Random video game news... renewed!

[MrBrown]

Doesn't seem like they've learned much.

https://twistedvoxel.com/ea-ceo-dragon-age-the-veilguard-failed-due-to-lack-of-live-service-elements/

[Wormerine]

9 hours ago, MrBrown said:

Doesn't seem like they've learned much.

https://twistedvoxel.com/ea-ceo-dragon-age-the-veilguard-failed-due-to-lack-of-live-service-elements/

Nah, they know very well what's what. They just WANT to do live services as hooking players through rewards systems is more reliable than having to make a good game people like.

[Sven_]

10 hours ago, MrBrown said:

Doesn't seem like they've learned much.

https://twistedvoxel.com/ea-ceo-dragon-age-the-veilguard-failed-due-to-lack-of-live-service-elements/

Swen Vincke likes this.





(KCD II also managed to soar past the 1 million units day 1).  

 

[BruceVC]

On 2/6/2025 at 12:41 PM, Wormerine said:

Nah, they know very well what's what. They just WANT to do live services as hooking players through rewards systems is more reliable than having to make a good game people like.

 

On 2/6/2025 at 3:35 AM, MrBrown said:

Doesn't seem like they've learned much.

https://twistedvoxel.com/ea-ceo-dragon-age-the-veilguard-failed-due-to-lack-of-live-service-elements/

https://www.pcgamer.com/games/dragon-age/bioware-has-reportedly-lost-at-least-half-its-staff-with-fewer-than-100-people-left-and-the-studio-a-ghost-of-its-former-self/

Bioware now has fewer than 100 staff after Veilguard missed its sales target by 50%

So the question is really why did Veilguard fail at what matters the most which is always about sales?

And I firmly believe that the whole woke design of the game is a big part of this. If you create a game where a big part of that game is party based interaction and you dont create any real options for your biggest target market which is straight men then you are limiting overall interest in the game 

You can create a game that is inclusive and that game can absolutely be financially successful. Both KCD2 and BG3 are examples of this but these games dont  exclude straight men

The moment you confuse inclusivity with exclusivity you create a massive problem for yourself 

 

 

[HoonDing]

"woke design" = omg the game has wimmin!!!

[MrBrown]

I wouldn't call DAVe writing woke. There's one character that's very in-your-face trans, but that's about it.

The writing has other problems. There's no moral depth, it's naive, the PC isn't allowed to be anything but super-heroic, NPCs are morally one-dimensional, and it's very non-confrontational. If you want to call all that woke, then I guess it is it.

[Wormerine]

8 hours ago, BruceVC said:

So the question is really why did Veilguard fail at what matters the most which is always about sales?

Well, because it didn't sell well .

Though why a game wouldn't sell well is sometimes difficult to understand, and I would advice against using personal preferences as a reason why other people didn't buy the game. I don't know Veilguards cast enough to parse if there is any validity to its critique (from what I understand romances in Veilguard are rather underdeveloped to begin with).

My personal interesting in Veilguard:

1) For me Dragon Age as an IP is not a very strong one. I didn't love a single title in the franchise, and as such I am not particularly invested in seeing the story through. I was mixed on Origins, and leaning toward negative for both sequels.

2) Bioware doesn't inspire confidence in me. The last game I truly enjoyed from them was Mass Effect2. They need to really deliver for me to pay more than a handful of bucks for their title.

3) Marketing for Veilguard didn't make be believe I would find the game enjoyable. I didn't like the tone of the trailers, and gameplay footage looked dull.

4) The reviewers whose opinion on Veilguard I was looking for, found it rather underwhelming. The writing examples they have showed made their critique seem legitimate.

[uuuhhii]

bioware couldn't make good base game for a very long time

but me3 da2 dai all have good to amazing dlc

it is obvious they can still make good game just when management are not watching closely

if the base game doesn't sell enough to justify dlc

then they don't make the good part at all

[Sven_]

Then again, who asked for a fairly "standard" cinematic action adventure in the Dragon Age universe? Those type of games are dime a dozen.  Unlike say, a D&D type of game... Ever since the Witcher 3 hit it big, almost every other action type of game has incorporated RPG elements. This is a crowded space. If Veilguard didn't have the Bioware nor Dragon Age label attached -- would it have gotten much attention in the first place? In terms of gameplay, tone, visuals (considering the reactions to the first trailers already?) And even then, the Bioware brand has seen better times itself... people don't buy into Bioware games blindly anymore after an odd ten years without a truly hit.

