Dragon Age: The Veilguard - A woke disaster? Yep!

[Paranoia Machine]

Oh dude, Dragon Age and Bioware always sucked.
They should die but it's a shame they're dying like this.

 

[s0m3dood]

Yep. If it had sold 1.5 they would have said so. They are counting literally every possible crumb of playtime here (and I wouldn't put it past them to have counted people who didn't even play but just downloaded it and other shit like it) and still fell short.

Good ridance.

I wonder if player engagement is also counting Steam wishlists. That would be incredibly disastrous.
But 1.5M including console, gamepass and demo and the Steam Winter Sale1 sounds plausible.

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1: I know a moron IRL that bought it during that, because he didn't know anything about it. I am not telling him and waiting for the Steam notification that he played before asking for his thought. Poor dude.

I would do terrible things to bring Sierra back.

AFAIK the Two Guys from Andromeda are *still* at work on Spaceventure: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1374960/SpaceVenture/ should finally release next month.

Ken and Roberta made https://colossalcave3d.com last year.2 I don't know what Al Lowe does after his 2013 Larry remake that is now wiped from all stores for some reason.

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2: EDIT: holy crap their "team" looks woke af, noserings and all...

 

[Fcret]

The thing that annoys me the most with shit like this is that there's never any accountability for these people. Flop after flop, they'll claim something is going to be/is amazing, it fails, and then they do the same thing with the next game. Even worse, when they think they've gotten a W, they'll just go off about how they were right all along, go woke go broke is a lie, etc, etc, completely disregarding the fact that the last 10 games they did this with were commercial fails. These people are openly promoting the financial collapse of the gaming industry and just can't seem to comprehend that it doesn't matter how much "positive representation" comes out of a property when the majority of these big studios have now gone literal years without releasing a financially successful game.

Jason Schreier has been an ambulance chasing DEI snake oil salesman since the early 2010s. He's gaming's Jim Cramer. I dunno why anyone pretends he's a serious figure with serious opinions and not just a vibes-based shitflinger waiting for the next ActiBlizz-tier wahmen disrespecting controversy so he can write another book for the NYT to astroturf.

Here's a rule of thumb for you zoomers:
Schreier condemns your game? Breakout surprise hit.
Schreier defends your game? Sales far below expectations and the studio is closing in a year.

We're looking at the makings of another major game industry crash, not seen since the 1980's.

Nah the industry's doing fine. Games with sensible budgets are releasing and selling better than ever due to wide availability and frictionless shop fronts.

AAA is going down because its current form is a retardedly overleveraged ZIRP chasing the high of when they were selling video games to people who were forbidden by law to touch grass due to coof. Today's AA is honestly what AAA should be in terms of size and scale.

I really wonder what a member of Gen Alpha will think in about a decade or so as he plays through each Dragon Age game one by one and then sees the contrast between Veilguard and the rest of them.

An alpha kid playing through DA would be like a millennial or zoomer playing through Ultima to see its downfall. If you're digging through grandpa games and playing a dead CRPG series, you're already autistic enough to be able to understand the wider context of why the series imploded.

 

[RodgerDodger]

I haven't seen anyone post this here. EA officially stated in their press release that the game performed below 50% of approximated expectations. They hoped it would sell 3 million copies, but it sold 1.5 million. Bioware is most likely getting axed.
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Edit: I personally want to remind you that you don't hate videogame journos enough. Eat shit Jason Schreier, Dragon's crown is still kino.
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They are still padding things. The previous Dragon Age game sold 11-12 million units. They were NOT anticipating 3 million sales for Failguard. They were anticipating 12mil+ They only started rolling that back as controversy built up right at the last minute as EA got a look at the final game and realized that gamers were not going to pay for "My Big Fat Troon Life the RPG!" when they were expecting a kick ass sword and sorcery romp through a well known fairly grimdark world.

 

[poopshoes]

Microsoft and Sony had their walled gardens and could dictate what got on. That's fallen out of favor as people move to PC, consoles fall into irrelevance and most games become multiplats because having exclusives in this day and age is stupid.
Nintendo is ever an exception to this because they have a core of first party titles that people can only play on their system.

I'm really interested to see how Sony and Microsoft are going to deal with their consoles in the future. They both have seemingly abandoned true exclusives and only do time-limited exclusives which makes sense to do but also invalidates the reason to buy their console. I have a PS5 because I'm retarded and I cannot imagine ever buying a console again. When I set up my gaming PC I pretty much stopped using my PS5 soon after. Nintendo is the only one I can see being able to keep it up because of how they operate as you said. You cannot get their games anywhere else and they've always done that so it's just accepted.

