Bioware wasn't killed because of Veilguard, it was killed because EA execs were mad that everyone rejected their fuckall 14th consecutive retread football game with slightly updated roster and still dogwater gameplay and they needed a scapegoat
Comments
Log in with your Bluesky account to leave a comment
I'll never forgive EA for pulling people from Mass Effect Andromeda so they can make their Destiny wanna-be garbage loot shooter. The fact that EA still exists is proof that there's no such thing as a "free market."
BioWare is going through a round of layoffs because a football game they didn’t make, underperformed?
EA officially confirmed, that Veilguard only reached 50% of their expected sales.
BioWare was dead long before Veilguard came out.
It was also killed literally because veilguard didn’t sell due to veilguard being a sub par game. Makes sense. Dump a huge investment into a title, developers do not make a game that sells, game fails to make its money back. Closes/lays off part of the studio. Basic common sense
You can have a very diverse set of characters of all races and still make it fun. Why? Because if the focus is on the fun mechanics and storyline and not turn politics into the main focus, you'll see people have fun.
It's why Stellar Blade and Black Myth Wukong succeeded.
Stellar Blade is a Book of Exodus meets Noah meets Jesus Story. The entire thing is driven by religious messaging. Look at the names: Eve, Adam and Lily. (Lilith)
The city: Xion (Zion)
Wukong is a retelling of Journey to the West which was a critique of the politics of its time. 1/
Entertainment has always had politics in it. Art is inherently political as it is a reflection of the world live in, where "politics" infuse into everything.
What you are really saying is that there are certain political subjects you'd rather not get talked about.
Female protagonists are not the political ones. I am referring to forced body positivity (uplifting the characters), sharing pronouns, making LGBTQ or race (even if white) as a main focus, etc.
There are really good games with black characters in it (like GTA 5).
Look, those people exist but they can't exist in games or movies or anywhere? It's not political, again. It's including everyone. Have some been OVER correcting? Sure, but that doesn't mean they should just be erased from entertainment altogether. The writing just needs to be better, IMHO.
I don't either of those games. Like I said, the writing should be better but they exist and now they exist in movies and games too. Better get used to that.
EA has been shit from the very beginning. We have a dumb youtube audience that buys it because their favorite content creator tells them to buy it so he/she can make money. Cut off the youtubers = EA goes bankrupt
I watched a video on why nobody has made a game to challenge Madden. Basically it came down to how much time and money it would take to even get a game off the ground and how risky it would be to develop the game without a guarantee that you would get the license to even sell it.
From what little I saw of Veilguard, it's off key tonal shift, and it's half baked gaming was the last nail in Bioware coffin. Between Andromeda, Anthem, and now Veilguard, I'd say that EA had been uncharacteristically patient with them. But one can only get so many chances.
CFB 25 is the best selling sports game of all time also by EA. Pretty sure it's the fact Veilguard sold half of the EA's projected sales. Occums razor.
There was also a very complicated development for 10 years, planned to make a service game then not, then maybe, then not etc.
The developers ended up releasing a viable game, a good and solid game that made 1.5 million sales so far but yeah it's Veilguard fault.
Sigh.
1.5 million sales might sound like a lot but it simply isnt. the game failed to do even half of the very reasonable numbers that they were looking for for the project to be successful. its a flop.
we’re so close to the funniest thing ever happening of a another company coming in predatorily purchasing EA and stripping them for parts it’ll still be as terrible for the video games industry as EA is but at least we’ll be able to laugh about it for once.
They make so much money off sports games (and the crazy microtransactions in them) that any other game that's NOT part of that failing is almost like a rounding error.
FC not doing so hot last year was awesome. Glad EA finally got his where it hurt—cuz I doubt they ever cared about the good games.
Like, FC 25 broke a few records in sales and they still lost billions in market value. Their explanation to shareholders was mainly FC 25 not doing well and mtx sales being lower than normal.
They need to fucking wake up and smell cheaper roses if they plan on surviving the next few years.
It is a multiple of what they budgeted for that release when they reviewed it three years ago. That multiple is the expectation of the investors on a return so they can make profit. Was that a wrong estimate? Yes. Was it inherently bad? No.
How does any of that challenge the claim that the numbers are made up? Educated guesses are still guesses, my dude, and you're admitting that they not only guessed, they didn't correct their guess when they had new info.
They made it up wrong, and then punished the workers when they were wrong.
It is in fact inherently bad to base your budgetary decisions around "this needs to make Fortnite money in order to be more worth it to investors than making nothing and just playing company stocks", yes.
