]

Imagine going to Mcdonald's and ordering a big mac, but then they angrily bring out a cold vegan burger while lecturing you about how meat is murder. "Bruh what's this? This isn't what I ordered" "HEY LOOK EVERYONE, THIS GUY *_HATES_* VEGANS AND DOESN'T THINK VEGANS HAVE THE RIGHT TO EXIST"

[@CoenBijpost]

Yep, pretty much on the nose

[@ngamashaka4894]

Wow this vegan girl is psychic or something? I do hate them, maybe that is why Kamala speaks like she was mumbling a Gypsy curse everyone she open her mouth... Too bad for those witches, we do not vote on the 31 of October

[@Midg-td3ty]

they chose to only make a cold vegan burgers. There is no Big Mac on the menue. This is why you do not order. Or go to the the restaurant And the problem resolves itself because the restaurant that only makes cold vegan burgers will go out of business. Bioware is a vegan fast food chain with low quality ingredients. So act accordingly. I dont even complain. Bioware Blizzard Ubisoft are all vegan chains. I just dont go to there.

[@Silverblade416]

Then they beg you to buy it, when you're already out the door with no money spent, no burger, no reaction. Heck, you didn't even take the cold vegan burger, even when they were begging you to take it for free. . . Sigh. Why is this even happening in the first place? And they're the only ones in the whole situation whose minds break in the line between begging, pleading and raving mad, furious at the end. Tl;dr, they are the only ones reacting wildly at the end.

[@aavon2316]

Great analogy! Spot on

[@bradleighb]

Nothing says "immersion" like top scars in a medieval fantasy video game.

[@Draconic.]

And nothing says "fantasy fan" like trying to defend it.

[@ethanwasme4307]

too scared to ask what a top scar is

[@lang1892]

RESPECT MY AUTHORITAH BIGOT

[@JamJam23212]

​@@ethanwasme4307Mutilation scars*

[@TheHijabiGamer]

​@@ethanwasme4307Scars from surgery to remove the chest of a woman who wants to be a man

[@johannderjager4146]

The issue is that like it or not, there is a "culture war". We have self-righteous narcissists who see entertainment as a way to push their own ideology for self-congratulatory gratification instead of making escapist entertainment.

[@amalekedomite]

No. You have to ignore it. Or you are a bigot. Don't look up what bigot means. It means evil or white. Which are the same thing.

[@etunimisukunimi5890]

And this answers all the "why are they praising this?" questions.

[@amalekedomite]

@@etunimisukunimi5890 It's woke all the way down. Why is it bad? They hired people for skin colour and ethnicity, not talent Why is the dialogue cringy and weak? It was written by someone who was hired for being a transvestite. Why is it getting good reviews? It's ideologically pure and the whole industry is a cult Why are the levels poorly designed? The level designers don't play video games and dont like people who do. Etc People like Upper Echelon, who subsist on the scraps of Jyoutubes monitisation system, are required by their paymasters to pretend anything else is the problem. Welcome to weimar.

[@shadowpathfinder7723]

Remember when the normies in Minneapolis didn't care about politics, and then politics came and burned a quarter of their city down? Pepperidge Farm remembers. Like politics or not you have to pay attention to it or you have to vote to go back to the landowners-only way of voting

[@amalekedomite]

@@shadowpathfinder7723 People who don't want to talk about it are one of two camps: 1)cowards, scared of being labeled impure for not following the NPC programming 2)ignorant people. ignorant of history. Ignorant of philosophy. Ignorant of sociology. etc. They think it doesn't matter. They don't know how quickly it can all come crumbling down. People think that because they've never been eaten by a lion they never weill be eaten by a lion, so when you point out the escaped zoo lion running towards them they call you crazy.

[@TornadicTitan17]

"you defeat Solas immediately" was enough for me to know that I never want to touch this game

[@maxhax367]

Yeah. Not even gonna bother pirate it

[@nado1908]

And he was actually a good guy all along and stopping him was a bad thing that frees the elven gods and causes the rest of the game to happen. Also Varric dies.

[@MMORPGFreaky]

@@nado1908 But you fight him at the end again but only in a cutscene its sooooooo bad

[@grunerkaktus]

Wasnt a fan of him in Inquisiton, but the twist in the end was at least an interesting setup. Hearing he does not really matter kind of destroys the whole twist in Inquisition too. I have written D&D campaigns with more cohesion than this lol

[@Eisenwulf666]

​@@grunerkaktusthis seems like a badly written Dnd campaign. The weird characters, the basic and linear storyline, the unappealing bland mobs of monster fodder, it's textbook green DM writing. " Ok guys, you have to stop this bad dude, you need to hurry and stop the ritual.Ok, my NPC(secretly my character from a previous game) will talk to him, keep the monsters busy. Uh,oh you messed up..he was good all along, now (rolls a d4) you Rook are connected with him. Ok, you now have a cool base of operation, discuss what you want to do next"

[@retro_451]

The gaming industry is headed for a crash. Thank God we have such a great backlog from the last few decades, since the last one, to see us through.

[@AL-lh2ht]

The game industry literally has record profits.

[@ScottyDont1945]

​@AL-lh2ht record profits don't mean much, inflations gone up massively in the last few years and while nearly every major company is making record profits the truth Is a lot of them are struggling to maintain the same profit level relevant to the inflation

[@1un4cy]

@@AL-lh2ht in gacha and predatory microtransactions mostly

[@kaito462]

it's the indie game era now, go support them instead

[@thesheeepjd]

Tell me you've missed out on great indies without telling me you've missed out on great indies. Screw the AAA industry, the small ones are where the gameplay is at (and now the writing, too, it seems).

[@DarkstarArchangel]

One of the main writers being a Kotaku slanderer that made an unjust attack against a Persona song, that was more than enough that this game was a HUGE red flag.

[@Selrisitai]

I don't see what's so bad about slandering Kotaku.

[@Kratos263]

​@@Selrisitai I think he meant "a guy who is a slanderer who worked for Kotaku"

[@DarkstarArchangel]

@@Kratos263 Yeah.

[@boobah5643]

If I've got my timeline right, the person in charge of _Veilguard_ was promoted from the depths of _The Sims_ team that forced transgenderism into that game and implied you were a bigot if you didn't want those modern politics in your escapism.

[@kirbyfan4]

Oh no, was it the one that said “persona song in smash bros has a disability slur”

[@saturn580]

The writer's self-insert character isn't unlikable because she is mentally ill, but rather because she is idiotic, arrogant and narcissistic. Instead of presenting these glaring personal flaws as an opportunity for improvement and growth, the writers force the player to accept her horrible behavior as being perfectly acceptable and justified. Even if I shared the writer's willful ignorance of basic biological reality, I would still think their obnoxious portrayal of this character is a huge failure.

[@VallornDeathblade]

We have self insert characters, characters being omniscient based on what the writer knows, near Mary Sue levels of "everyone loves me" around some characters, and the "best" ending is just lovebombing Solas until he decides that no, he actually doesn't want to restore the pre-veil world now because... I'm afraid I'm not sure why, I lost interest after the second character appeared from nowhere to try and talk him down and before the third one literally swooped from the sky to deliver a hologram letter to him. Whoever was lead writer on this mess should never be allowed to live it down.

[@TheTommy9898]

is that the non binary cow lady? She just seems like a massive pervert to me lol.

[@Poppa_Capinyoaz]

The same thing is the exact reason why Forspoken sucks. The main character pretends they're awesome, when they're an actual bag of feces.

