Electronic Arts CEO Andrew Wilson recently spoke on an earnings call about the underperformance of Dragon Age: The Veilguard, which reportedly reached 1.5 million players. This was apparently around half of what EA was projecting, but given the game was in development hell for a decade and was a sequel to a game that came out before millions of potential players had fully developed frontal lobes, it wasnât too surprising. Wilson, however, is convinced the reason the long-awaited RPG sold fewer copies than the company wanted is that it wasnât live-servicey enough. Thatâs not the sentiment BioWare fans want to hear with the development of Mass Effect 5 still on the horizon.
On the earnings call (thanks PC Gamer), Wilsonâs answer as to âwhyâ the game underperformed conveyed a deep lack of introspection on the effects that a long and difficult development had on Dragon Age. It also seemed altogether disconnected from the video game industry at large.
âIn order to break beyond the core audience, games need to directly connect to the evolving demands of players who increasingly seek shared-world features and deeper engagement alongside high-quality narratives in this beloved category,â Wilson said. âDragon Age had a high-quality launch and was well-reviewed by critics and those who played; however, it did not resonate with a broad enough audience in this highly competitive market.â
In summary, he thinks Dragon Age would have done better if it was a live-service game, rather than the story-driven single-player RPG BioWare excels in creating. Multiple shifts in direction weighed down The Veilguardâs 10-year-long development cycle. One iteration was an online multiplayer game with repeatable levels and all the live-service stuff nobody asked for in a BioWare game, but the studio made a complete pivot after the critical and commercial failure of Anthem, the RPG studioâs looter shooter detour that became a cautionary tale for how forcing live-service features into studios not built to make those games will only ever have diminishing returns.
Thereâs an odd dissonance in Wilson saying The Veilguardâs problem is that it didnât appeal to people looking for another forever game to add to the growing list of competing live-service titles on the market. If live service were in and of itself a universal selling point, we wouldnât be seeing these games being sent out to die on the regular. Baldurâs Gate 3, a dense single-player RPG that builds upon the foundation of BioWareâs old style, became one of the biggest games of the past decade. Obviously, the children donât simply yearn for the live-service mines.
Dragon Age: The Veilguardâs problems were that it was a continuation of a 10-year-old cliffhanger that was not newcomer-friendly, was met with good but not universally glowing reviews, and was only marketed in earnest for four months. It is a miracle that BioWare was able to right the ship after a decade of publisher-mandated pivots, and the reward has been a complete restructuring of a studio, excising people foundational to its legacy.
This kind of blinder-wearing isnât new for EA, though. The company notoriously claimed single-player games were âfinished,â then changed its tune when one of its own studios had a recent success story in Respawnâs Star Wars Jedi games, despite its competitors releasing critically and commercially successful single-player games the entire time. So itâs not surprising that Wilson would attribute The Veilguardâs underperforming to something EA can only contextualize in its own catalog. Baldurâs Gate 3 might as well not have happened if EA didnât make it.
All of this has me worried about what it could mean for Mass Effect 5. The writing is on the wall now that BioWare has one more chance to right the ship, and since moderate successes arenât enough anymore, it has to be a cultural moment on the scale of the original sci-fi trilogy. Hearing that Wilson thinks the key to success is repeating proven mistakes should scare any Mass Effect fan. Because if BioWare is once again forced to capitulate to something it isnât built for, the series and studioâs legacies will continue to be diminished until thereâs nothing left.
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