What does Dragon Age: The Veilguard mean for Mass Effect 5 and the future of Bioware?

[@Mugthief]

A huge thanks to Boot.dev for supporting my videos and helping people learn Back end Web Development in an approachable way! Click this link sponsr.is/bootdev_mugthief and use my code MUGTHIEF to get 25% off your first payment for boot.dev. That’s 25% off your first month or your first year, depending on the subscription you choose.

[@tahnadana5435]

the game not having DRM at this point only means that EA never have any confidence that it would have a good sell count, they must hope that by people pirating the game that it would make good word of mouth, the last game that have DRM but bomb was marvel's midnight suns and before that also bomb was Warhammer 40000: Chaos Gate - Daemonhunters

[@daviddesrosiers1946]

I've completely written Mass Effect 5 off. As it stands in the hands it is in, it's cooked.

[@cirescythe]

Same here.

[@Zenmaster_0-0_]

I feel the same way about elder scroll 6 unfortunately.

[@gitamic2287]

They didn't do DAV dlc because all the staff are now working on ME5. It's charred.

[@brandongray1059]

Yep, no doubt about it. I am very very very worried about ME5 especially given many of the reports about how bad things are at BioWare with the wocheness - Endymion, Doctor Disaster, Hypnotic and others have covered this extensively...at this point I fully expect it to be a pile of woche trash with LGBT degeneracy content forced in the narrative and if we are able to have Commander Shepard again, I expect they'll ruin his character, make Miranda ugly / censor her, etc. I HOPE otherwise, but it's 2024...it's probably going to be terrible.I'll continue to follow the information, though, and vote with my wallet accordingly.

[@planescaped]

@@Zenmaster_0-0_ Same. I have absolutely zero excitement for ME5, TES6 or GTA6 for that matter. I just don't have any faith that they'll be games I want to play.

[@karlklein2263]

If this whole situation has taught me anything, its that im so grateful bioware did not wind up making BG3

[@Mugthief]

Imagine the legacy of BG being turned into an action game with no role playing.

[@cirescythe]

​@@Mugthiefnow now. You DO play a role in veilguard. As a student that is being lectured in between competently made busywork.

[@mrbigglezworth42]

@@cirescythe Competently made busywork is still busywork.

[@qu1253]

Larian still cursed us all with the bear scene, though. I will carry that image with me to my grave.

[@TwoHandedChargedBonk]

Yeah imagine the BG3 characters having cringe-inducing interactions like Trash or Bellara

[@Bucketus.Lord.of.Buckets]

When even redditors say "yeah, everything about the game is bad" you know your game is terrible.

[@MasticinaAkicta]

I was checking the veilguard reddit, you know the superfan one, the one where you get banned for thinking. And boy, that is a lot of picture of "This is my rook" ... and little else. No "This was a great mission" ... nope Dragon Age Origins/Inquisitions ahd people talk about the different missions... This game. "Here is my rook!"

[@Bucketus.Lord.of.Buckets]

@@MasticinaAkicta On the r/Games subreddit, the largest gaming subreddit for discussion, there were two major threads recently about Veilguard: 1. Veilguard is being review bombed. All the comments call everyone haters, istaphobes and the like. The usual soy-reddit posts about anything against the narrative 2,. VG has been out for a week. What do you think about it so far? Comments all pretty much calling out the bad combat, the pointless difficulty levels, the terrible story, the terrible companions, the terrible dialogue, the tone that it's trying to be GotG and a PR meeting, how the roleplaying is terrible. How you can't even be a jerk to your companions or others. How there was maybe one cool moment with Solas, and then he gets rug swept.

[@hobosapiensSinceShadowMoses]

​@@MasticinaAkictanew dragon age fans are more tumblr fanfic readers and "story playtrough" lmao. Glad bioware toward to them cause it's over. Bioware is so over

[@thorspark]

Another game which is selling well over time is Baldur's Gate 3 (which is selling more thant DATV at the moment, with only a 20% discount). BG3's concurrent players is also 40% higher than Dragon Age, more than 1 year after launch. That helps put things in perspective when it comes to RPGs

[@Arthurio99]

Unless the writers of failguard are fired, and in Mass Effect 5 replaced with someone who actually has any clue, I have no hope.

[@Mugthief]

Not the same writing team brother. Doesn't mean it couldn't be worse, it still can, but each game has different leads, just the overall same team. Responsibilities aren't the same.

[@Arthurio99]

@Mugthief l would like to believe that, but I am actually not sure if the writing could get much worse. While not all previous dragon age were perfect and especially da2 had many problems the writing was strong in all three. The weakest part of dragon age inquisition was villain where it would be nice if we had better setup for Tevinter Magisters. But they used inquisition to setup Solas as one of most interesting villains/opponents to inquisitor(/protogonist). And this game annihilated everything using terrible villains even worse than Corypheus. Basically every character is bland and trying to be inoffensive, including characters from previous games, some of them previously being the exact opposite. The game is trying to pretend that previous games and decisions made in them do not exist, while the game is direct sequels. etc etc etc

[@TheSpongyMallard]

@@MugthiefAccording to BioWare back in March, much of the original lead are the same as ME2/3/ and a few from Andromeda. I couldn’t find any credits for the writers, so I’m HOPING they don’t even think of asking the DA:V writers, but I’m still not holding out much hope. It’s probably going to end up being another shooter with a few RPG gameplay aspects. I hope it doesn’t go into development he’ll like DA:V did, because if it does, I will loose what little hope I had.