[@gleipnirrr]

exactly this: these people have clearly lived in progressive bubbles where no one has called them out on being awful due to their status as a protected group. and don't get me wrong, i don't think they should live in environments that lack safety where they get harassed, but living in the literal opposite of that has created these narcissist adult children that literally need to grow up, and you can see it in the media they create

[@lelagrangeeffectphysics4120]

@@gleipnirrr Its more or less what we have seen in Concord, a space of absolute toxic positivity where hard question may as well be called harassment, echelon is trying very hard to side step the woke argument and trying to point out the basic gameplay mistakes they have made but the problem IS that woke work culture that turns a game studio into the directors and his friends playground where calling out problems is absolutely prohibited.

[@TropicaIJay]

I hate using the word "Woke" but this absolutely might be the most woke game of 2024. Alot of the dialogue feels like it came straight out of a California college

[@evennoteven]

All this dialogue came out straight from BlackRock office.

[@hankskorpio5857]

Exactly, I do not enjoy agreeing with Trump loving cousin fkn troglodytes but this game goes well beyond what could be considered reasonably "woke". Also this franchise has always been bad... One and Two had ok writing everything else belongs in a trash bin.. Derivative, Ugly as hell, Truely terrible art direction cant say that enough its always been that way... Worse though there is no Dragon Age gameplay... they change it every game... is that evidence that they have any confidence in this series? Lmao They had just enough exposure this year for people to finally notice... the "woke" stuff is just the shit flavored icing...

[@AL-lh2ht]

@@evennoteven dude thinks a hedge fund cares about trans people.

[@AL-lh2ht]

woke means anything you want it to so everything is woke

[@RedWolfenstein]

Its worse than dustborn just because of the name they use

[@ZachSeineVideos]

This sounds like this is someone's power-fantasy DnD campaign where nothing bad ever happens.

[@AyanneCZ]

I fully expect EA to use the failure of DA:V to justify focusing on live service and battle passes and micro transactions. "See? We made a AAA single player game with no DLCs and you spat in our face! I told you nobody wanted single player games anymore. Live service is the future."

[@rigell2764]

And people won't buy that one either

[@pazz1239]

I hope they do take that lesson and make another concord. We are all definitely hyped for itl

[@brucevandermescht6957]

And then those games will fail too.

[@allnamestakenlol]

If I have to choose between insulting garbage like Veilguard and live-service slop I can auto ignore, I'll take the latter.

[@ReGHeo]

Nah I think EA won’t make that statement , think about the suicide squad.

[@Animusical216]

This is not a medieval fantasy game. This is a political fantasy statement.

[@stephenmeinhold5452]

it is it realy is, how do they get away with it.

[@jakubs.5966]

@@stephenmeinhold5452 What do you mean how? They attached it to the huge franchise, look up how many units were sold when Inquisition came out. 12 million. This game will get lucky to sell 1 million.

[@DauntlessChaos]

@@stephenmeinhold5452 because art. or something. never mind the millions of wasted dollars... gotta get that agenda out.

[@dorugoramon0518]

@@stephenmeinhold5452 Nepotism and funding from blackrock.

[@outforbeer]

How could you say it’s a commercial success ? They are far from making back their investment. If it was a small studio, the number would be impressive, but it’s a triple a studio that needs a million concurrent players to be a successful

[@BigALBoomer]

Awful voice actors. Awful writing. In a story based rpg that’s enough to never buy this no matter how bargain bin it goes

[@diomedes7971]

It's honestly insulting with what they did go Solas. Inquisition clearly was setting up the Inquistor as the main character and Solas the main villain for Veil Guard. And it clearly got hijacked and both characters were sidelined.

[@00spinz35]

​@diomedes7971 I think you're incorrect about the inquisitor ever being thr main character for dragon age 4 , doesn't fit with the different PC each gamw

[@rattlehead999]

I don't think the voices are bad, but the delivery and to be fair with this garbage dialogue how do you deliver it to make it sound good?

[@dubstepXpower]

Yeah echelon focus on game play is a bit weird considering the reason I play RPGs is more the writing and story. It's why the Witcher, mass effect etc are amazing

[@diomedes7971]

​@@00spinz35it makes perfect sense, they made your companion as the big bad guy for the next game. That was what made the dynamic interesting, and loses any weight when you play a new random character.

[@AnonYmous-np6jn]

Pulling a Barf 🤢

[@carnivorehitman]

🤣🤣🤣

[@BlueGreyWolf]

"Got to barf 10 times...." 😅😂

[@Zeegoku1007]

I'd rather fart 😂

[@Oozaru85]

Its spelled Barve. I demand 60 push ups for that misstep.

[@bogdany.4505]

*BRAAAAAAAAAP*

[@FeliPeltier]

Taash might be the worst written character in the history of video games

[@sagacity1071]

I would argue that the politics annoying you hurts the gameplay too.

[@Drako9823]

Losing suspension of disbelief actively makes me lose interest in a stories stakes-if it ever had any to begin with. Its why I never finished skyrim to this day.

[@MoreImbaThanYou]

I love how this Qunari woman became the poster child for this games stupidity.

[@cashuflakbreakdancer]

Ummm did you just assume the Qunari's gender??? You truly are despicable brother

[@veggsbacon1891]

Good It's kinda like steven universe is one of the poster child things for western animation.

[@MoreImbaThanYou]

@@cashuflakbreakdancer I can live with that.

[@MacSmithVideo]

It's not commercially successful! What are you talking about? It might limp too a million sales, which isn't even halfway to profitability. You're just flat out wrong here.

[@Selrisitai]

What did he say?

[@danieltoro4917]

@@Selrisitai 17:09

[@AtakenSmith]

Yeah I just don't get what he is talking about as a fact here. 90k peak on steam? That's nothing for a game this big....

[@stevencarmichael1985]

@@AtakenSmithEspecially when you take into account how long the game was in development for plus marketing costs.

[@Zyklon_B_still_and_know_God]

Bg3 player count went up after release this is struggling to maintain a consistent player count 😂😂😂

[@adrunkhomelesguy8675]

Im still playing Space Marine 2. By the Emperor, I shan't be playing this heresy.

[@jesseM138]

I'm so glad a AAA studio made a game in the 2020's that doesn't have its head up its own ass and just wants to be a fun time.

[@NikopolAU]

Emperor protects.

[@wastelandking]

Such heresy shall not stand under the Emperor's watch. I stand with you, brother.

[@mostinterestingmeme9127]

Brothers, I have yet to cross the Rubicon, and I must acquire a new cogitator. Know this, I look forward to joining you in battle! The Emperor protects!

[@nick_the_padbreaker]

It wasn't commercially successful, reaching only 89,000 concurrent players on Steam. By comparison, "Dragon's Dogma 2" peaked at 228,000, "Baldur's Gate 3" reached 875,000, and "Black Myth: Wukong" even hit 2.4 million concurrent players. This game is a commercial failure.

[@diomedes7971]

Dragon Dogma 2 looks like it is being treated as a commercial failure too. Director left, no news what so ever about any future expansion.. Minimal patching.

[@ZuperPhresh]

yeah i dunno about that one 10 years of dev time. they have a lot of revenue to make up.

[@rodrickplum2989]

​@diomedes7971 wasn't because its a failure it was because they didn't really respect his work and he was done imo.

[@verro9953]

@@diomedes7971 Director and the studio had fallout. Same result probably, but it's a different beast.

[@HuNtOziO]

There's way more than just steam such a EA origin and consoles and it had a lot of pre orders. Kinda wish it failed though even as a DA fan so Bioware know people don't want this Garbage writing.

[@Barni2212]

Deep down you know it, we know it, everybody knows it why the game is how it is. Look at the game director, look at the main writer. Imagine trying to criticise them. You would be fired on the spot because of transphobia and microaggression.

[@danielschiman767]

Hear hear Solzhenitsyn! ☝

[@Odder-Being]

A commercial success you say? You might want to go over the numbers again because to break even they need a million+ more sales for that to happen. And that's not going to happen.