 

[AnOminous]

Jason Schreier has been an ambulance chasing DEI snake oil salesman since the mid-00s. He's gaming's Jim Cramer. I dunno why anyone pretends he's a serious figure with serious opinions and not just a vibes-based shitflinger waiting for the next ActiBlizz-tier wahmen disrespecting controversy so he can write another book for the NYT to astroturf.

He's one of the few of the "gamejournopros" sorts who managed to survive the tismcaust and escape into "real" journalism of some sort.

 

[Dr. Henry Armitage]

I haven't seen anyone post this here. EA officially stated in their press release that the game performed below 50% of approximated expectations. They hoped it would sell 3 million copies, but it sold 1.5 million. Bioware is most likely getting axed.
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Edit: I personally want to remind you that you don't hate videogame journos enough. Eat shit Jason Schreier, Dragon's crown is still kino.
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“that’s terrrrible.”
“You sound kind of psyched”
“Nooooooo I’m bummed”
(But I wasn’t bummed, I was stoked)

 

[p1138]

I just wanted to add this is probably the way the games industry is going in the future and what you're seeing right now is the market correction taking place. Never before has it been easier for companies in foreign lands like Japan, China or eastern Europe to find an English publisher, get the game translated in as many languages as possible then put it up on a market place where people from all over the world can see it.
And the thing is, these games make profit too. Half a million copies sold on steam might generate only $5 million dollars after steam and the publisher takes their cut but to a team of two that developed the game, that's life changing money and can easily give them the security they need to develop their next project without worrying if they need to pay artist, voice actors, translators and the like.

The AAA industry only existed because games were tightly controlled on consoles. Microsoft and Sony had their walled gardens and could dictate what got on. That's fallen out of favor as people move to PC, consoles fall into irrelevance and most games become multiplats because having exclusives in this day and age is stupid.
Nintendo is ever an exception to this because they have a core of first party titles that people can only play on their system.

Companies like Activision and EA can pump out yearly titles but I really do wonder just how sustainable that is in the long run, when the last CoDs take $700 million and 11 studios to make for a yearly title.

It's never been easier for asian devs, but there's been asian devs making games for consoles since the 80s. There wasn't even a non american console manufacturer till Microsoft released the x-box.

Consoles are still relevant, obviously PC gaming is a factor but its always existed with genres that have been practically non-existent on console. The biggest issue these days is that with digital distribution, the costs to actually produce the game once it's done are practically eliminated since there's no need to manufacture and ship crap around. Also with the capabilities of Sony and Microsoft's consoles being so similar(and basically being off the shelf PC hardware anyway) there's no advantage to picking one over the other. That means console exclusives for developers not tied to Sony or Microsoft is just money left on the table assuming the game is actually good.

The biggest problem with "AAA" and now "AAAA" games is the fact that the big publishers and developers want to throw 100-200 million dollars or more at a game because they want it to make a billion dollars, instead of throwing 10-20 million at 10 different games hoping to make 20-50 million dollars. This is why Sony and even Bandai Namco have shit the bed with wanting their own new "star wars" equivalent of an IP(bandai namco fucked it up with that unknown 9 crap, and is about to do the same again with some mecha live service thing with waifus, I can't remember wtf it's called but it already had an anime a year ago and the game still doesn't have a date as far as I know). Even if they could get 50 million dollars back on a 10-20 million dollar investment that's still not enough because they want the game to generate recurring revenue for a year or more with microtransactions and shit.

Of course the stupid part that everyone besides the executive teams at these companies can see, is that putting all of their eggs into a 200+ million dollar basket is riskier than actually having a portfolio of lower cost games that all stand a chance of doing much better over the span of a year. Which is why smaller devs can come out of the blue with quality games that people actually like and make some serious cash. Palworld, Black Myth Wukong, Space Marine 2, Helldivers 2 was a fluke that Sony managed to fuck up because they saw it as a gateway to get people into their PSN service bullshit.

 

[Leaf Wage Slave Jr]

Here lies BioWare
1995-2025
Another of EA's victims

The thing is, I don’t think we can actually blame EA for this one. Bioware has been given a hilariously long leash compared to every studio EA has shuttered for FAR less.

If Bioware survives this, I’m taking it as confirmation that my joke about them being used to launder money isn’t actually a joke. It’s that or they’re EA’s Retard Containment Studio at this point…

I did surprisingly like Dorian despite this fact.