[@Mugthief]

@@TheSpongyMallard Last I heard it was mostly staff from ME3 and Andromeda, yeah. Will they give companion writing to people from the Veilguard team? Well, that's where we'll see if they've learned.

[@kraosdadafusfus8034]

The worst thing is that the most infamous companion by far exemplifies every bad stereotype about non-buynarys.

[@couguard]

"mass effect is a very adult series that is not meant to have a jovial happy go lucky tone"................................and dragon age, the DARK fantasy, is? If it happened to dragon age it can happen to mass effect. The journalist was asking if mass effect would go the same way and the director avoided the essence of the question.

[@Mugthief]

Michael Gamble is not in charge of Dragon Age. He's saying that under his watch they won't change Mass Effect, nobody said that about Dragon Age afaik, and I think you can see the changes they went for...

[@attilamarics3374]

@@Mugthief I mean all I see is slop right now. The fallout show was that, and every game for a while that bioware made. Its over. watchable isnt something that people look forward to.

[@Blirre]

Andromeda already had a jovial tone. It's not a big leap.

[@magusjiro]

​​@@MugthiefThat's fair, but it certainly felt like an insult to what dragon age is supposed to be. Hopefully Mass Effect can stay mature like the first 3 games and then somehow get the DA team to fix their issues and make a good dark fantasy story again..somehow

[@KeytarArgonian]

I don’t know.. Jason Schreier deleting his comment that it isn’t a flop and is successful is kinda telling 😅

[@Mugthief]

I thought he deleted the comment saying he thought it was bad? His comment on how much it needs to sell is still there.

[@cherdnad2630]

He deleted his tweet about it topping the charts.

[@Mugthief]

@@cherdnad2630 Oh that was him trying to “dunk” on people. Guess he’s struggling to complain about the hate brigade while also hating the game though.

[@TwoHandedChargedBonk]

Jason Schreier looks and behaves like he would like to spend a holiday on the Epstein's island. Totally irrelevant creep whose hard drive needs to be checked for the funny stuff.

[@kraosdadafusfus8034]

He went full in on the "chud-dunking" mentality, and basically angered a lot of people with legitimate criticisms.

[@Quasar-fv8to]

What people need to understand is that NOT SAYING ANYTHING about sales is actually an announcement in and of itself. Every single studio wishes to announce to the world how successful their game is based on first week sales numbers, for potential future bandwagon customers and especially for investors. This is 2+2 = 4 levels of logic. The very fact Bioware has been radio silent about the sales numbers is genuine PROOF they did not hit at least 1 million in sales the first week, and the fact they havent announced it since the first week was over is less than proof but more than a calculated perception that they STILL haven't hit 1 million in sales. This isnt conspiracy, this is using dozens of examples over the course of a decade to conclude the rule of announcements has been followed religiously by large dev studios, and bioware has not made a single statement.

[@zypang1447]

I hope so, shut it down. They have destroyed BioWare's reputation.

[@joelhodoborgas]

My only hope is having their IPs sold

[@brandongray1059]

Yep. I am rooting for them to shut down - same with Ubisoft, CD Projekt Red, Crystal Dynamics, 343, Guerrilla, on and on and on - sadly, we need a 1983 style industry crash before the healing can fully occur.

[@XBullitt16X]

That was destroyed a long time ago.

[@dpv007]

I love that "Concording" has been adopted into gaming lingo to describe catastrophic financial failures. 😂

[@marqod1437]

If you branch out to movies, there is another somewhat recent addition. Batgirled - An entertainment product has been finished, and is so bad the potential brand damage completely outweighs what little revenue can be expected from sales. So the production company shelves the product, never to see the light of day, and writes the entire production cost down as a total loss in exchange for a tax break. Now don't think this comes anywhere close to covering the loss, it's just damage mitigation that would be dwarfed by an actual release. However the producers believe in the earning potential of the IP in different hands, and want to avoid spoiling that with releasing a bad product now.

[@Draconic.]

Andromeda doomed Mass Effect 5. Veilguard just helps us, by showing that there's no need to cling onto any hope.

[@Mkrause762]

This is like when people say they're still hopeful for elder scrolls 6, how could you see these companies output and have any hope for improvement. Some people are just delusional

[@Bucketus.Lord.of.Buckets]

I enjoyed Anthem. Great gameplay/foundation for sure. Unique between each javelin. But they really needed to fix the gameplay loop/loot and the writing had a lot of issues. Some great moments, but still a lot of issues.