[@МилошЛазић-щ4м]

Close to 4-5 million just to break-even.

[@aahzmandiaz2767]

Yes, please do some more math. Calculate the factor in, that a studio of this size worked for ten years on it.

[@codykensington1424]

​@aahzmandiaz2767 10+ years of dev wages, scrapped twice, and an obscene level of advertising spending. All for 89k peak player on release weekend on steam. Wukong was at 99k over the same weekend and released over a month ago.

[@asawarai]

@@aahzmandiaz2767 Hundreds of employees working on the game for a decade, plus a gigantic marketing budget pushing ads for it everywhere. They probably need $300M or more in sales just to recoup their costs which is over 4 million copies.

[@Odder-Being]

@@МилошЛазић-щ4м I looked it over again and it's indeed closer to 4 million copy's.

[@YeOldeMachine]

Makes perfect sense that it's basically a mobile game. The modern audience made this game, and they dont play games like this. They play Candy Crush and Raid: Shadow Legends.

[@VladK-1]

Truth bomb. Indeed, content in, content out. Bioware only keeps the old name...

[@michaelsilvers1260]

While pooping in the gender neutral bathroom.

[@SpankMyFace]

Don't saddle all of us with this, especially since mobile "gamers" consist of 95% women.

[@THE16THPHANTOM]

0:13 does this dude not look like dwarf character. the proportions are off. the scaling is off.

[@trinity9517]

To make a judgement on how successful a game is, I often look at the number of reviews. For DA there are a total across PlayStation and Steam of around 17K and for Silent Hill 2, this number is around 32K. So let's call it half as much. Also, DA has sold only around 3K PlayStation copies in the last month on Amazon best sellers in the US, compared to Silent Hill 2's 10k. Yes, it has a higher player count on Steam, but DA is also much cheaper on Steam (especially in Europe/UK), where you could say it's been on sale since day one. To say it's commercially successful with what looks like around half the sales of Silent Hill 2 with a much larger budget is a stretch.

[@daruddock]

It's also aimed at a wider audience, whereas Silent Hill 2 is obviously very limited in the people who will enjoy it.

[@MeltonCrest]

Failguard was also given away for free through partnerships like GeForce Now, a little fact they all like to ignore.

[@cp1cupcake]

The biggest question I have to determine if it was a success is to ask what the budget was. If it was something like 1/10th of most of the estimated budgest I have seen, then it has made a profit. But to put in context, I think the only release Bioware had which made even close to its dev cost since DA:I was the Mass Effect Remaster. And that doesn't include 3 games they worked on which were never released.

[@JGD199]

This game is not “commercially successful”. Yet. They likely spent 100-150 million to make this game (8 years with 350-500 salaries) plus another 50+ million to market it. That means it must sell anywhere from 4-6 million copies to break even. Inquisition sold 10 million copies. I seriously doubt this mobile game with woke politics will break even or if it does, make much money for EA. It will definitely be forgotten like Andromeda was (except to be memed) so we’ll see what happens but I want BioWare to lose money so that changes are made obviously, because this is atrocious

[@seanthompson8071]

@@JGD199 Yeah ... let's see the sales in a year from now compared with D.A. Inquisition.

[@thesheeepjd]

I'd strongly challenge you on the notion that this game is commercially successful. Just looking at the Steamcharts numbers: Not even 1/10th of starting players of eg Hogwarts Legacy. Barely 13k reviews after one week. Pretty clear decline in average players already (not totally sure if such a drop is normal after not even a week). Owner estimations not even 500k. Already dropping in top sellers from the looks of it. In addition: Viewers on streaming services dropped like a hot potato. Now, this game is not only sold on Steam, of course. But those numbers do not mark a commercial success for such a large project - not a complete failure, either, mind you. But certainly way below what they hoped for.

[@arkgaharandan5881]

cultofmush who likes the game and all he does is look at steamcharts and deals said he disagrees that this game is doing good and he compared it to other games.

[@cyka_delik9537]

Yep. You're right. Owner estimations are way too low to cover a 10 year development cost. This game is not a commercial success. It has no staying power. Word of mouth is killing this game. Most of the copies have already been sold. There was also the recent announcement that there will be no DLC...because they know it would sell like shit now that the game is actually out and people realize what a POS it is.

[@Sarazoul]

​​@@arkgaharandan5881bg3 has more concurrent players and this game releases 15 months ago. It didn't flop, but it's a mild success at best. And I don't think EA is going to be content with that.

[@Dajudge06]

Also wonder just how many copies were given away.

[@thatundeadlegacy2985]

it has the same amount of and score as other DA games sadly.

[@bogdany.4505]

17:14 >Claims this game is a commercial success >Refund rate on steam is one never seen before for 3A games >Game was given away for free with Nvidia hardware >Barely racking 100k players on launch despite succesful indie games manage to do more He fell for the game journalists propaganda Edit: bioware anounced that there will be no dlc's. Ever seen a 3A game that did good not receive any dlc? Yea me neither. Especially consideraring thats EA we are talking about here? Get a grip man...

[@Kratos263]

UpperEchelon is currently like those people who think they are "fighting against toxicity" by ignoring the woke movement, when they are in fact the ones being toxic by ignoring it. At least he still has his head on his shoulders when it comes to game quality

[@MagosCavantis]

Of course the wokeness makes the game bad. It is the whole reason why the charakters talk like a bunch of US college students and give us a completely politcally poisened RP experience.

[@gorillagroddgaming]

Exactly. Upper Echelon is just another normie who has overly safe opinions like asmon and critical

[@r3dr4te963]

I bet if the game being "Very alt-right", people would not afraid to criticize the game for forcing value.

[@sakaaali]

Yeah, the woke dialogue is a symptom of the same root cause that tarnishes the rest of the writing and probably most other facets of this game's design - the people working on it read, think and talk about identity all day everyday. Identity and progressive politics is their entire frame of reference, maybe with a dash of current day Disney slop sprinkled on top.

[@joshuatucker2521]

​@r3dr4te963 that's a good point. Imagine having pro 2A dialogue in a medieval RPG.. lmao. They'd be losing their shit. And that's not even a far right ideal

[@HamHamHampster]

The sales would be a lot better if it actually resonates with most college students.

[@ShishouDzukiZaManako]

they prioritized their fetish over the quality of the game.

[@InquisitorAstelon]

"It's not bad because it's woke." Yes it is. Reject all woke nonsense.

[@yihadistxdl951]

the woke isnt what made the game bad. the dogshit writing and bad design choices are what make the game bad. the woke is just an indicator of these things because turns out that hiring incompetent sjw activists in executive positions instead of competent and accomplished writers will end up with a garbage product. its like hiring a car mechanic as a brain surgeon and being surprised when the patient dies on the surgery table. the problem is that these incompetent morons were hired on the sole merit that theyre woke activists, so thats why the woke just follows. it would have been just as bad if they just hired regular incompetent morons, just minus the woke.

[@dorugoramon0518]

Wokeness is generally a sign of creative bankruptcy, because they've hired political activists instead of true creatives. Its the result of out of control HR departments out of touch with reality who hire solely to fill quotas without caring about the quality of their product,

[@iaintwritebacktho7230]

You must hate Baldur's Gate 3 then you little child

[@Konnor1224]

I agree reject this garbage, in all it's forms!

[@ephraimwinslow]

@@iaintwritebacktho7230 "I'm OK with just the tip." -You, just now.

[@joep1780]

I don't believe this was financially successful. Ten years in development. This is likely a $400-500 million budget. I don't think they came anywhere close to the 15 million copies sold to even break even.

[@Darkeus1]

Yeah I don't think this game will even sell 6 million.

