NEW: After the release of Dragon Age: The Veilguard, dozens of BioWare employees were told they were temporarily assigned to other projects within EA.
This week, a twist: those temp assignments are now *permanent* transfers. And BioWare has shrunk.
Story: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2025-01-31/electronic-arts-slashes-bioware-after-dragon-age-sales-miss?accessToken=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJzb3VyY2UiOiJTdWJzY3JpYmVyR2lmdGVkQXJ0aWNsZSIsImlhdCI6MTczODM1MTgzMSwiZXhwIjoxNzM4OTU2NjMxLCJhcnRpY2xlSWQiOiJTUVlXVThUMEFGQjQwMCIsImJjb25uZWN0SWQiOiJCMUVBQkI5NjQ2QUM0REZFQTJBRkI4MjI1MzgyQTJFQSJ9.91ztnslkcG02JwTwRRfVCXIJp8FOdqGBjCNQgz-bE8k
This week, a twist: those temp assignments are now *permanent* transfers. And BioWare has shrunk.
Story: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2025-01-31/electronic-arts-slashes-bioware-after-dragon-age-sales-miss?accessToken=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJzb3VyY2UiOiJTdWJzY3JpYmVyR2lmdGVkQXJ0aWNsZSIsImlhdCI6MTczODM1MTgzMSwiZXhwIjoxNzM4OTU2NjMxLCJhcnRpY2xlSWQiOiJTUVlXVThUMEFGQjQwMCIsImJjb25uZWN0SWQiOiJCMUVBQkI5NjQ2QUM0REZFQTJBRkI4MjI1MzgyQTJFQSJ9.91ztnslkcG02JwTwRRfVCXIJp8FOdqGBjCNQgz-bE8k
Comments
I'm inordinately stubborn. So, I actually mean it.
It sold 1.5 million units (expected was 3m).
Best case scenario was $80, but most likely some were sold at discount.
Total revenue = 120 mil.
Just the base cost vs best case income... its a flop
Expecting the game to recoup the frivolous waste of leadership throwing away years of work is unrealistic. $80-120 for what actually made it to ship should be seen as a success.
Leadership failed and people did not vote with their wallets to make up for leadership failures
BG3 alone shows their are millions of players down for fantasy RPGs and they will flock to them
Stop the cope
At this point I feel like a widow looking at old pics of my husband after they died at war lol
What’s not is that it’s a game a ton of people didn’t want. One of my Best Friends doesn’t follow any of the culture war stuff but was a DA fan. He saw the first trailer and never came back
It’s a cope to try to say otherwise
It's being cited in financial reports because, due to the publisher's interference, the game took 10 years to produce. That isn't something you can just recoup on a single player release with no nickel-and-dime content.
While I fully understand some of the disagreements…two was solid and felt like a DA game. Dark, gritty, in your face with the reality’s of this worlds short comings and unapologetic about it
That’d be utopia
Regardless, this fucking sucks. Good write-up though.
That is a lot of people gone over not a lot of time. Yeah, color me not optimistic for Bioware's future, even if Mass Effect releases and is everything the team wanted it to be. It's going to take a miracle at this stage...
(As an aside, I got "Play Nice" over Christmas. Excellent read.)
I enjoyed Veilguard. It wasn’t perfect but I thought the dialog and story were mostly on the level of past Bioware games and the gameplay was super fun.
Not looking for a sanitized, Marvel-fied ME with the edges sanded off. The Paragon/Renegade options were sorely missed in "Andromeda" and it looks like dialog branches were similarly watered down in Veilguard.
Ah, someone else who didn't play it.
It just wasn’t a fan DA experience to me
Emmrich story alone is completely disproving what their saying.
Sooooooo... yeah, Mass Effect is pre-fucked.
We have previous sales numbers plus we have other big hit RPGs that we can compare to get a rough estimate of possible customers.
The game didn’t sell well for 100+ plus triple AAA game…
too many people went into veilguard looking for reasons to hate it.
I think that discourse has poisoned so much of games now that people really are going into things with a lot of preconceived notions about things.
But there’s an easy solution, and that’s to have the same spirit of the Doctors who created BioWare in the first place.
Most people, if you’re well read enough, and are fans of geek media, could create the next BioWare.
In fact, I’m in the middle of doing that…
So who oversees and decides the overall vision of a game?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_oEj-Ed_-Xc
Bungie suits make bad decisions, devs pay the price.
Microsoft suits make bad decisions, devs pay the price.
Is this a pattern? I'm no algorithm, but it feels like a pattern to me.
But what do I know? I'm just a dog on the internet. Bark bark bark.
An old story that's told too often. Fuck EA.
DAV was the best game I played last year. It had flaws, but I adore its cast and spectacles.
And some chud posted intentionally trolly LPs for trolling.
Lots of people i know read that as people working through backlogs, but it was actually people playing forever games.
No time for another one. Destiny got me ten years ago 😄
I love this game (oh my sweet rook and lucanis <3) and yes, it has some problems here and there, BUT the devs schouldnt be treated like this.
screw this capitalism, when a hand full folks makes the big money and many of us dont.
this system is rotten at its core.
It would have been great to have a smaller story focused game after Inquisition, but instead it took 10 years due tue EAs meddling, what a mess.
And Joe knows why it failed.
Shallow critique should be discarded.
https://youtu.be/Vrd6GpZXvdk?si=qunWvwUCbNKX__Bx
https://youtu.be/9HK6tBt8SqQ?si=AmgL4ZLCbqumwkBv
Won't forget all the amazing experiences those who were let go were responsible for.
I think it's mid. And they've strayed way too far from Dragon Age: Origins. Which ironically sold double what Veilguard did.
Doesn't make me a nazi. Or a bigot.
Gamers are strange