[@Mkrause762]

@@Bucketus.Lord.of.Buckets I was a huge BioWare fan and I had absolutely no interest in buying anthem that was probably fairly common, I doubt very many mass effect or dragon age players would ever play that game

[@Bucketus.Lord.of.Buckets]

@Mkrause762 entirely fair. It would be like fans of Sony titles skipping gacha games. Bioware should have stuck with story rich single player games. I didn't buy it though, I got it free. Was just pointing out the positives

[@A.D.I.D.A.S-916]

@@Mkrause762It’s the copium man, it’s running rampant through people’s blood streams.

[@WAAAAAAGH]

Bro...What the hell do you think? Andromeda, Anthem, now Veilguard, obviously they're "in trouble". And good. Hope they go under.

[@majorgear1021]

Same here. Let them FAFO.

[@bennygerow]

Bioware, EA, Ubi.... Haven't bought their games in about a decade at this point. Overcooked.

[@Two_Bad]

I grabbed the C&C bundle from earlier this year. Granted those are all old titles, but actually felt like I was swindling them for once! They did seem to be trying to push EA Play with them though, eff that.

[@rensten4893]

And under-delivered

[@darkmega97]

Honestly with Trump's win I half expect mass effect 5's story to be the most heavy handed and unsubtle allegory to his presidency that the writers can come up with

[@TwoHandedChargedBonk]

And if these are the same "writers" from the Failguard you can trust they will pull it off in the most cringy way lol

[@majorgear1021]

Basically Dustborn in the ME universe.

[@abusedumpster8882]

The villain will 100% say they’ll make the galaxy great again

[@XBullitt16X]

Mate its gonna be utter shite, especially because its gonna be the same team working on it.

[@Mattznick]

that's a stretch in my opinion

[@Mulberry_Mojo]

There's a fine line between being an optimist and being an apologist.

[@dani_i8942]

Yes, Bioware is well and truly done. They died after Mass Effect 3.

[@TheOneGreat]

They died with Andromeda.

[@spook75a28]

The heart stopped beating once Bioware was sold to EA, it suffered brain death once the founders left. What has been happening since it the cooling of the body.

[@Mkrause762]

They've been on a downward trend since dragon age origins, I like mass effect 2 but it's not as good as the first game. Mass effect 3 is awful

[@matthewhainer189]

Huh, so they "died" did they? I could have sworn that Andromeda and Veilguard were made by Bioware.

[@nullpoint3346]

@@matthewhainer189 A label is not the people, a company is not the people. The people made the games that made the company are gone.

[@brewchowski6445]

At this point, BioWare has gone the way of blizzard, and indies are the new hyped developers. Owlcat, Larian, the folks behind Kingdom come deliverance-these are the new darlings.

[@Mkrause762]

2/3 of those aren't indie

[@TheMarcHicks]

​@@Mkrause762they are indie in that they aren't bound to a 3rd party publisher like Bioware is.

[@Mkrause762]

@@TheMarcHicksLarian has 800+ employees and isn't kcd 2 being published by Sony?

[@8Aerondight8]

It's very illogical to say that maybe they'll have a better grasp on what their doing. They KNOW what sells, they KNOW what they need to do and what kind of games to make but they keep changing their IP because they don't just want profit from sales they want the massive investor money too and that investor money comes with strings attached. So they opted to neglect the fans, betting on nostalgia and brand loyalty keeping them hooked, while pleasing their actual masters, the investor groups. I hope they make a new Mass Effect. I hope they spend 500 million on it and I hope it concords. At this point more triple A companies NEED to go out of business for the industry to right itself. They have to make a choice, who are they making these games for? Customers or investors?

[@galaxybrainkid1222]

True. It's time for major publishers and studios to flop for pushing mediocre products often accompanied by ba DEI (they go together like pb and j).

[@mmmisterslsl]

00:10 the question on my mind is how many nunchucks can a nun chuck.

[@ralphengland8559]

None

[@Mugthief]

I think about this constantly tbh.

[@pko1683]

Short answer....yes. Long answer, does it matter even if they survive Mass effect 5 is going to be garbage. I know there are some former Bio-ware devs who were there when they were good and the game looks like a spiritual successor to the original trilogy.

[@stonecoldsteverharvey7862]

There’s absolutely no chance BioWare learns from any mistakes they made with veilguard because in their heads they didn’t make any mistakes

[@blueblue8869]

Their twitter threads are proof of that imo

[@Cyael]

If you actually play Veilguard as you claim you'd know Bioware is dead and doesn't deserve another opportunity to Transition a game & sell it under a name people might actually want. I'll work to recquaint this industry with its balls.

[@rastislavbodorik]

Andromeda has been fantastic when compared to Veilguard, if Mass Effect 5 is the same catastrophe as Veilguard it is better let Biaware perish and keep it in memory as we have Black Isles.

[@EM-vw7im]

I actually enjoyed a Andromeda, and if Andromeda was not mass effect related, would have been way less hated. At least Andromeda, had some unique ideas for a mass effect game. Veilguard has none of that.

[@Blirre]

Andromeda's saving grace is that it's not direct continuation for the previous games. It has bad writing too, but it's much less annoying because it doesn't retcon the previous games as it doesn't have to follow the same narrative. It can be viewed as it's own separate game and disregarded from lore if you don't like it.