[@TheHalfwayXBray]

I also agree, the peak player count was a bit past 70k and for a triple A game that is not anywhere near enough copies to make money or even break even

[@jesseM138]

It's funny how people who desperately want to defend this game prop up the player count on Steam, doing absolutely zero research that would immediately debunk those numbers as being a "success".

[@vulfreyde]

Even the reviews are dropping now by 1% every day. In a couple of days it will be mixed again.

[@arkgaharandan5881]

@@Darkeus1 seems a big high.

[@DoublePlus-Ungood]

I have to disagree completely with you initial "it's bad because". This group wants to "force" a completely new language upon me. IF I was forced to say "Amen" after each address to them or "God willing, we can..." in same manner I would be equally upset. 150,000 years of language and culture worldwide is being usurped in 5 years. Therefore it IS bad for just "going along" with the mania. It's already seeing people "breaking the law" in parts of Europe for "misgenderings. This is the Inquisition no pun indended.

[@AL-lh2ht]

I get it, you mad you can no longer use slurs, very sad.

[@Supadrumma441]

Gr8 b8 m8 i r8 it 0/8. Try harder ​@@AL-lh2ht

[@oopomopoo]

This dude replying to most comments, he has no life. May be she? It? They? I don't care, he's an ass. I'm going to intentionally misgender they them xe xer. 🤓

[@diomedes7971]

​​@AL keep it up, you're only creating more people against you with the disingenuous comments.

[@MakerInMotion]

​@@AL-lh2ht"Slurs" 😂😂😂

[@Izbiski_]

I'm going to disagree with you on "commercial success", there is zero way that Veilguard has recouped its production costs, let alone its marketing costs. The 90k sales on steam combined with likely 240k on consoles, if I'm being generous, isn't even close to enough to make back the at least 100 million in dev costs, which doesn't include promotional events, totally not bribing larger media outlets, and having a superbowl ad. Let's just say that 100% of the sticker price went to EA/Bioware, that's 330k*70, and that's not assuming pricing differences internationally, that's 23 Million dollars. They need quadruple their sales in order to break even with developer costs, octuple current sales in order to likely break even with marketing included, and only then would they start making profits. Even if I double or triple current sales, they are still in the red for this game. It wasn't Concord, but I have to say this is a gargantuan failure for EA and Bioware.

[@Verboten_Joey]

Veilguard launched five days ago. It seems premature to evaluate whether it will be a commercial success.

[@Izbiski_]

@Verboten_Joey a majority of sales happen within the first week, unless it's an indie game that has a spike in popularity due to unforeseen events, such as Among Us. If it hasn't reached even 50% of budget within the first weekend, it's a financial failure.

[@Astro_Vagabond]

Peak mediocrity for peak mediocre people.

[@kccts44]

I also think steam is removing reviews. Hard to prove… so I’m just suspecting. There is also a CRAZY amount of positive reviews with exactly 3 hours of playtime, but only played at time of launch, wrote their review and didn’t touch the game since writing the review. Just suspicious ppl bought the game, gave it a positive review, then didn’t play it again all weekend

[@jesseM138]

Yeah, and a lot of those "positive" reviews fully acknowledge the poor writing, repetitive gameplay etc. but then somehow end with a thumbs up. That, and the reviews marked by the community as "most helpful", which are all negative, aren't even shown on the game's Steam page. You have to click "see all reviews". You're not wrong to be suspicious.

[@BroBomba]

​@jesseM138 I noticed that too. A bunch of people tearing into the game only to give it thumbs up. Weird.

[@dsfs17987]

can you if those "people" have any achievements in game proving they actually played for those 3 hours? or it is just steam recording how long the executable was running and I think you know where I'm going with this, even achievements could be faked if the effort comes directly form game producer

[@MeltonCrest]

@@dsfs17987 Steam starts recording "playtime" and "players in game" the moment you launch the executable that's why Concord still had "players in game" after it was shut down.

[@cp1cupcake]

@@jesseM138 I also remember seeing positive reviews which ended with "do _not_ buy this game."

[@j.a.velarde5901]

#UpperEchelon -- NO. -- The primary issue is that we are PURCHASING ENTERTAINMENT, not Politics. Especially not politics that even the corporations don't really accept, and simply use for revenue. -- The POLITICS IS the reason for the lack of depth in the game, AND the lack of respect to the franchise. --

[@mikemccoy7931]

Bingo

[@dorugoramon0518]

Yes, I guarantee they were hiring based on ticking boxes rather than for actual talent, because actual talent would have shutdown this game's memeworthily horrible dialogue.

[@lance134679]

My working hypothesis is that DEI eventually infects studios to the point where it's nearly impossible to put out a good game. They prioritize "the message" over everything else. They spend too much time in DEI seminars. They structure bonuses around participation in DEI-related activities instead of job performance. They foster a toxically positive work environment where everyone is afraid to challenge any decisions or direction. They walk on eggshells constantly in fear of offending someone. And worst of all, they replace competent leaders with those that embrace "the message". It's a wonder Veilguard is as good as it is and even functions.

[@TheSuperappelflap]

They also have shareholders who want the company to make the safest product possible that wont offend anyone and addresses the largest possible market. Of course this will mean that no one will like it, and the game will flop, but shareholders arent known for being good at making business decisions. They treat entertainment just like they would treat a company that makes bars of soap.

[@mikeallan7740]

It's the same reason Christian films like "God's not dead" suck, pushing the ideology comes first which harms things like story telling and character development.

[@kbased10]

This is the answer to why games like Veilguard, concord, and suicide squad exists.

[@dontbeorbeevil]

I d say it was hard 6-7 years ago, and now every place is simply filled with these parasites with childhood traumas and limited mental capacity. Some companies still manage to do it. I only imagine how hard the talented of them have to work to cover for every bit of progressive cancer that is required by their overlords.

[@wilhelmscream1836]

The same bullshit is infecting not only games but movie franchises and tv shows, it’s like a virus

[@Aloofasf]

Pretend it's unrelated all you want, but woke virtue signaling is always a sign of a bad game

[@ephraimwinslow]

"I can't point out obvious problems because that would mean taking a 'side' and I recognize that people who are on that 'side' often make me cringe. Therefore? Those problems are unrelated/irrelevant." -Everyone who realizes the culture war actually matters to people involved in it.

[@pilouuuu]

Because it involves having activists in your company. People that were hired to tick off boxes rather than talent or skill. Because it means a lot of money went to consulting agencies, marketing, and censoring truthful reviews rather than to development. The red flags are all over the place in woke games.

[@BiscuitDelivery]

Not every 'woke' piece of modern media is trash, though. Baldur's Gate 3 is just as woke as Veilguard but doesn't insult my intelligence in the same way. I can have my character have gay bear sex with a shapeshifting druid if I want, or I could have a traditional straight relationship with an actually attractive elf lass, or I could just ignore doing any romance entirely and the game won't give me shit for any of those choices. That said, Baldur's Gate 3 marketed itself around what it offered rather than marketing itself around how many good-boy points HR would give it for being 'inclusive'. When you market a product around how much good PR it makes rather than the product itself you know it's going to be a bad product.

[@ephraimwinslow]

@@BiscuitDelivery "doesn't insult my intelligence in the same way." Oh, so it insults your intelligence in subtler, more acceptable/optional ways. 10/10 "not-that-bad" cope, bro. (The fact that carriers exist doesn't make pathogens morally neutral, my guy.)

[@_NightSaber_]

​@@BiscuitDelivery I would disagree, I spent over 300 hours in BG3 and I don't think it's woke. There are certain elements but they are usually handled with subtlety or are completely avoidable. This game is infested with wokeness and DEI from the ground up.