Why are you even buying games from ea with their history of being bland and carny. Sure capitalism but man have some self respect it’s ok to be selective.
if you take out the package deal with ncaa 25 that they started to cover up awful sales madden nfl 25 sold less than a quarter of expectations. If you include it, it's still about a third
You are not wrong. I am just saying that it wasn’t only bad sales compounded onto BioWare, but their game sales were unfortunately below expections by a lot, which is why they got axed.
Ea gave bioware 3 consecutive chances to right the ship since 2012, anthem, me4 and dragon age. Me4 started the illusion of player agency, where dialogue option when from tough choices to you want vanilla or French vanilla. Madden successes were the only thing offsetting these problems at BioWare
Well... People be loving buying FIFA every God damn year. That said, Veilguard is horrendous compared to its predecessor. Part of it were the characters, but it was mostly the game mechanics & the fact that you ALWAYS had to get out of harms way. Whoever OKed this game didn't know what he was doing.
I'm still mad they got me. Probably 10 years of skipping Madden for those reasons but I got convinced this time would somehow be different. AI still cheats after all this time...
Didnt Bioware make Anthem? Veilguard was supposed to make up for the huge loss EA took on that game. Anthem should still be a thing today, but here we are.
It’s amazing that millions in sales can be considered a “failure.” Veilguard is an amazing game. I would definitely lay a huge chunk of blame for some lack in sales on the rampant online toxicity around the game from people who never played it and never intended to.
Honestly, Veilguard is one of the best games I’ve played in a while. I’m sad for all the people that won’t play it. (And, for anyone who HAS played the game, wow - Autocorrect tried to substitute the word “Venatori” for “Veilguard,” and that’s just evil.)
Couldn't say. I haven't played a Dragon Age game since Origins. I'm one of those nasty, old, crumudgeons, who believes that Mass Effect and Dragon Age were better as CRPGS and not ARPGS.
He does say in the comments that he is the target audience for said football game. It’s like cod and other sports game you shell out what $70 for the same game except they added a new gun. But people have been falling for it for years
Well I was talking about you. You have fallen for it since I would assume you’re an active gamer. To that all I can say is why would you even bother unless it’s past games. I’m just gonna end with you’re right and I’m wrong and anyone that wants to fight about current vg needs their head examined
I'm posting as someone who works for an entertainment business. To be in a position like that closer to a "regular job" than people would think. Directors aren't artists, they're temporary company directors who go from company to company. Marketing controls everything.
So when you see Veilguard failing, look at the fact that it was literally a remake because of the original, failed DA project that was teased. The live service game you never got to see.
It's similar to big movies like Infinity War and Justice League (2017) reshoots galore. Projects getting remade
So, you should attempt to actually read what happens at game studios, rather than coming at it from a place of total ignorance and a totally different industry with totally different internal cultures and processes
Ultimately bioware was killed by EA and its corporate non thinking. But it includes EA destroying bioware with woke bullshit that people dont want to buy.
And no it wasnt JUST veilguard, they basically destroyed biggest franchises of the brand.So it doesnt sell now.So its dead.
Or it could be that the Propeller-Heads at Bioware thought that instead of appealing to an already established audience who were hoping for a great game, they shoved out a Gender Studies lecture instead.
That 'lecture' took 10 years and 250 M$ dollars to release and lost the Co. 166 M$.
It’s not really this. EA’s studio model sets up studios to fail unless the studio has extremely strong leadership that can maneuver within EA’s system. Once studio leadership slips up, the studio will fall apart. This is what’s happened at BioWare, DICE, Criterion and many older, defunct studios.
EA doubles down on this by typically laying off the creators who make the games and retaining the leadership that let things fall apart in the first place.
Mass Effect 5 is now in “good” hands after getting rid of the pesky Veilguard devs.
For a few reasons, yes, but as The Sims 4 has received new updates and content over its now-12-year run, I like The Sims 4 a lot better, especially for building. You couldn’t create such masterful builds with The Sims 3’s building tools.
they've been hinting at "Project Rene" for a long time now, i think ppl interpreted as it being 'The Sims 5'
/which makes sense honestly! but ofc EA prefers to go the 'let's make more profit from trying to make it mobile/lootboxy/multiplayer/servicey again' and then ppl don't like it and...
Casual PC gamer* here, but early on everybody was ragging on EA DRM so I stayed away.
*Now playing early Doom and Diablo, working thru but not completed any of the Half-life franchise.
I saw a recent episode of bellular news that talked about EA.He said the college game did well but took some madden fans away.Ea sez they expected 3 mil and 'only' got 1.5 mil for DA Veilguard.They didn't say they lost money,just didn't meet 'expectations'.It's not my type of game but good reviews..