[@magusjiro]

"Mass Effect is supposed to be a serious mature adult adventure".. well, so was Dragon Age, but they didn't do that right.

[@echoesofmalachor3700]

Using concord as a metric for failure is wild. That maybe the single biggest flop in entertainment history

[@utopua4all]

I mean I get the idea of not outright calling it a flop until we have something more concrete, but I mean the game was in development for a ton time and wasn't it rebooted twice? That couldn't have been cheap.

[@adamaccountname]

The example I give is owlcat gets the same number of simultaneous players except they finance their games on kickstarter and specifically make games for a niche audience. They aren't a flop because they pre finance and know the customers they are targeting aren't mass audience

[@P_OmSa]

I think any reasonable analysis of the facts points to the game being a flop. EA can spin it any way they want, but the fact that it was in development for over a decade and is not selling well enough for them to brag about it means it is a money sink.

[@KILLILAE01]

wait ... I just read earlier they needed to sell 4 million copies just to break even, and it seems they sold 500k, are these numbers correct ? If they are that's a massive flop I'm sorry ...

[@Mugthief]

Calling something a massive flop for selling 500 to 600k on Steam alone before the Holiday period is very short sighted. Consoles are a huge part of the market, and the game is more expensive there, unless you want to pretend that Dragon Age The Veilguard is aimed at hardcore PC players...which it isn't. There's a huge difference between "didn't break even" and "We burned 400m dollars and shut the studio down" like a Concord. And that's before we factor in that EA can move the goal post as much as they want by seperating Dread Wolf expenses from The Veilguard. Not every game needs to come out swinging, and until our recent obsession with launch day numbers, most games would see considerable sales during the holiday periods, Black Friday deals and people having more time during Christmas.

[@KILLILAE01]

@Mugthief I just thought 500k was the total number for all platforms, that's why I'm asking for confirmation about the numbers

[@kojk2545]

@@Mugthief It's looking like they have an outside chance of breaking even... eventually. However, when you invest hundreds of millions into a project, and the upshot is it eventually recouping that money 10-12 years down the line, that's horrible. As an investment, they've completely wasted their time, and gotten bent over by inflation... and that's their best case, dream scenario at this point. Maybe it's not the worst flop in the history of gaming, but it's worth remembering that if you just took 200m and put it in a cringe little 5% bond like the most boring guy ever, in 10 years you'd have 325m cold hard cash. That should be the comparable, not treating 0 profit/0 loss as if it's a neutral outcome.

[@ciege7486]

​@kojk2545 This. If you can't beat basic b*tch bank interest, let alone inflation, on something like a film, game, or TV show, then it was a failed investment.

[@carlosleyva-calistenia6400]

@@Mugthief To be fair, you have been comparing this with Concord; probably the biggest flop in the history of videogames. I don't know if this is a flop, but a flop is a flop. It doesn't matter if other flops are way worse.

[@Scalpaxos]

I respectfully disagree, first regarding the game not being a flop, based on what? The game obviously didn't achieve any goal a company like Bioware with a game like Dragon Age is expected to aim at, therefore IT IS a flop, you can compare how it performed vs games in the same category, from that perspective it is a flop too, so under what metric this game is not a flop? Bioware themselves are treating their game like an unwanted child, they swiftly announced that there will be no DLC amidst the deafening radio silence about the sales number, in what situations do you ever see a studio silent about that? When it's a flop...

[@Dlihclive]

Let's not fool ourselves here: ME 5 has been doomed since Andromeda. Veilguard not being Bioware's "return to form" so many were calling is just the last nail in the coffin.

[@Grymyrk]

It is absolutely underperforming and absolutely will not break even. That makes it a flop, especially when they intentionally made the game unappealing.

[@ZwiekszoneRyzyko]

I think people have more sentiment towards Mass Effect franchise than Dragon Age. (no offense to Dragon Age community ofc). So if the same people will make ME5 and start forcing the same preaching, ideology and activism into storylines, pronouns, coming out as non-binary etc, the flop will be even more massive than with Veilguard. And Bioware will NOT survive another flop. It's their last chance. Chance they're going to most likely ruin spectacularly.

[@adamaccountname]

Because of all the refunds they have to clear the backlog of second hand copies on the market now, so Christmas may not be so cheerful

[@srossiter81]

The problem i think you are dancing around is that Bioware is a company that makes RPGs, and the fundamental criticism is that they have not made a good RPG in years. Veil guard might have been a semi decent action game. Veil guard might have been a semi decent 20 hour adventure game. What it was not was an excellent 60 hour RPG. It's just another huge red flag to RPG fans that this company can not make the kinds of games it used to and everyone should be cautious about ME5

[@dani_i8942]

Andromeda seems lesgues better than Veil Guard...say what you want about Andromeda, it didn't have...Taash. placing any hope when they have had a generation and a half or terrible games is some serious cope.

[@joelhodoborgas]

That game has awful story. Combat is way more action focused. Nah

[@ANGRYWOLVERINE2060-ft2nc]

I agree. I don't like Andromeda but it is an rpg. Luke Stephens says Veilguard isn't an rpg .He labeled it a friendship simulator . I think its an action game with a few poorly constructed rpg elements added in .But it is not a true rpg imo.