[@ColdEmperor]

1:29 if you dont call it put and dunk on it itll continue to be pushed and games will continue to be trash. I dont agree that its not important. Its hyper important. A good game needs a good narrative and gameplay. Not either or.

[@robovader7625]

It's a child-indoctrination application, not a real game.

[@collectorking6204]

The woke element of the game is a massive problem for multiple reasons. Claiming that it didn't effect the game in a negative way is preposterous. If a non-binary character was in Dragon Age Origins this is what the dialogue would have looked like: Companion: - I'm non-binary. Your options: - O that's interesting. - Good for you. - I don't care. - Shut the fuck up. Dragon Age Veilguard dialogue: Companion: - I'm non-binary. Your options: - THAT'S AMAZING! - WOW THAT'S SO STUNNING AND BRAVE!!! - SO AM I! - YOU ARE THE BESTEST EVAHHHH!!!1!!! This is not an RPG this is a validation simulator. The game should have been called Dragon Age Validation.

[@pazz1239]

@@collectorking6204 You didn't do pushup. Back to pits with you

[@LV127-p1k]

lol definitely. I would have said good for you that's relevant to what we are doing how?

[@bastiancole3565]

Exactly, I hate when creators try and take the "Holier Than Thou" neutral route when they do not admit that the wokeness is indicative a much larger problem, that the game is just a Trojan Horse for bad actors to shove their messaging into the gaming space again, that they don't care about the game at all is what the woke messaging means. Bad messaging = bad game, bad movies, bad people.

[@loneIyboy15]

@@bastiancole3565 Sitting on the fence doesn't give you the high ground, it just leaves you with a post up your butt.

[@hillehai]

Upper Echelon refuses to admit that he's been wrong about this for a long time, so even with Veilguard, he continues to dig his heels in even further. It's frankly downright comedic at this point to hear him refuse to accept the obvious. I used to respect his opinions years ago, but certainly not anymore. He's too dishonest and his ego too big.

[@TheChaosNova]

Idk how you can say it’s a commercial success it made like what 35 million? I doubt that even recoups losses from development time

[@pyaehtetaung]

Cyberpunk is bad at beginning but it fixed now. This Game cannot be fix.

[@r3dr4te963]

Cyberpunk is really bad at launch because bugs, glitches, and generally unfinished. HOWEVER, the core gameplay (including story) and mechanic already established. Veilguard may have no visible bug or glitches (not interested to find out), but the core principle already awful

[@ConnerMacKenzie]

Exactly. You can fix a broken game but you can't fix a bad game.

[@sethtone8634]

I rather play No Man Sky and Cyberpunk prepatch to the end then finish this game

[@chriskarpetas]

This is because even with the launch bugs, CP2077 was at its core a good game. The base game had one of the best stories and some of the most memorable characters in video games ever, and the world design made players WANT to be immersed in Night City, despite the game's shortcomings. The multiple fixes, Phantom Liberty and 2.0 just got rid of all the junk and we're left with a gem of a game now, in every aspect. Veilguard's core is just rotten.

[@jacobyullman5005]

Here's my theory on why people REALLY hate "woke" media. It's not that people are inherently against things like diversity and representation, it's that we have come to EXPECT that those things will not be handled well, because it almost ALWAYS happens that way. Many people have been conditioned to awful writing and creative decisions being associated with these things, and are hyper-aware that, when those things show up, they likely won't be handled well. The pushing of "woke" concepts is a red flag for so many people, because there is a high likelyhood that the ones pushing for it care more about those things than the actual quality of the thing they're making, and that means the thing they're making will probably not be of a good quality. When the messaging supercede's the quality of the product, then the quality is likely to crater, especially when activist-types who prioritize the message incorrectly believe that "Message = Quality". It's not that people don't like politics in games at all, it's that they hate being preached to, AND they hate when the politics are poorly handled/implemented (like when it becomes preachy). It just so happens that the overwhelming majority of poorly handled politics in media is coming from "creatives" who hyper-fixate one political ideology in particular. That being the ideology which foists diversity, equity, and inclusion above all else. That's what most people are referring to when they claim something is "woke", though there are quite a few who have tainted all meaning of the term and don't seem to understand what the real issues with those things are. That still doesn't take away from the reality that there does seem to be a considerable overlap between that singular ideology permeating entertainment media, and the over-abundance of low-quality entertainment media that incorporates aspects of that ideology for the express purposes of furthering that ideology. To put it another way, it's not that we hate "progressive" ideas, it's that we know that most "creatives" who try to incorporate them aren't good enough at what they do to make it work. And we know that they probably won't do a good job, because they rarely ever do, at least when it's the kind of people who focus more on those things than the ACTUALLY important things that make entertainment, you know... ENTERTAINING.

[@PipPanoma]

Exactly! When people turn representation into a checkbox of what needs to be in the game, they forget that these people actually need to be characters.

[@kaydreamer]

You hit the nail on the head there. It's not even THAT hard to write a diverse cast well. Hell, I think that unless there's a plot line which deals with discrimination (like Dorian's in DAI) it's more progressive to treat diversity in your cast as no big deal. If I can toss as example below - “Barbary?!” Piper spluttered, red-faced. “You’re in the wrong-” The rest of the sentence died in the hiss of the showers. He thought she was in the wrong bathroom, but her top half and her bottom half seemed to disagree on the matter. Barbary laughed. “Yeah, I’m both,” she boomed. “Don’t think too hard about it. I don’t.” "Guess that explains the horns," said Piper, with a shrug. "Why choose the men's baths, though? Would'a though the women's side would be nicer." "Blegh, no." Barbary pulled a face. "All that floral shit smells like someone stuck a bouquet up my nose." Bam. Non-binary character established. It's not the worlds' best writing, but there's some humour there, and after the initial surprise, it's taken for granted by the main character. (Barbary is a huge, brawny faun character based on a ram. I drew her original character design with huge, curling horns, and since female sheep don't tend to have those, her being non-binary made sense. It wasn't my original intent, I just wanted a big dumb stompy muscle-lady in my story. Since her top half is rather... endowed, most characters assume she's 'she' until they know otherwise, and Barb herself couldn't give less of a shit what you refer to her as.) Writers should be writing characters, not mouthpieces for explaining issues of gender and sexuality. Those things can come up, sure, but they shouldn't be the defining point of the character. Their personality, their strengths and foibles, those are what should define a character. Everything else is secondary.

[@vivekkparashar]

It's simply hitting the player on head constantly with the "message" ...subtle inflections in story telling is good but constant preaching comes off as fake

[@chenoir]

To be fair, there are settings where modern worldviews should not apply. The politics of modern day should not apply to a fantasy setting. If a medieval town has the diversity of color and sexuality of modern day San Francisco, it only means you do not respect your own worldbuilding. There isa reason nobody cringed at the diversity in Horizon, despite it being a pre-historic-like setting. Because it's in the future, so the population was already as diverse as it is today, so it works.

[@TheSuperappelflap]

Im inherently against overrepresentation. Every third character in American entertainment has to be black. About 10% of the US population is black. The math doesnt math. In my ocuntry you see more interracial couples in advertisement than regular white couples. Of course always a black dude with white woman, never the other way around. Not that I have anything against any group of people, but there is something weird going on is what Im saying.

[@skexzies3673]

Dragon Age dialog is what you'd expect from 'non-normal' people. And the uglification of the characters is the hallmark of their cult's message.

[@TS-oe6jw]

"Everything woke turns to shit." - The Philosopher King

[@Drako9823]

Orange man ❌ Gold man ✅

[@dwzaphod]

The reason this game is bad is because people who feel they have to inject their own personal life view into a video game are not mentally capable of making a good game.

[@kenon6968]

That's all writing

[@ininshu1605]

It’s a 4 ish rating on ps store it’s crazy 😂

[@2late2getmynick]

These people aren't even gamers. They don't like games. It's only a platform to preach for them. And so they don't know what makes a good game and off course can't create one.