To me, that's also why the likes of From Software, Larian or now Warhorse are hitting it bigg/er: They came out of niches uncatered to, each in their own way. Gradually builded a (loyal) core audience -- and then managed to expand that without changing the core of their games, possibly alienating the core PLUS losing their edge. Which means that, unlike most, they don't see direct competition on their level of production. Companies like Bioware have been like: "We want Call Of Duty's audience" from the go. I mean, if Obsidian's Feargus hadn't been around back then, even what eventually became Baldur's Gate would have been an RTS/MMO-ish type of affair, two of the largest trends to chase in the mid to late 1990s. It was he who saw the D&D in the demo the doctors had pitched to Interplay... and suggested the change in direction. Despite RPGs being considered deader than dead at that point, and even parts of Interplay marketing having serious doubts. The rest, as the say, was history. And miniature giant space hamsters.

 

Edited Tuesday at 03:19 PM by Sven_

[Hurlshort]

Woke go broke is such a dumb movement. They love to cherry pick the games that do badly while ignoring all of the massive hits.

Dragon Age clearly had unrealistic sales expectations. It was a long dormant IP that had little buzz around it. The expectation seems to be that it needed to compete with BG3, when the reality is it is closer to the Divinity series. I'd guess the sales of DA:V were probably close to the first Original Sin game.

But Bioware was already pretty much dead before this game came out. It had nothing to do with politics. They messed up Andromeda and Anthem and now they've ended Dragon Age. It sucks. Make sure y'all go buy Avowed.  

[Malcador]

8 hours ago, HoonDing said:

"woke design" = omg the game has wimmin!!!

The funnier one is when the game has "ugly" women.  Incels gonna incel, I guess.

[Lexx]

Please. I am using vidya gaems to escape the reality of fat, ugly wamen. It's all I have.

[Malcador]

41 minutes ago, Lexx said:

Please. I am using vidya gaems to escape the reality of fat, ugly wamen. It's all I have.

Problem is the women aren't really fat, and the ugliness is just not having a huge rack.  Porn sick gamers I guess.

I really should play DA2 by this point.

[MrBrown]

4 hours ago, Hurlshort said:

Dragon Age clearly had unrealistic sales expectations. It was a long dormant IP that had little buzz around it. The expectation seems to be that it needed to compete with BG3, when the reality is it is closer to the Divinity series. I'd guess the sales of DA:V were probably close to the first Original Sin game.

This is it. If it was good, yeah, it'd sell more, but 3 million was too much.

DA:I supposedly sold 12million in the long term (said in 2024) and RPGs supposedly have good long term sales, so 3 million in a few months is probably way too much given the 10 year break in the franchise.

And people are treating it like a 1.5 million in sales is as bad as the 50 players of Concord.

[Zoraptor]

Looks like a NWN2: Enhanced Edition is happening, developed by Aspyr.

[majestic]

16 hours ago, BruceVC said:

https://www.pcgamer.com/games/dragon-age/bioware-has-reportedly-lost-at-least-half-its-staff-with-fewer-than-100-people-left-and-the-studio-a-ghost-of-its-former-self/

Bioware now has fewer than 100 staff after Veilguard missed its sales target by 50%

So the question is really why did Veilguard fail at what matters the most which is always about sales?

And I firmly believe that the whole woke design of the game is a big part of this. If you create a game where a big part of that game is party based interaction and you dont create any real options for your biggest target market which is straight men then you are limiting overall interest in the game 

You can create a game that is inclusive and that game can absolutely be financially successful. Both KCD2 and BG3 are examples of this but these games dont  exclude straight men

The moment you confuse inclusivity with exclusivity you create a massive problem for yourself

This is going to be hilariously useless, but I just cannot stop myself. Please name the element(s) in Veilguard that make it exclude straight males. Provide specific examples and give a proper contextual reading for those. Bonus points if you can make it about excluding straight white males.  Posting a video from a self-proclaimed Russian sounding melodramatic c*nt (his own words, not mine) like Gorth gorthed into the discussion a while back does not count, so don't even try to post something with an Info Wars level of objectivity and integrity as proof, we've had enough of that nonsense back when a not very sharp one skarped in the politics thread.