[@dani_i8942]

​@joelhodoborgas The game is utter trash, don't get me wrong, though it doesn't go full woketard like Veilgard does

[@eestiny9734]

At this point, it is more about wishful thinking than fact! 3 bad games back to back! Bioware isn't anymore! The new recruits seems to not have even an average talent to make the type of games Bioware used to. They were once great they are nothing now! I am exhausted of the FREE PASS, that led us to a wasted decade! Wasting ressources.

[@grundged]

The writing in Veilguard is horrendous. The characters speak like children acting like adults. It's super cringe in alot of places. 😬

[@joelhodoborgas]

Bro its a flop

[@ogun6464]

Hope for Exodus to be good, no hope for ME5

[@Sicarius888]

Just because it has old devs doesn't guarantee it will be good. Callisto Protocol failed.

[@ogun6464]

@Sicarius888 completely agree. That's why it's hope and not a pre order

[@majorgear1021]

And maybe Avowed by Obsidian will be good!

[@dapperdanman2724]

The fallout show was Bethesda continuing to push the IP further down a steep hill, the mass effect show will be bioware doing the same thing. These companies are so deeply infected with activism and incompetence, being positive about the situations they've put themselves in is just setting yourself up for disappointment.

[@alecj3454]

Dragon Age The Veilguard is garbage. It has a simplistic combat system that relies on enemies being damage sponges. The main story is non existent. The characters suck. The writing is sophomoric drivel. The character based side missions are embarrassing. Im not sure what part of this you want to keep -- but if the Dragon Age franchise was to get another game, they should burn this entry to ash and forget it exists. There is nothing redeemable about it. Is it the worst game ever made....durrr....of course not....but given its budget, resources, & the extreme effort made by the media to convince everyone how great it was, I consider it one of the biggest scams ever perpetrated on the gaming community. Bioware is a clown show. Mass Effect has no hope of being competent. The studio is terrible people doing terrible things....terribly....i dont care what nostalgic name from 20 years ago they can attach to the project to give suckers hope. Its over....and its FAR WORSE than most would have you believe. The video game industry is in serious trouble. Its so rotted from the inside, it cant just be fixed with a couple of adults showing up. It needs to be completely rebuilt on a foundation of merit & vision. Until that happens...the death spiral continues.

[@ANGRYWOLVERINE2060-ft2nc]

Yes Bioware is in trouble.The hour of the chuds has arrived!!! Only kidding lol.Jason Schrier is so funny, If the game sold less than 5 million it is a flop. No doubt about it. If the 500,000 sales figure is correct the game flopped. If there were 30,000 returns/refunds the game is a failure. Things can't be more plain. One rumor floating around is that EA will give DA and ME if the studio is closed to Respawn. Which most players would feel is a win despite the studio going under and people losing their jobs. It is alleged that EA pushed out their experienced employees and gave jobs to inexperienced EA employees within Bioware .People they put in.If that is so the problems the studio is facing with having an inexperienced team is of EA's making.

[@mrbigglezworth42]

Is Bioware in trouble? Short answer: YES Long answer: Yes, but it's arguable that the decay started sometime during the ME3 production, some would even say earlier with DA2 and it's very obviously rushed production by EA to bank on the surprise popularity of DAO. Given every game after ME3 has been getting progressively less polished or well written (looking at you Andromeda) then Veilguard was only inevitable.

[@poleybear914]

this seems so unfair if they do treat the veilguard like a success when the dead space remake made somewhere around 2 million sales and was still considered a failure that benched that franchise AGAIN.

[@Mugthief]

You know, I should've brought this up. Dead Space peaked at 30k CCU on Steam, so DATV almost tripled that. I'm still sad about Dead Space, but if people really want to use Steam data as a sales metric without going into the details, that menas DATV would be a decent success at 6 million predicted sales. It's just not that simple though. But Dead Space getting benched is still one of the saddest things EA has done.

[@majorgear1021]

Dead Space remake was also bad.

[@MyActualThoughts]

@@majorgear1021 While it lacked some of the ambiance the OG game had, I thought it was a ton of fun.

[@Axterix13]

@@Mugthief Yeah, it is generally a good idea to look at more than one metric, plus you do have to consider things like launch day issues that could delay purchases. I think it is also worth looking at the peak Twitch numbers, as that gives another pretty good indicator as to the interest in the game. For that, the Dead Space remake peaked at 266k, compared to 170k for DA:V. Some related interesting tidbits, Starfield has a bit over 3x the peak Steam player count over DA:V and also about the same edge for peak Twitch viewership. Peak twitch also lets you compare it to games that weren't released on Steam, like Star Wars Outlaws. It peaked at 116k on Twitch.

[@marqod1437]

Come out of slavery under Bioware, veterans. It is time to "Exodus."