[@Nigel222]

4:15 Final Fantasy 7 Remake and Rebirth actually does this lol. The party members say different things at the end of a fight depending on how well or poorly the fight went.

[@Selrisitai]

Dude, they did this back in Tales of Symphonia for the freaking Gamecube, where they would have different dialogue depending on your health levels, whether a member was poisoned, and based on who landed the last blow in the fight.

[@thisguy3500]

If the game features in-your-face woke ideology in a preachy and ironic/hypocritical way, then the last thing I'm concerned about is how bad the gameplay and design is. We won't make it that far.

[@BruderSenf]

amen, brotha!

[@seb3661]

@@BruderSenf god is not real

[@thisguy3500]

@@seb3661 How can God be fake if our mirror is fake? -Raiden Schmiph

[@smelltheglove2038]

100%

[@smelltheglove2038]

​@@seb3661 no, gender ideology isn't real.

[@wickedgummybear3104]

"It feels like a tumbler fanfiction" .. omg, that's exactly what the dialogue feels like!

[@andypaul3788]

UE. Makes good points here, however the woke elements are the corn chunks in the poop sundae they tried to pass off as “real food”

[@limitedhangoutlive]

It’s not bad because it’s woke, but it is bad because of wokeness. What do I mean by this? When there are systematic issues with the development of a game, derived from an internal culture that is woke, hiring that is woke, necessary checkboxes that are woke, etc. It is perfectly acceptable to attribute a game being bad to wokeness. If there was none of this but there were storylines centered around the ideology, then it could be said the game is not bad because it’s woke. But that will never be the case and is not the case. You have great characters and races within a world being completely ravaged to meet a standard rooted in this defunct ideology.

[@AL-lh2ht]

dude here really goiing too say the game is bad because they hired too many women and black people, tots a legitimate criticism. Everything else you said is so vague its meaningless, just like the term woke.

[@oopomopoo]

​@@AL-lh2httypical response from a clown who lacks the iq to learn what it means.

[@akmetal574]

Even without the terrible narrative you have a boring game. The combat is not challenging in any way. Ugly, cartoonish characters. The only 2 positives I can give it is it runs smoothly and some of the combat abilities look really cool.

[@rikterterran3833]

​@@AL-lh2ht I mean, if they hired those people specifically because of their skin color and gender rather than skill and work ethic, then I would think that warrants criticism.

[@Kanaleah]

@@AL-lh2ht Completely bad faith there. Hiring too many women and black people is not woke. Hiring women and black people at the exclusion of men and white people who are better qualified for the job is woke. If the best qualified is a woman or black, it is not woke. Wokeness is an ideology. It influences and drives things like DEI programs, but at the end of the day it is a far-left ideology that is highly imperialistic, censorious and intolerant to competitive views, as well as intolerant to meritocracy especially. You can have a bunch of all white men, no women or black people, and it can still be wokeness, if the white men adhere and follow the ideology. To put it simply, the ideology of wokeness is one that rejects meritocracy. It believes that there is an oppressor class that keeps oppressed classes under heel and that we should make concerted efforts to reverse this oppression and lift up the oppressed classes against the oppressor class. It is an ideology of white saviors and black opportunists, of provocateurs who grift off racial divisions. Trans issues are just another platform to soapbox on and turn into a vehicle for the ideology of saviors to do saving, to soothe their narcissitic egos. It is an ideology that is fundamentally racist, and gleeful about punishing certain innocent people for their skin color, sexual organs and sexual preferences. "Woke hiring practices" are inherently punishment, since it absolutely is a rejection of meritocracy in favor of immutable characteristics, done for virtue signal cookies and bonuses awarded by companies like Blackrock and Vanguard.

[@Sevaria]

Why do you think this Game is commercially successful? the only line they have been tossing out is "Record Breaking Sales for a BioWare game on steam" of which the only other Day one Steam BioWare game was the ME remaster; not exactly a high bar to clear. Looking at peak CCU numbers for games on steam and correlating them with total sales you generally find them around 7-10% of life time sales excepting outliers like GTA V. The Current Cope is that this game is much bigger on Consoles, but even if that is true and we give Xbox and PS5 users an equal number of players (Steam 30%, PS 30%, Xbox 30%, other PC platforms like GoG or Origin) you are still only looking at 3ish million unit sold over the game's entire lifetime including sales and give aways. And say we take 3 million as a given and none of those are on sale buys and Steam takes 0% cut thats only 180 million dollars. There is no way Production and Marketing for this game was under 300 million. Is this a Concord level annihilation? No, but it is a flop by any reasonable metric. I would not count on seeing ME5 or anything else from BioWare; EA wanted to shutter them after Anthem and only didn't because BioWare said that Dreadwolf (Deep in Dev hell at the time) would be their redemption. I honestly would not be surprised to see pink slips for BioWare over Christmas.

[@GigglingStoners]

It's not bad because it's woke, it's worse cause it's woke. That said, both the bad quality and wokeness come from the same thing - devs getting hired on the basis of not merit, but DEI. So wokeness is very much the main culprit.

[@steffithemad8327]

I disagree, the fact that any game has top scars, lectures about misgendering, trans characters etc IS the reason that makes a game bad, so bad that if its in there, I become non buy-nary.

[@Fatt_Tony]

I'm stealing the non buy-nary. Thanks

[@pewthepuny2849]

Imagine landing fresh off the valkyrie in Valheim ready to build your cool viking village, then the raven shows up to tell you how you should avoid problematic language and that misgendering your fellow vikings is a big no-no.

[@rubberplunger24]

Yeah, I find this "it's not bad because it's woke" argument to not hold water at all in this situation. A fantasy game, in a medieval setting, with magic, dragons, demons and other fantastical beings that is slamming current day talking points into the player's face, is absolutely made worse because of it doing just that. It feels like such a disingenuous disclaimer.

[@seanthompson8071]

The wokeness causes the badness because they aren't hiring talented game designers, they are hiring political activists on the left. The crappy result is as predictable as the sun coming up.

[@loneIyboy15]

@@rubberplunger24 We get these disclaimers all the time from people supposedly on "our side". It really feels like they'd be all for this as long as it wasn't in their games specifically.

[@ImmortalComposer]

There's a staggering amount of people saying they're old DA fans that love this game (apparently), arguing with actual fans online while reading a wiki and fishing for any mistakes to invalidate fans opinions. It's very well organized also, with them using multiple accounts to present even the other side. We've reached the end times, fellas. This is clearly not a Dragon Age game. It's just a generic AAA game wearing DA's skin.

[@arthurbonds7200]

My personal favorite is the one that says the game has 'always been woke' due to the LGB romances and the presence of a T character. Yes, it's always had those, including a healthy variety of unique characters with their own sexual preferences. The difference? They only become relevant when you get closer to them, particularly romance. Any other reference to it will be as a background element in the story, not the main focus. Like how normal people do it.

[@ImmortalComposer]

@@arthurbonds7200 Yeah, but that's their whole talking point. They trivialize all arguments so they become non-applicable and call it a win. And if you actually do get them into a corner with logic, they go with "Chill out bro, it's just a game".

[@arthurbonds7200]

@@ImmortalComposer They do that, yes.

[@cp1cupcake]

Offhand, in DA:O, there might be two characters (and only one companion) who are open enough about their sexuality to tell you without a prompt and that is because its part of their personality, not because it was shoehorned in. Like how Zevran a shameless hedonist and is up front about how the list of his sexual interests basically includes knobs on trees at appropriate height.

[@arthurbonds7200]

@cp1cupcake Exactly. It speaks to just one small facet of their character instead of being a whole plot.