Dorian, his personal quest aside, was actually fairly well written. He was Gay, but he wasn’t a Fag - he actually had a personality.

Compared to Failguard, he might as well have been fucking Shakespeare. This game made Sera and Felicia Day’s Self Insert seem like they were well written characters, that’s an actual achievement more than anything else…

 

[Edgeworth]

DAO is one of my favourite games of all time, to the point that my first tattoo that just says "Grey Warden" (oh boy did that not age well considering how they massacred my boys in Inquisition) and despite everything I didn't like in Inquisition, I stll played through it with diligence. I appreciate what all they were able to do given how incredibly limited their budget and time was for DA2 and some of the best characters came out of that game... only for them to be completely bastardized in Failguard.

I was tentatively optimistic for this game back when it was just Dread Wolf but even without knowing any of the behind-the-scenes shenanigans with directors or whatever, the second we got a GotG-style trailer and it was renamed, I was fuckin' out. This isn't "my" Dragon Age series anymore, this game wasn't going to answer any of the questions left by Trespasser or any other story thread that was left. The characters were going to be watered down and safe, the gameplay looked derivative. I don't even wanna try the "free" character creator because you're only allowed to make plug-ugly characters that they approve of, which is generic men and ugly women.

At this point, I don't want a KOTOR remake by Bioware. I don't want any more Dragon Age games (because let's all be honest that Larian is filling that hole very nicely) from them, I don't want anything from Bioware aside for them to get put down out back. This was a long time coming and if it causes EA distress and worry, then good.

 

[starborn427614]

I haven't seen anyone post this here. EA officially stated in their press release that the game performed below 50% of approximated expectations. They hoped it would sell 3 million copies, but it sold 1.5 million. Bioware is most likely getting axed.
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Edit: I personally want to remind you that you don't hate videogame journos enough. Eat shit Jason Schreier, Dragon's crown is still kino.
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Yeah no shit, even the libs I follow thought it was far too on the nose with its progressive elements. That's before getting into the gameplay itself which was apparently OK at best.

 

[Baraka Obama]

DAO is one of my favourite games of all time, to the point that my first tattoo that just says "Grey Warden" (oh boy did that not age well considering how they massacred my boys in Inquisition) and despite everything I didn't like in Inquisition, I stll played through it with diligence. I appreciate what all they were able to do given how incredibly limited their budget and time was for DA2 and some of the best characters came out of that game... only for them to be completely bastardized in Failguard.

I played 93 hours of Dragon Age Origins / Awakening and wished I hadn't by the time I finished. Taught me that I should stop playing games when I stop having fun.

The news the DA2, DA:I, and this abortion were all worse than what I played in 2010 made them easy to skip.

At this point, I don't want a KOTOR remake by Bioware. I don't want any more Dragon Age games (because let's all be honest that Larian is filling that hole very nicely) from them, I don't want anything from Bioware aside for them to get put down out back. This was a long time coming and if it causes EA distress and worry, then good.

Remakes suck, nearly all of them. KOTOR plays great as-is today on an Xbox or PC, no need for a remake.

 

[Observotron]

I was tentatively optimistic for this game back when it was just Dread Wolf

Hindsight is 20/20. I didn't know why at the time, but the second I heard about the name change I lost all hope for the game.

Even without knowing the context of the lore/world, Dread Wolf was a name that just had more edge to it.

We should have known it was gonna be a tranny hugbox the second we saw "Veilguard". It should have come as no surprise when the new name sounded like the retarded F-Team of the Avengers.

The title went from a foreboding and mysterious adversary, to "The power of friendship will conquer all" vibe.

 

[Mola Ram]

Hindsight is 20/20. I didn't know why at the time, but the second I heard about the name change I lost all hope for the game.

Even without knowing the context of the lore/world, Dread Wolf was a name that just had more edge to it.

We should have known it was gonna be a tranny hugbox the second we saw "Veilguard". It should have come as no surprise when the new name sounded like the retarded F-Team of the Avengers.

The title went from a foreboding and mysterious adversary, to "The power of friendship will conquer all" vibe.

Some of us tumbled immediately:

It has an official title. And a logo. Oh, such a logo.

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My hopes, which were not high, are now drifting toward the Challenger Deep.

 

[Observotron]

Some of us tumbled immediately:

Holy shit, I forgot about that.