[@tobiasbracknagel4998]

I disagree. When I want to play a game, I want to play a game that is good (at least), not a game that "could have been worse" or "that has a good game burried under all the bad stuff". People who cope really hard with this game, just because they cannot stomach the thought that their good ole Bioware (Only genuine with good ole Bioware-magic!) does not exist anymore, are not a great measure to rely upon here. As for Mass Effect 5, we will see if the modern audience virus has infected that team also or not. Then again: I absolutely wouldn't be surprised if the responsible heads for Veilguard wouldn't be trying to force themselves into that team to stay employed. If you had fun with the game, great. Stand by it and finito. But do not try to sell me that there is a potential great game buried under all the crap when basically 80% (rough estimate) of the dialogue and the boring combat system would have to be renewed together with the narrative. Especially when there is not even one single moment present that hits you in the feels as hard as the "the dawn will come" scene or the discovery of Skyhold did. And this is only Inquisition I am refering to here, don't get me even started on Origins.

[@majorgear1021]

Come on. It gets good after 50 hours! lol.

[@jbdxiii]

I wouldn't play Veilguard if they gave it to me for free. Count me as a vote of no confidence for Mass Effect 5. Also: no one in their right mind would pirate this thing.

[@bells5385]

Brother let me help you. If you lose over $100 million it’s a flop. I hear excuses they can use and that’s awesome but zero companies look at losing that much money as not a flop. They aren’t going to gain 3 million plus people because it’s the holidays

[@zeorhymer6]

It's the same weirdo lead writer from VG writing for ME5. Let's see how many pronouns and lecturing you can spot.

[@krzysiekj2522]

if the same ppl from failguard are working on ME5, it's a no buy as well.

[@kraosdadafusfus8034]

People have hated EA since their studio-shuttering spree in the 90s and 2000s, under Riccitello's rule, and for good reason. Bioware's turn is close.

[@SolearGnG]

You are too optimistic, Mug. I say, that studio that pooped out Dragonage Veilguard is not capable of making the Mass Effect you want. No matter of leadership, the last disappointing decade tells me that Bioware completely turned inside out, so whatever is happening there will interfere with the creation process of ME as well.. I'm not just talking about art direction, but everything else from HR to concept to writing, sound and quiest design etc etc. Every aspect of their studio is infested with the rot that made DAV possible.. And as you said it's the same team.. One thing is extra sure: I'll not preorder ME5 either and surely will not buy it until I saw several hours of gameplay.. Bioware lost their status of preorders a long long time ago..

[@cirescythe]

It might not be a HUGE loss in financial terms. It certainly is good enough as fodder for EAs platform. The issue long term will be the damage to the brand and Studio in the eyes of most customers. Their next game will be an insta buy for WAY less players. People will have a keen eye on their next product and wont go in blind.

[@qu1253]

Veilguard has made me grateful Doom 2016 and Doom Eternal turned out as good as they did. It's nice to see a new team treat an old IP with respect rather than defecating on it and acting like fans are wrong for not liking it.

[@brotherelf]

It wouldn't surprise me if ea uses bioware as their esg studio they can't put it in FIFA or madden

[@marcdwonn9772]

That sounds like a nightmare. :(

[@joelhodoborgas]

I do think so. BioWare is a very small percentage of EA giant. I think these people woll only double down cause its not them that will lose money.

[@nunab1864]

I know this is a hot take, but I'm thinking Andromeda might actually be better than Veilguard (techical issues aside).

[@majorgear1021]

Gollum was better than Veilguard :)

[@prekx]

Personally, it seems to me that their current moves are screaming "full steam ahead towards the next failure!"

[@TryboBike]

It probably was just an asset flip they have done at minimal cost to get some of the assets made for the previous incarnations of the game. EA knew they had a lemon on their hands - whence no DLC, lowet price, no DRM and so on. BioWare will be fine.

[@Mkrause762]

They probably let the writers do whatever the hell they wanted that's why they destroy the entire dragon age setting there's probably no plans for a sequel

[@NecroBanana]

The reason why you might enjoy Veilguard is that its systems are designed to be as mind-numbingly simple as possible while presenting a large pool of options within its design. It's essentially the adult equivalent of a kid's animal book with buttons everywhere and different noises for the animals. It's got that live-service, F2P ORPG feeling of "I just gotta grind x more times!" but taken to its core and the grind considerable lessened since they don't need you to engage with it constantly. This gameplay system was designed by someone who understands F2P games and what makes them successful with the broader public. Wonder if the lead designer worked for Tencent at any point.

[@lvl_0]

I can appreciate that people are somewhat hopeful about the future of Mass Effect as a series as it is their favorite Bioware property, but Dragon Age was mine. To see it killed off in this way is pretty sad, in a game I'm not even motivated enough to play because of the issues surrounding it.

[@Moonhermit2]

Lol no. At this point, nothing short of the Mass Effect lead coming out to throw Veilguard under the bus, and categorically swearing none of this will be in Mass Effect 5 will earn any confidence from fans. And even then, we would wait to see if he lived up to his promises. Bioware has miscalculated how badly this is going to burn their reputation for ALL their games.

[@Vyndrall]

@@Moonhermit2 A few years ago, Dragon Age 4 was suspected of being "woke", the Bioware people Epler defended himself against by denying this aspect. We know the rest. Anthem was supposed to be taken over by the same guy who is now making Mass Effect. He talked about going back to the drawing board if necessary: ​​we know the rest. These people lie constantly. Mass Effect 4/5 will probably never see the light of day and all these people are probably already preparing their career transitions to other companies.