[@bartoffer]

If we take the definition of commercial success as "the business makes enough profit to continue operating," I'm a bit skeptical. Dead Space 2 had a budget of around $60M if I remember correctly, and 4M sales was still seen as a "commercial failure" by EA when marketing and merchant cuts/discounts were taken into effect. For the amount of money that was dumped into this game, for it to crawl out of the red would require a pretty astronomical amount of sales. I think you can call it successful in a different arena - it will have its audience - but as-is it just looks like an effort to stymie the flow of red.

[@Mugman896]

If you math it out, paying a game developer the bare minimum of $15/hr for 10 years comes out to $504,000. Now imagine paying 250 employees that salary, that means BioWare needs to make 126 Million to JUST pay back developers and we haven’t even added marketing costs. Meaning they need to sell at LEAST 2.1 million copies to make up the dev cost alone. Then you have to take into account that they only have 2 months left in the year before OTHER games steal the spotlight.basically Veilguard is NOT in a good place TLDR BioWare needs at least 2.1 million copies sold to “break even” and they haven’t even cracked 1 million

[@GrAlien123]

"It's not bad because its woke, its bad because of bad design" - Which can be traced back to woke hiring practices and woke decision making, so it's bad because of wokeness after all.. Woke isn't limited to some small parts of the game, it influences every decision the studio makes.

[@grindtoothmedia120]

Yes, this. The company culture is built on wokism; aka cultural Marxism. Everything they make will be affected by it, and it shows.

[@KUPSMusic]

Thank god some people are starting to see this, just more people need to get their head out of the sand.

[@Mrlighthouse1000]

Thank you, finally someone that gets it

[@BestSharkis]

Yes but if you go around crying that everything is woke, you immediately discredit yourself and whatever point you were trying to make. 'Woke' is a buzzword that doesn't mean anything and just acts as a catch all so you don't actually have to explain your ideas. Same as 'toxic'.

[@rigardo576]

​@BestSharkis no you don't discredit yourself, this is what woke say and want you to believe so you will stop pointing the obvious. The onlybppl crying that they are "tired of the word" or "it's overused" are woke ppl that would benefit from silencing.

[@highlander2319]

Kinda sad to see all this, I just built a new PC recently and I had picked up all the past games. A real shame to get into something just for activists to infect it

[@levibull6063]

My friend helped me with mine and I'm looking at it thinking "amazing how I want to play old games on a new pc" .... and the best part Most of these games aren't available or just wasn't made for pc ..... so great

[@stefanyuwono1909]

monster hunter wilds looks like it'll be amazing

[@RedWolfenstein]

I'm in the same situation

[@cypher5910]

been going on for too long now, which is why I've been collecting older games before the woke tyrants come for them and try to erase them from history for being "too problematic" these people are insane scum and are sleep walking humanity into a new dark age.

[@サイバー狼]

​​​@@levibull6063emulate... hell I've been thinking about emulating gears of war 3, and modding it, because honestly as of right now. No game that I know of delivers on content, and gameplay like gears of war 3. Literally my only complaint for that game is the fact that the ai isn't hard enough, and that I can't under normal circumstances have Ai teammates in beast or horde mode. But other than that it's great, plus it has an offline progression system. You can play it like it was online against bots, and unlock everything normally. Modding it will fix my 2 only problems for the game.

[@CommanderRiker0]

Sorry its bad because its woke. Not sure why you would go out of your way to defend that nonsense

[@jordirapper]

Is it a commercial succes? Not even 100k on steam, the largest platform distributor. I honestly think EA lost money on this and if not, it is hardly a succes. Baldur's Gate 3, Wukong, Space Marine 2 were successes.

[@cp1cupcake]

Last I checked, based on who you get your numbers from, the numbers on steam could be something like 550k. I think you are conflating peak numbers with ones sold.

[@jordirapper]

@cp1cupcake even at 550k at 70 bucks each, that would only be 38,5 million dollars. Considering they were touting no competition, yeah. This doesn't seem like a Succes. Not a huge failure but not nearly what EA was hoping for. We'll see if it does end up successful... And if EA never gives the numbers, that will be only for 1 reason.

[@angryhermit4291]

This garbage cost over 250 million to make. They wont even get close to that.​@cp1cupcake

[@Faminetheblack]

@@jordirapper It cost somewhere in the realm of 150-200 million to make and 10 years of time. Even being as generous as possible EA is still looking at a nice 112 million hole. Which I'm hyped about, because god I hate EA.

[@wintersong6107]

fans of the original games are not the target audience.

[@CarlWheatley-wi2cl]

I've put hundreds of hours into the franchise, played Origins on release and it took about an hour of watching stream gameplay to know for certain that I'll never purchase this game. For a huge Dragonage fan that takes some doing. Congrats Bioware.

[@Milocinia]

It is trash because they replaced the directors and developers with woke ideologues with no care for the lore or previous games. Their main goal was to push their woke narratives and that is what caused it to be a bad game.

[@Rellikan]

I know the word woke makes people cringe but it's really simple. Woke hiring and woke culture in the development means quality of story and quality of ideas of gameplay is the last of the priority list. Woke means you prioritise surface level representation, such as trans, non-binary, female leading, skin colour diversity etc. Woke demotes the importance of hiring the best writer, modeller or gameplay designer.

[@XX-121]

the only people it makes cringe are cringy people. this game is the epitome of woke

[@Tyrbris]

If the shoe fits, and the shoe is fitting pretty damn good when it comes to this game.

[@AJ-po6up]

the people that feel cringe from the word woke are the same ones pushing it, it's not a coincidence.

[@senormarston]

Yeah, this is the biggest problem with DEI and ESG politics. We are losing quality over stupid reasons

[@Rellikan]

@@senormarston to us it is stupid but to them there is a religious belief that the 'suffering' identities (if they're awakened, hence 'woke') offer special insight. It's a religious drive.

[@aitvaras5271]

It seems like a dialogue heavy game having cringe worthy dialogue, is such an important negative that it makes me not want to buy the game ever. There are too many great games to care about games that are trash by design. Games aren't trash by design, unless the developer has ulterior motives and we all know what those are.

[@Saint_Wolf_]

I posted this on arch but since you mentioned it being a commercial success, we'll make this read: Just so we get the numbers: We have seen about 75k players on steam, let's say between PC and console there is a total of 200k players, and that 100% of players bought the $80 version and that EA gets 100% of the money (which they don't, every storefront demands their pound of flesh). For 200k sales they made $16 million dollars. Remember this costed 250 silly millies to make. Under this example they would need to sell 3,125,001 deluxe editions ($80) or 416,666,667 standard editions ($60) to break even and start making profit, meaning, start being a financial success. Now for further analysis let's say that the pound of flesh is about 30% (it's the number for steam, and I don't know nor care to look for the values of other systems), that means that for every sale of $60 they made $42, making it so they have to sell 5,952,381 copies to see profit or they'd have to sell 4,464,286 deluxe ($80 that for 30% they'd see only $56) to break even. And remember, we haven't calculated taxes yet. This game is never making it's money back.

[@cp1cupcake]

Just for clarification, the 75k number was peak players on steam (currently at something like 85k peak), not units sold, which steamdb puts between roughly 160k-480k.

[@onegoldengraham]

Its strange how in recent years, reviewers will be like "I dislike this game...b-but not because it's woke guys!" Yet all of the games they have poorly reviewed recently are woke?

[@loneIyboy15]

They use the pronouns, they tell us not to harass these "people", they wash for the Communists every time there's propaganda. I don't see what they think they're doing here sitting on that fence.

[@KatallinaVT]

There is no one singular definition of woke. So one person might say "not because it's woke" while someone listening can be like, "My dude, you just described everything that I take woke to mean." Trust your own judgment. You are evaluating entertainment. The only thing that matters in that context is your own preferences and expectations.