Spoiler

Or, better yet, just don't bother. I have played through all of Veilguard, even beyond the dreadfully boring prologue quests where the game is really, really not good, which is where everyone else - rightfully, I might add - stopped, and I played a male Qunari character (well, a trans male character, but that makes literally no difference in how everyone treats you, outside of dialogues for Tash, by far and large) and literally every character in the game wanted in my pants, the women and the men. Even Tash, who, as her mother very bluntly tells you, is rarely interested in men.

If it is really about Neve's rack size, then for f*cks sake, just, like, go out and get laid. This ain't healthy.

 

7 hours ago, Sven_ said:

Then again, who asked for a fairly "standard" cinematic action adventure in the Dragon Age universe?

Is that a rhetorical question? Dragon Age: Veilguard is basically a medieval high magic fantasy version of Star Wars: Fallen Order and Jedi Survivor. Both of which were commercial successes for Electronic Arts.

[melkathi]

4 hours ago, Malcador said:

I really should play DA2 by this point.

You really don't have to.

I already played it for your sins.

Honor my sacrifice.

[Sven_]

2 hours ago, majestic said:

Is that a rhetorical question? Dragon Age: Veilguard is basically a medieval high magic fantasy version of Star Wars: Fallen Order and Jedi Survivor. Both of which were commercial successes for Electronic Arts.

But how many more Orders, Survivors, Horizons, God Of Wars, Assassin's Creeds, Kingdoms Of Amalurs, Witchers, Hogwarts, ...... does one need? What does it take to get actually noticed as something special in such a busy space? Square Enix seem hell-bend on going that same route as well. The entire "secret sauce" of these companies amounts to copying whatever's currently hot in the action/adventure/RPG-like space. Only that this space is totally cannibalizing itself. That it's not like 2005 anymore. And that there's far more people playing games today than young male adrenaline junkies big publishers used to target first way back. 

Meanwhile, a Belgian dude in shining armor can walk into the room and turn heads as people know by now that what he's gonna offer isn't quite offered by anybody else -- certainly not on his budgets+levels of production. Ditto Warhorse. Ditto From Software.

Edited Wednesday at 01:22 AM by Sven_

[MrBrown]

6 hours ago, Zoraptor said:

Looks like a NWN2: Enhanced Edition is happening, developed by Aspyr.

[BruceVC]

6 hours ago, majestic said:

This is going to be hilariously useless, but I just cannot stop myself. Please name the element(s) in Veilguard that make it exclude straight males. Provide specific examples and give a proper contextual reading for those. Bonus points if you can make it about excluding straight white males.  Posting a video from a self-proclaimed Russian sounding melodramatic c*nt (his own words, not mine) like Gorth gorthed into the discussion a while back does not count, so don't even try to post something with an Info Wars level of objectivity and integrity as proof, we've had enough of that nonsense back when a not very sharp one skarped in the politics thread.

  Reveal hidden contents

Or, better yet, just don't bother. I have played through all of Veilguard, even beyond the dreadfully boring prologue quests where the game is really, really not good, which is where everyone else - rightfully, I might add - stopped, and I played a male Qunari character (well, a trans male character, but that makes literally no difference in how everyone treats you, outside of dialogues for Tash, by far and large) and literally every character in the game wanted in my pants, the women and the men. Even Tash, who, as her mother very bluntly tells you, is rarely interested in men.

If it is really about Neve's rack size, then for f*cks sake, just, like, go out and get laid. This ain't healthy.

 

Is that a rhetorical question? Dragon Age: Veilguard is basically a medieval high magic fantasy version of Star Wars: Fallen Order and Jedi Survivor. Both of which were commercial successes for Electronic Arts.