[@AkaRystik]

The people who made good games at Bioware simply arent there anymore. People keep expecting Bioware to produce another masterpiece but its basically a different company at this point. The people that are still there have no idea what they are doing and most of them didnt take part in producing the games that put Bioware on the map. The current Bioware hasnt made any good games, its been flop after flop, to hold out hope that a new Mass Effect will be any better is cope of the highest magnitude. Even if the teams working on the two games are different, the last Mass Effect doesnt make me optimistic.

[@Gungrave123]

Biowoke has no future.

[@MikaMikaMika89]

Woke is a good thing, whatever Bioware is doing is not.

[@peckneck2439]

It's so over it could only be more over if they announced the studio's closure, but it feels like that's just around the corner anyway.

[@sioc7478]

They can just give us all a refund and change the story now! It's no biggie!

[@bobbob-dg1kt]

Bogus, I'm pretty sure Dragon Age was supposed to be a gritty medieval fantasy, just like mass effect is a grown up serious sci-fi game, how can they fail to deliver massively on one game and expect us to believe them the very next time? Especially as all the devs from Valeguard are now working on Mass Effect?

[@sethcaplan859]

Without spoiling too much, the game more or less nuked the setting in game. Ao i doubt they will go back to DA and if they do its going to be purely as action adventure games not as RPGs.

[@hobosapiensSinceShadowMoses]

Bye south Thedas, bye all your previous effort.. Dude I'm so pissed about that franchise

[@empirednw6624]

There is no way we ever get another dragon age game.😢

[@kp64446]

Yes, ME5 is doomed. Even if it's made, no way will current Bioware do it justice

[@rockingbirdey]

I don't think Veilguard was a major catastrophic flop, but if EA were happy with the initial sales of Veilguard, they would have released a press statement detailing how many copies it sold in it's first week across all platforms. I think the game is going to be viewed as a big underperformance. These companies love jerking themselves off in front of the public. The game also benefited from having very little to not competition in it's first week as well as the next few weeks yet it still underperformed. I don't think the game is gonna end up being a long-term seller. I think Dragon Age can be salvaged, but the next DA game has to be phenomenal. It has to return back to the tactical-focused combat of Origins - after BG3 which is actually less accessible with it's turn-based combat, there's no excuse that gamers won't accept a return to the more accessible Origins style of RTWP. If they skirt around Veilguard and treat it like a spin-off or even just dismiss it and decanonise it, and promise to return to the grimdark tone of Origins (which had tons of humour, but the game was mostly very serious and the humour was a respite from the dark ness), I think that would go a long way with winning fans back. Hopefully the writers of Veilguard steer far far far away from Mass Effect 5.

[@jimbeaux89]

I have absolutely zero hope or interest in the future of BioWare after failguard. You can add dragon age and Mass Effect on to the pile of the corpses of our favorite IP’s that these idiots have massacred. I just don’t understand why these activists have to mess with our favorite existing franchises. Why can’t they just come up with their own? But yeah, I don’t trust modern day “BioWare” whatsoever.

[@arobotarmy9878]

Mass Effect 5 is not a second chance. It’s a fourth chance, and i don’t understand why anyone thinks BioWare even deserves it.

[@CharlieKellyEsq]

I hope so. I will never look at bioware like fromsoft, larian, or even game science

[@kattuzra]

EA only determines the spin at this point. It’s now the customers turn to determine the success.

[@nullpoint3346]

Bioware was dead when they started working on Andromeda, possibly even before then.

[@Gungrave123]

The Failguard is worse than Andromeda by every metric imaginable

[@kuronanestimare]

Mass Effect 5 is COOKED. One person cannot possibly redeem all of the decisions the last team made. Unless everyone involved with Veilguard is fired, then BioWare has no future.

[@carbagehealth]

The media still trying to gaslight people about the game... even with little news like "no dlc planned", saying its good for mass effect fans... they really have no shame, its pathetic!

[@TheMarcHicks]

The numbers tell a dire story for Bioware. Never even got to 100,000 players on Steam, and didn't even get into the top 20 most played games lists for XBox or Playstation. Owner estimates place sales at around 500k-700k.....not nearly enough to cover the cost of a 10+ year development cycle.

[@Tonedriver]

In terms of sales, and in my opinion, a “Short” could refer to a product’s total production cost not passed in finished product sales to any amount. A “Severe Short” could be held as synonymous with “Flop”, and could probably pretty easily achieve a general audience viewpoint of 50% or less in sales to the TOTAL PRODUCTION COST. If you keep your numbers firm to the simplest of expressions of success, then people will relate to the challenges of even a big company’s growth more.

[@Jmerithew87]

I’d be incredibly surprised if BioWare survives this. This is their third strike in a row and a decade of losses, and I don’t see EA giving them another 4-5+ years for maybe getting a win on Mass Effect 5.

