Dragon Age: The Veilguard sold less well than expected, but EA is apparently drawing the wrong conclusions from this.
With 1.5 million copies sold, Dragon Age: The Veilguard fell well short of EA’s expectations – by as much as 50 percent. Despite a long development time and high fan expectations, the game failed to reach a broad audience.
While many gamers praised the new characters, gameplay, and graphics, there was criticism of the story and writing.
For EA, however, the cause of the failure seems to lie elsewhere. According to CEO Andrew Wilson, the game could have been more successful if it had become a live-service title.
EA’s eternal live-service dream
In a recent financial call, Wilson addressed the disappointing sales figures:
To grow beyond its core audience, games must directly address the evolving demands of gamers, who are increasingly seeking shared world features and deeper engagement alongside high-quality storytelling in this popular category. Dragon Age got off to a strong start and was well received by critics and players; however, it did not resonate enough with a broad audience in this highly competitive market.
Translated: The game should not only have offered a good story, but also multiplayer elements and long-term engagement through live service. A questionable argument considering that Bioware originally planned exactly that – and only after the flop of Anthem decided to make a pure single-player title.
However, EA does not seem to realize that precisely such forced live-service experiments have failed several times in the past. Anthem is just one of many examples, as are numerous other games that were announced as the next big live-service hit and then disappeared into obscurity – does anyone still remember Hyper Scape or XDefiant?
There’s another way
While EA is looking for reasons why The Veilguard did not sell more often, another game shows that it can be done without a live service: Baldur’s Gate 3. A classic role-playing game with a clear focus on single-player – and one of the best and most successful games of recent years. The same currently applies to Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2.
So there is definitely demand for well-written single-player RPGs. But instead of learning from this, EA seems to be drawing the wrong conclusions from the sales debacle.
What does this mean for Mass Effect 5?
The biggest concern now is that EA could repeat the same mistakes with Mass Effect 5. Development of the next Bioware game is still ongoing, but the recent restructuring at Bioware – including the layoffs of key developers – does not bode well.
Mass Effect 5 needs to be a hit, but if EA continues down the wrong path, it may not be. If EA insists that Mass Effect 5 needs to be more of a live service, it could be the death of Bioware.