(It reviewed well).It looked great to me.It seems their business is dependent on sports games.I agree Veilguard was scapegoatted.Million/billion dollar corps don't want some money they want ALL the money.ME legendary is on sale for 6 bux on steam.I'm reluctant because of their f***ing app.Worthless.
And I used to love Madden too . Not as much as ESPN 2K but it was okay at least. Now it's just a waste of money and they're so desperate now that they won't even release it on game pass until after the season is over. EA is pathetic
you may be right, it is EA after all, but you also have to admit veilguard was not as strong as an entry like 1 and 2 were.... the themes were changed drastically, hell ill go as far as its not even as good as Inquisition was, that game was my jam! EA does make dumb choices, but game also wasnt good
EA made the DA team go through hell for 10 years, making them change the direction the game had to take three times, made it so all the OG devs and writers left, covid happened, they moved devs to Anthem, they fired writers and devs that worked on other DAs twice, shuffled devs to other projects..
Oh i remember that too, wasnt it supposed to be a live service game, then ppl left, focuses kept shifting, at one point we didnt even know what the game was. It sucks, gaming as a hobby is just not as fun or exciting anymore. =/
While I don't know those games..this seems something EA would do. I'm an EA player (just a different game) and the game I play they've wrecked as well in favor of the mobile games format, which nobody wants (except the younger people who only know those games).
Well given that people have often complained about how games are broken at launch, I'd expect that people would at least give the devs credit for that. To each their own ┐( ˘_˘)┌
DA:V did work amazingly well at launch, and just kept getting better with the updates that they did manage to get out before everything went dark for the game. I’m on my fourth run now and still loving it. Really bummed we won’t get any DLC or expansions. That just sucks.
Dragon Age was a gritty, dark, low magic world that got turned into a monty haul situation by Inquisition. And I liked inquisition but they lost the thread for sure. As the target audience for Veilguard... I got the feeling VG worsened that trend so I never bought it.
I mean, I suppose it depends on the definition of low magic you use, like GOT is definitely the example of low magic most everyone will think of, but I'm just.. doesn't feel the right title for me I guess.
I’m aware. DA:O had the entire Dark Spawn menace, which was produced by early mage contact with The Fade. All the enemies you face are soaked in magic.
Every location is built on how lirium is a magic-drenched crystal, constantly threatening to corrupt anyone near it.
Dwarves are defined by their inability to use magic. The clergy have an entire group of knights focused on preventing the spillover of unchecked magic, and apostate mages.
Well, and that because killing studios has been EA's modus operandi since the turn of the century. Bullfrog, Maxis, Origin, Westwood, Mythic, Visceral... if anything, it's kind of impressive BioWare's lasted as long as it has.
The fun thing about this discussion is that they have actually failed at two football games in the two footballs and both of you mean different ones(Also FC is a disaster mostly because of the rosters, this is true, gameplay is still solidish even if waaaaay buggier than everything prior to 24)
Yes, and the company operates on shareholder profits. So they are eliminating the least capable studios at generating profits.
Also worth mentioning that the project before veilguard was the biggest financial disaster in biowares history. Anthem literally didn’t work at release and was abandoned.
The issue is the EA doesn’t let studios do what they’re good at. They buy successful Studios and then get too involved in the development process and make bad games everyone hates because they’re designed to make money instead of be fun and then the studio is closed cause nobody buys their games.
Madden 25 and College Football 25 were among the top 10 best-selling games of 2024... They are objectively bad games, but numbers wise, they are not being "rejected."
Fuck, I thought this was a description of Veilguard’s plot and development, at first, and was like, “Oh, wow, we had very different experiences with it.”
Completely forgot the sports games EA churns out 💀
All greenlit by shareholders who don’t play video games in pursuit of the live service “infinite money glitch” that they convinced themselves people wanted despite the proof showing otherwise lol
THIS! I’ve been getting tired of trying to get details on the layoffs and seeing the same copy pastaed bot fed insults regarding Veilguard. EA has been purposefully causing BioWare’s gutting since Mass Effect 3.
Whelp, it looks like Bioware is likely joining the developer Graveyard with Westwood and many others. What is this up to now, 25 developer companies that EA has killed?
Thays not trie boware has had three abject failures in a row anthem Andromeda and veilguard not to me lion they had to purge managers for sexual harassment the studio should be shuttered
I'm not going to debate the writing because that's personal opinion but Veilguard was the most polished BioWare game in terms of graphics, animations, bugs and overall performance since the ME Trilogy. The fact they stitch that game together from a multi-player game is a miracle
I’m disappointed byVeilguard. Was waiting for a long time for that game. Love the Dragon Age series. But they seem to be putting more effort into the Assassins Creed series
well till they made a version that was so bad and lazy that it didn't. And so Bioware took the hit so the clowns who order a reskin with zero care every year could keep their annual bonuses
These are questions of facts. The answers are not something you just pull out of your asshole.