[@hillehai]

Dishonesty and cowardice.

[@dentka8474]

Starting to see a pattern here...

[@loneIyboy15]

@@KatallinaVT That's not what he said or meant. We agree on what "woke" means, but he rejects that that's the reason it's bad.

[@gobi7959]

it feels like a mobile game because that is what DreadWolf started off as, does no one else remember?

[@ghiffaribara2949]

Is the game a success though ? I mean... compared to other slops such as Outlaw and ofc Concord it is, but i would like to see the actual sales number and how much does it actually make. 10 years of development (from what i heard) while having 90K-ish peak player (on Steam) is just not great especially when Dragon Age is such a huge franchise or at least used to be. I want to see the real number

[@Breezey_Dubz]

Wont be no outlaws but itd be pretty close

[@Suomiwimbula]

Even if we assume the sales were 10x the top player count it still wouldn't break even with a development cost of 10 years. The math just isn't mathing.

[@MeltonCrest]

Have you seen articles of EA bragging about X millions copies sold!? No? Me neither, and there you have your answer.

[@BritishPatriot69]

Failguard is just fantasy Dustborn.

[@IcepickEddie]

explain to me how this is a commercial success? 90k on steam, lets say 90k on xbox and sony each as well, that's 270k copies, $60 for each sale, that's $16 million in base sales on three platforms, do you think this game cost less than $16 million to make let alone promotion?

[@BoolXor]

It is actually a worrying and a terrible thing that the gaming media seem to be totally incapable of seeing Dragon Age Veilguard as a mediocre game. Dragon Age Veilgaurd is objectively mediocre in ways that are worse than a game with just a bad story. It has none of the detailed game design of Bioware's classic games. I already didn't trust professional reviews way before this and now we have to reckon with these people being close to industry figures and sharing their awful opinions about the quality of games with them. We can be thankful for some studios that outright avoid them like Game Science did with Wukong but how many other studios/publishers just trust these people and end up ruining their franchises. I don't care that they go out of business but I hate the way the media has vilified customers as if we're doing anything by refusing to buy their games. Veilguard, I don't know if you can say is a commercial success. It definitely isn't going to be the seed to launch of new franchises and merchandise. Judging by trajectory alone of the steam playerbase, it is probably set for a very mediocre success where it will lead to the lowering of the budget for any new project so it can meet sales expectations.

[@jesseM138]

EA/BioWare were extremely selective on who they handed out review codes to, and even some of the very same outlets who glazed the game and gave a 9 or a 10 have since put out articles criticizing the game. The media fully understands, they're just complicit.

[@Turkeysocks]

@@jesseM138 The thing is, this isn't new. This has been an issue for decades in the game media.

[@arkgaharandan5881]

the critics were always woke activists that overrated games if they agree with their politics, now the musk is off.

[@pewthepuny2849]

People have been trying to tell the populace at large that games journalists are untrustworthy, corrupt pieces of crap since at least 2014. Recorded history will however tell you that the only thing that happened was that a bunch of neckbeards didn't like women.

[@loonastrawberry]

As a queer myself, I can say - we don't want mindless "woke" games, we want good games with meaningful dialogs, deep connections between characters, and interesting plot. It's all feels like corporate talk or twitter bots. This game is just trying to be meaningful and deep, but it's empty and dull. I am disappointed with it, as a long-time fan of series.

[@Cartel734]

If I were gay I'd be annoyed that these people think checking a box is enough to get me to buy their crap, not that I'm not already annoyed anyway.

[@shadowkhan422]

Because non of those people really care about any minorities . They just want twitter clout for making a "woke" game. Every time they ruin another IP in the name of something , they just hurt the thing they declare to promote.

[@pewthepuny2849]

I am also an LGBT person, and the last thing I want to see in my dark fantasy game is a 1:1 recreation of an adolescent's angry tantrum at their mom around the dinner table in 2014.

[@shadowkhan422]

They actually harm the minorities with those kind of "products" and I have no idea why YT is so insistent on deleting all my comments about it...

[@Ally5141]

Wtf is queer

[@Foul_Slime]

"Despite the level of commercial success this has achieved, and it IS commercially successful, that's just a fact, don't let people tell you it's not..." Uh, son, you're gonna have to explain that one to me. This game is getting panned, review-bombed, and laughed off the internet. More importantly, it hasn't, by most accounts, even reached 1 million copies sold across all platforms and peak Steam users on its opening weekend was 89000. This is supported by the fact that EA and Bioware haven't been screaming from the rooftops about sales. Remember Helldivers 2, Baldur's Gate 3, Elden Ring, Black Myth Wukong, GoW, ect.? When those games sold gang-buster, they'd make sure everyone knew it, calling out each and every milestone. EA and Bioware are dead silent about that.This game was in development for 6-8 years, by all accounts, and its budget was at minimum 9 figures (100,000,000) and that's being conservative when I've been seeing 150,000,000 to 200,000,000 for the budget being thrown around. So explain to me how in any way, shape, or form Veilguard, with low sales and terrible reviews, is a "commercial success."

[@pillepolle3122]

I didn't buy the game but I still demand a refund.

[@xanira6367]

welcome to the world where games arent made by passionate people that do it as a labor of love, but art school dropouts that went to college for game design.

[@VideoGamingSociety]

I used to watch you because you had some pretty good arguments for most things. You failing to recognise that DEI is indeed killing games, and lashing out at everyone who disagrees with you and calling us idiots or whatever just makes me sad.

[@sunidaze]

Hold up! 0:47 There's a quest line that makes you trans? Or did I misshear him? Is he exaggerating? After the non binary scene, I can honestly believe it.

[@deathsdoor07]

Think it has to do with a mirror. I fell asleep during Az's play through because of the boredom.

[@maxmillion7634]

Yes it's leftist American propaganda

[@maidenreligion12]

There's a mirror that gives you three different options of being trans. Yes, three. Each one is a different level of acceptance.

[@Unik0rnu]

The saddest part of this whole situation for me is that we waited 10 years after Inquisition to continue the amazing story it ended with, just to wake up to this garbage which destroyed amazing character of Solas and all our story choices we have been carrying for past 3 games. I would rather they didn't do anything because now I know the story for most of us ends still with Inquisition and we will never get the continuation it really deserved. Gaming is truly falling to the very bottom these days.

[@crakhaed]

They fucked us over the same way with ME3! 😫

[@KvapuJanjalia]

I identify as "Non-Buynary"

[@skoudouflis88]

Great video! The only point that i disagree is in the end that the game is commercially successful, cause it isn't. For this popular IP, with the development cost of 10 years, plus marketing and the game has not even broke 90k peak on steam, this isn't a success. And from what is see is the sales are slowing down a lot now after the release reviews, so it probably wont break even, it will lose money.

[@GloomBlue100]

Guna try block everything out for a bit. Play Deus Ex, no romance, no real world politics, no writing or designing by infantile minded, politically motivated deranged "adults". Just a great story, brilliantly designed levels, characters, combat and immersion. A real game/s.

[@real_teeth]

I think not blaming the politics is wrong. You can break things down to its parts and separate things into categories, like the dialogue, design, gameplay, individual characters. However integrated things caused those parts to be what they are, people, with bad ideals, DEI hires on SSRIs. Various insane freaks wanting to influence you a certain way. The makers and the product and all of its ugliness is a single organism.

[@nathanrussell2158]

Reviewers that gave it a high score were paid to do so.

[@MrMarwan48]

This happens more than a decade about now

[@raketensven3127]

'commercial success'... source/proof? or 'trust me, bro!' ? I disagree on that.

[@ditchwizard]

Id rather Dragon my bawls over broken glass for Ages.