I can't remember exactly, but there was definitely an older, different "tentative" logo that looks way better/more in line with the rest of the franchise, right? I remember seeing very early concept art and renders that looked way better than anything we got.

 

[Mola Ram]

Holy shit, I forgot about that.

I can't remember exactly, but there was definitely an older, different "tentative" logo that looks way better/more in line with the rest of the franchise, right?

I don't think it ever got an official logo under the name Dreadwolf (or "The Dread Wolf Rises"), but the initial teasers -- years before they finally shit the game out -- stuck to the elven fresco artwork first seen in Inquisition, and it was, honestly, pretty great:

 

[GeekUSA]

I'm really interested to see how Sony and Microsoft are going to deal with their consoles in the future. They both have seemingly abandoned true exclusives and only do time-limited exclusives which makes sense to do but also invalidates the reason to buy their console. I have a PS5 because I'm retarded and I cannot imagine ever buying a console again. When I set up my gaming PC I pretty much stopped using my PS5 soon after. Nintendo is the only one I can see being able to keep it up because of how they operate as you said. You cannot get their games anywhere else and they've always done that so it's just accepted.

I bet you Nintendo will do something along the lines of creating a WoW-style subscription service that'll let you play their games on P.C sometime in the next decade at least. We've already got Sony releasing their exclusives on Steam, so I wouldn't be surprised if we get some sort of Nintendo-style Steam clone sometime by 2035.

 

[Nana Feeder 9k]

They really pulled a Barv...

 

[Get the rope Macaulay!]

I really wonder what a member of Gen Alpha will think in about a decade or so as he plays through each Dragon Age game one by one and then sees the contrast between Veilguard and the rest of them.

Easy, he just won't. Same way kids playing through fallout or twisted metal or command and conquer or the total war series just skip the bad installments. When they hear about them from whatever websites are popular they'll also hear that they should skip veil guard and they will.

How many fallout fans have ever played brotherhood of steel or need for speed fans that play the pro one or the DMC fans that play that shitty reboot one.

but something clearly went badly wrong

An investor made them an offer they couldn't refuse. It's like how the soros prosecutors were able to get in office while spending only a million on their campaigns. People would be shocked how cheap it is to ruin niche franchises if you wanted to. We already have threads on different games that got more in funding from NGO or activist investors than copies sold. We'll find out that's what happened here too.

 

[Molag Bal]

I just want to ask about something completely different.
So you probably noticed that for many years, at least in the western games industry there was a unanimous policy to never admit to a mistake or a setback
>never admit to a mistake
>never correct past mistakes because that's tacitly admitting there was a mistake
>always double down, always insist that every bad thing you do is actually good thing, even if it quantifiably worsens performance or other metrics
>when people criticise specific details for being bad in terms of design, double down on the design level by making it even worse in the exact same respect the next time round
>when people don't like narrative choices, accuse them of being straight white male incel virgins who live in their mother's basement but are also rich and privileged and afraid of losing their power (as opposed to the definitely not rich and privileged board members deciding the direction of your game)
Not just with Bioware but with other companies, the trend is starting to show cracks. More companies are - at least occasionally - admitting in to it in public when there is an issue. And Bioware admitting that their tumblrguard game didn't sell well is just another case of it.

I can't be the only one who feels like the insistence on never admitting mistakes was too simultaneous across the (western) industry, and the gradual shift away from that, even the slow start, is also too simultaneous. By too simultaneous, I mean too much so to be a coincidence. Or I guess synchronous might be a better word to describe it. I used to believe that it was some PR company's doing, but I don't actually know, that was conjecture. Why do you think this trend existed/is ending?
My initial theory:
>Some PR company hired by every major game publisher/dev is going round telling them / 'selling them as an advice package', the idea that admitting mistakes is lethal to the success of the company, to the point where insulting the customers is treated as a preferable alternative
But I could just as well be wrong, provided there's a different, more matching explanation. What happened around 2021/2022 that caused it to slowly shift away from that?

Edit: Also I predict Bioware will survive veilguard. They will continue down the same road for at least 2 more games. Maybe even 4. Also I'm going to guess they aren't breaking from the above trend of old any more than they already have, they will double down instead. Expect a new Mass Effect game where every character is either in a wheelchair or has dildos sticking out of every orifice onscreen, and featuring a bulldyke that munches rugs mid-dialogue scene. The main character will be a short and flat Somalian girl aged 16-17 and your only love interest will be a 35 year-old MtF tranny of middle-eastern descent with a 5-o-clock shadow and an irl tranny voice actor.