[@justinmartin845]

The only people they should allow near mass effect are the people in charge of the environments. That was like the only saving grace for Veilguard.

[@darknirvana308]

Yeah mugthief I disagree with you on this one. A game being a flop is not up to how the publisher perceives it or spins it, it's objective. If a game fails to make it's money back or even fails to break even, it's objectively a flop, it failed. Underperforming would be if it just breaks even or if it makes only a small profit. These are things that we can objectively tell using sales and development figures regardless of whether EA cares about it's success, regardless of whether they were trying something new or not

[@LimC.A]

yeah same doesnt break even is LITERALLY the definition of FLOP dunno why mug is trying to cope or sumthing cuz if i have a team of greenhorns trying to replicate one of gaming's best written game series i would just land them with a smaller title or create a small game instead of desecrating the big IP which results in bigger losses both money and reputation.

[@nRommeln]

It's just funny. All that 'this dragon age game will show Bioware is back to business' hype was completely gone and now we are getting 'Well, Dragon age wasn't Bioware's strong IP.' bullshit and 'This is all EA's fault' nonsense. Give me a break.

[@jyphelballet7569]

If the sales are even 1M, and i think it will be more likely around 750k, it only makes 40 to 50 M back. For a game dev of 10 years at least 200 M, were spend. So its a total failure. And about future, how can you expect something different from the same team. Plus we have confirmation, of ones of the writer is an activist. Lamenting after Trump election, and his work on MEffect will be affected. You can in all reason, expect sometghing different from the same studio.

[@rubenthekid]

A flop is dustborn and concord, disappointing/underwhelming better fit it, cause it did sell, but it wasnt a good game.

[@osric729]

I'm cool if they decide to bin ME5 after DATV. It's NOT going to get any better because, at the end of the day, it wasn't a total flop. User and critic reviews were overall positive, and it sold decent numbers. (despite the fact that most the reviews actually sound negative 😂) They'll very likely look at the negatives and pick the wrong things to fix.

[@VelcroSnake93]

14:30 - And here I thought Dragon Age also wasn't meant to have a jovial, happy go lucky tone...

[@Thagyr]

Looking at the previews of Exodus and the lore it immediately has the *feel* that the current Bioware has lost, and it has barely shown any gameplay. Bioware used to be known for story, but Veilguard's major weakness is its story based on all the criticism.

[@KriZPify]

Pretty sure they cut DRM cuz dunevo is a subscription based system. You dont pay once, you pay every year that the game is using dunevo. So it says alot. They already figured they wont sell many copies so as a money saving place they just skiped that step.

[@RRRRRRRRR33]

Have to point out a mistake, actually a common misconception. Dragon Age is more popular than Mass Effect, EA claimed Inquisition alone sold 11 million copies, the entire Mass Effect trilogy sold 14 million. There are more numbers scattered around (it sucks how this industry is not transparent), but yep, DA is the "main" Bioware franchise. Surprising, considering the division among fans, each DA is a complete different game, more schizophrenic than the Final Fantasy franchise

[@kiethhadford3733]

DA: TVG is far, far worse than Andromeda. What is Mug thing about?

[@martinstrnad641]

I'm a game dev that took part in 3 AAA games including launches, I did a calculation of projected sales of Veilgurd across all platforms using SteamSpy data to approximate sales on other platforms and store fronts based on my past experiences of how sales scale on other platforms compared to Steam. Reality is that the game only covered 50% of its development and marketing budget at best with the current numbers. Not sure if you classify it as a flop or not, but losing half the budget plus inflation interest is definitely considered a financial failure. The only way they can use this brand and make money on it is to do a very careful remake of Inquisition without trying to adapt it for modern audiences.

[@polerli18]

I'm both really afraid and morbidly curious at what the veilguard so called writers are gonna do to the Asari in Mass effect 5.

[@DeepestDankest]

Imagine having faith in Bethesda after Fallout 4 and Bioware after Andromeda.

[@Azrael178]

Three games in a row have been failures. At what point saying "they will surely learn this time" becomes insanity?

[@majorgear1021]

Bioware is running on fumes now. They might be able to borrow enough money to make ME4 ( Andromeda doesn’t count ) before they shutdown. It will be the last bit of damage that they get to do to a beloved franchise.

[@Jkend199]

10 years of development on a AAA game and budget can be reasonably presumed. 25 million a year would be VERY LOW for a year of AAA development, and that would be 250 million. not including marketing. If they are then making $40 USD per copy (unlikely) and there is 0 marketing budget the game would have to sell 6,250,000 copies to break even. The reality is that it did have a marketing budget, the game was likely more expensive than 25 million a year, and they are very likely not making 40 USD per copy which would mean probably more like 7,500,000+ copies just to break even, to say nothing of making a profit. I think those are VERY VERY FAVORABLE assumptions, so are the sales anywhere near 7.5 million if they aren't then it's safe to assume this is a flop.

[@Axterix13]

The 10 years isn't with a full dev team. Early on, it would have very few people. Most likely, it wouldn't have had significant staffing until Anthem was near its launch date, so probably early 2019. That said, yeah, 25m is very likely on the low side given the probably size of the dev team.