Go read the reporting on development of ME:A, Anthem, and Veilguard, BioWare writers' explanations of why they left the company, and then come back to the discussion.
at this point EA execs tried so hard to kill the franchise, by trying to make it into something (multiplayer) it never was, that i'm surprised they managed to publish it at all
Read the reporting on this about who actually made the decisions, and what went wrong. Then every time you write "EA", you can cross that out and write "BioWare."
EA is a scapegoat for people who don't read the reporting on how BioWare is actually run.
This is wrong the sports games make more money than than we can visualise. You are correct that they are tired retreads, but people keep buying them and, the ultimate team packs. Veilguard was killed by poor writing and, a poor response, especially by commentators on YouTube.
Much as I'd like to believe that, and Much as I enjoyed Veilguard for what it was. Simple facts were it just underperformed. Even the worst Madden or Fifa game STILL rakes in unholy money for minimal if any effort by whales. It's like a gacha game but without the anime girls prints money
this is a really bizarre narrative. yes EA is scrambling because of the poor performance of their shitty sports game, veilguard was also a total flop from a company that has failed to make anything that hasnt flopped in over a decade.
I'm literally the target audience for the football game. When I say it was fuckall to the point of unplayable, trust me theres basically nobody alive who wouldnt
If the NFL actually cared about the meaning of the terms in their exclusivity contract, they'd void it since Madden hasn't been a true simulation for years. Let EA keep making a yearly card game if they want, but open the simulation market back up so 989 and 2K can bring back their games.
The simple fact both DICE and BW are still a round 20+ years later says something. Most don't make it 5 years. Maxis is another. But each one is a shell of their former selves and piss fans off a lot.
I skipped Anthem and DA:V because I don't trust BW to make a good game I want to play.
The last 2 founders left in September 2012 and BW hasn't been the same since. Each game since ME3 has been a huge miss for me. DA:I was a boring single player MMO feel with zones there were just filler. 1st BW game I couldn't beat 3x. ME:A was so bad, I barely got through it once.
I couldn't beat it a 2nd time after forcing myself to beat it once. I skipped Anthem. Looter shooters aren't my thing. They turned SW:TOR into a single player MMO then didn't add any raids/operations for almost 8 years. Bosses are just bosses. Then EA takes the game from then in 2023.
This reminds me of that film they made in 1980 about computer games that somehow keeps aging like wine. The one that had the guy who played Simba in it.
That and all their live service games failing, after they ignored all of their actually decent single player & team games (Wild Hearts was surprisingly good for a Monster Hunter clone).
BioWare isn't dead, and EA mostly blamed FC. They didn't expect to make money on Veilguard anyway. They spent way too much time figuring out what to do with it.
After Dragon Age: Origins, Mass Effect 1, 2 and 3 i've kept my hands off of Bioware games. To preserve my good memories of them ^^. But to be honest if you played Origins and then play Veilguard....... enough said i guess.
Same thing with Hollywood. Sure, they'll use the black and/or queer actor/role to promote their movie and get the buzz going. But god help that actor if the movie turns out to be a pile of shite, the producers will throw them to the wolves.
I’ll concede that Veilguard by itself did not kill BioWare, but when combined with the poor reception to Andromeda and Anthem? Yes, that certainly did kill the studio.
Poor reception? It has comparable sales to DaO and DAII. Inquisition gave them insane benchmarks to pass, and i don't understand how because that game was straight dognwater.
Veilgard was a fine addition to the series. Not our fault some cities suite idiot thought every COD player would buy it.
I’ve been a Dragon Age fan since the days of Origins, and I thought Veilguard was absolute dogshit.
Fans told BioWare FOR YEARS they wanted a return to the grittier tone of DAO, and BW produced a lighthearted fantasy where you act as a therapist/nursemaid to overgrown children. It sucked.
Comments
EA's bread and butter were FIFA and Madden.
EA officially confirmed, that Veilguard only reached 50% of their expected sales.
BioWare was dead long before Veilguard came out.
Unless you're talking about the football Americans call soccer.
it ran dry and now they have little choice but to face the consequences
Here's what I will say, don't put any political message in there and let games be fun again!
When a game puts political messages, pronouns, tokenism and the like, it brings us back to reality which is not what should be there.
It's why Stellar Blade and Black Myth Wukong succeeded.
