BioWare Shuts Down Support For 'Dragon Age: The Veilguard' After EA Revealed Game Missed Sales Expectations By 50%
In the latest patch notes for Dragon Age: The Veilguard, BioWare revealed it would not be providing any more minor bug fixes or quality of life improvements and would only monitor the game for game-breaking bugs. This announcement comes amid BioWare’s parent company, EA, revealing the game missed sales expectations by 50%.
In the Patch 5 Release Notes, BioWare informed players, “Thank you all for playing Dragon Age: The Veilguard; we were so happy with the game’s stability at launch and hope you have enjoyed our Quality of Life patches since then. With the game being in a stable place, we are moving to monitor for any game-breaking bugs should those occur. Dareth shiral!”
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This announcement came shortly after EA announced in a press release that “Dragon Age engaged approximately approximately 1.5 million players during the quarter, down nearly 50% from the company’s expectations.”
The game notably only hit a peak concurrent player count of just 89,418 in its first Sunday after release in the beginning of November.
Furthermore, Dragon Age: The Veilguard Executive Producer Mark Darrah had also indicated that EA was relocating BioWare staff to other studios aside from the upcoming Mass Effect game.
Darrah shared in a recent upload to YouTube, “Mass Effect isn’t ready to suddenly have a team of 250, 300 people working on it.”
“In the past when BioWare was toying with being just one project, like on Anthem, like on The Veilguard, that project was up and running at full speed so it was able to suck in every available resource. It had enough existing infrastructure that it was able to absorb everything,” he said.
Darrah continued, “So, that’s not exactly what’s happening. You see this when you go on to people's social media profiles. People who worked on Dragon Age: The Veilguard, some of them are moving over to Mass Effect, but some of them are moving into other parts of the EA organization because Mass Effect isn't ready for them."
It was reported back in November that Dragon Age: The Veilguard would not receive any DLC or expansions and the company had already shifted focus to Mass Effect.
George Yang at Rolling Stone reported on Halloween, “With Dragon Age: The Veilguard now complete, BioWare confirms that there are currently no plans for downloadable expansions.”
He added, “The developers’ full attention has now shifted entirely to the next Mass Effect as their current project.”
What do you make of BioWare abandoning Dragon Age: The Veilguard about four months after the game released?
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I love a happy ending.
A release stifled by the one-two punch of overestimated sales figures and the ongoing disintegration of Bioware's reputation and writing quality.
I don't think the Dragon Age IP carries the kind of prestige EA think it does, it was always playing second fiddle to Mass Effect and I distinctly remember Dragon Age II being labelled a disappointment when it was new, let alone the bloated Inquisition.