The city: Xion (Zion)
Wukong is a retelling of Journey to the West which was a critique of the politics of its time. 1/
What you are really saying is that there are certain political subjects you'd rather not get talked about.
There are really good games with black characters in it (like GTA 5).
Our main focus is character development.
Look at games like Dustborn abd Concord and see for yourselves. Why not try playing Dustborn and see how you like it or at least watch videos on it.
It proves my point.
At least those writers can go work for good studios now or, even better, start their own.
All their other games are just new names and graphics tweaks.
The developers ended up releasing a viable game, a good and solid game that made 1.5 million sales so far but yeah it's Veilguard fault.
Sigh.
FC not doing so hot last year was awesome. Glad EA finally got his where it hurt—cuz I doubt they ever cared about the good games.
They need to fucking wake up and smell cheaper roses if they plan on surviving the next few years.
It leaves them incredibly vulnerable to any industry shifts.
This is basic stuff really.
They made it up wrong, and then punished the workers when they were wrong.
If you want to keep justifying that, feel free. It just makes you look like a bit of a cunt, tbh
This is really basic, you should not be struggling with this part
Why does R* seem to not stunble at any release? Because they know their brands.
EA does not seem it does, frankly.
it was unfortunately in the top 10 most sold games in 2024, technically twice. imo the licensing exclusivity is carrying
Also because veil guard was an absolute turd of a shit game though.
In fact, there is an entire genre of "How BioWare made a shitty game: a story of greed, bad management, and a desire not to make BioWare games."
You're just posting from a place of fandom/complete ignorance.
And everyone has an opinion.
It's similar to big movies like Infinity War and Justice League (2017) reshoots galore. Projects getting remade
Your ignorance is not actually knowledge.
And no it wasnt JUST veilguard, they basically destroyed biggest franchises of the brand.So it doesnt sell now.So its dead.
That 'lecture' took 10 years and 250 M$ dollars to release and lost the Co. 166 M$.
Mass Effect 5 is now in “good” hands after getting rid of the pesky Veilguard devs.
...
They also told us there won't be a The Sims 5
https://variety.com/2024/gaming/news/the-sims-5-update-multiplayer-creator-content-ea-interview-1236142010/
I will sim-die on this hill.
/which makes sense honestly! but ofc EA prefers to go the 'let's make more profit from trying to make it mobile/lootboxy/multiplayer/servicey again' and then ppl don't like it and...
*Now playing early Doom and Diablo, working thru but not completed any of the Half-life franchise.
Which means gaming has been dirty business since forever. Bless people who never cared about games...
Also the EA app is shit.
Every location is built on how lirium is a magic-drenched crystal, constantly threatening to corrupt anyone near it.
(1)
The setting is absolutely not low magic.
(2)
Had Madden not historically been a lootbox game before? Because FIFA was lousy with it.
Also worth mentioning that the project before veilguard was the biggest financial disaster in biowares history. Anthem literally didn’t work at release and was abandoned.
Completely forgot the sports games EA churns out 💀
Looking at you Maxis and all things "Sim."
Im tired lol...
These are questions of facts. The answers are not something you just pull out of your asshole.
Go read the reporting on development of ME:A, Anthem, and Veilguard, BioWare writers' explanations of why they left the company, and then come back to the discussion.
It's why their last hit was Dragon Age: Inquisition - which rather resembles an MMO in layout and side-quests, you may recall.
how did you think Veilguard came into existence?
at this point EA execs tried so hard to kill the franchise, by trying to make it into something (multiplayer) it never was, that i'm surprised they managed to publish it at all
they had to restart at least twice
they did not remotely earn it
EA is a scapegoat for people who don't read the reporting on how BioWare is actually run.
I just want a good hockey game. Any will do at this point.
In 2006, they bought out Swedish studio DICE and closed the Canadian office soon after. In 2017, they closed Visceral. I could go on.
Like most game publishers now, they're primarily a lootbox factory.
https://imgur.com/to-everyone-who-continues-to-defend-ea-quUEzwt
They had a bad reputation for doing just that long before buying DICE or Bioware.
Not only should no one be surprised by it at this point, it should be the expectation.
I skipped Anthem and DA:V because I don't trust BW to make a good game I want to play.
Andromeda was in development for 5 years, most of the work done in the last 18 months
Anthem was in pre production for 6 years and only had 15 months of real development
Veilgard was a fine addition to the series. Not our fault some cities suite idiot thought every COD player would buy it.
Fans told BioWare FOR YEARS they wanted a return to the grittier tone of DAO, and BW produced a lighthearted fantasy where you act as a therapist/nursemaid to overgrown children. It sucked.