No Im not going to go into more details. Its not like you really want to have this debate in a constructive way 

As usual your standard response is " you a racist\fascist " and that's why Im saying what Im saying 

No point wasting my time with this type of engagement 

Anyway it doesnt matter what we think the reasons are the game failed to make its sales target, either it makes its target or it doesn't

It doesn't seem  like Bioware is going to be around much longer and then these types of analysis become irrelevant anyway

 

 

Edited Wednesday at 05:35 AM by BruceVC

[Wormerine]

Solasta2 will have a playable demo this Steamfest on February 24th:

 

It seems that just like with Solasta1 it will be a selfcontained, standalone adventures showcasing what we can expect in the final game. I am wondering, however, what purpose this demo serves. In Solasta1 it was part of crowdfunding campaign. I don't believe devs mentioned reaching for crowdfunding this time around, and I though S2 was to release in Early Access at some point instead. Still, creating a demo sounds like an odd allocation of resources in this case, unless it is something they just do as part of the development process.

[Sven_]

2 hours ago, Wormerine said:

Solasta2 will have a playable demo this Steamfest on February 24th:

I'll be there! Only finished the last story DLC Palace Of Ice, last year. The overall project reminded me of SSI D&D games of yore: Nothing to too fancy story wise, just a simple adventure, and off ya roll. Sometimes, that's all that's needed! The combat could have been a bit harder though... and with that I mean the AI. I finished it on I think a higher (but not highest) setting, as I'm not a fan of enemies simply having inflated stats. But outside a few optional encounters, and I think a boss or two, never really struggled. After all, Solasta is pretty focused on the combat. Thumbs up though for going with a quality over quality approach. Rather than spamming dungeons with a couple dozen copypaste encounters, you oft faced maybe 2-3 handcrafted at best. For a game that's sold on the combat and the combat system, that's rare. I think the last that did it was Troika's Temple Of Elemental Evil -- but even that later on had you hacking through uninspired hordes of bugbears later on. IIRC after a while I just opened the doors, cast a couple of fireballs and be done with it.



Oh, and those dudes over here like quite a few decent games. No wonder that Kangdom Kang kangs!

Edited Wednesday at 02:24 PM by Sven_

[Lexx]

Does he mean this Albion?

[Malcador]

9 hours ago, BruceVC said:

No Im not going to go into more details. Its not like you really want to have this debate in a constructive way 

As usual your standard response is " you a racist\fascist " and that's why Im saying what Im saying 

No point wasting my time with this type of engagement 

Anyway it doesnt matter what we think the reasons are the game failed to make its sales target, either it makes its target or it doesn't

It doesn't seem  like Bioware is going to be around much longer and then these types of analysis become irrelevant anyway

 

 

Well, at least you admit you're full of crap, I guess.

Small news but notable - https://news.blizzard.com/en-us/article/24177681/avowed-breaks-down-barriers-with-cross-buy

"When you buy any edition of Avowed on either Battle.net or Xbox, you can then play the game on both platforms by linking your Xbox and Battle.net accounts. This means you'll be able to switch easily between playing Avowed on Battle.net or Xbox."
 

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

18 hours ago, majestic said:

Please name the element(s) in Veilguard that make it exclude straight males.

I'll tell ya right now, REAL MEN want in-game ads for BRAIN FORCE ULTRA and ALPHA POWER. WHICH YOU CAN BUY FROM MY STORE AT INFOWARSDOTCOMSLASHPRODUCTSSLASHSUPPLEMENTS. IF YOU ACT NOW YOU CAN GET A 2 MONTH SUPPLY FOR FIFTY PERCENT OFF, BUT THERE'S MORE. USE MY CODE GOWOKEGOBROKE AND YOU'LL GET FREE SHIPPING AND THE RFKJR SPECIAL EDITION VACCINE BUSTER SUPPOSITORY AND GIGAJACKED INJECTABLES FOR FREE - A $420 DOLLAR VALUE ABSOLUTELY FREE. ACT NOW.

Real talk: Look, BG3 is by the same metric a "woke" game, as is stuff like Disco Elysium and other things that seem to do very well for their weight class. You're not seeing 10000 videos of interchangeable guys with the charisma of a snail and the brains of a pile of **** complaining about those games for being too woke. The newest Dragon Age underperformed for a variety of more recognizable reasons: it's an IP whose last release was a decade ago so the base has deteriorated, it tried to ape popular trends and didn't do a great job of capturing those audiences, it went hard on cinematics despite not being a pretty game, it had a very bad prologue that turned players off, etc. That kind of stuff just doesn't really play well to the clickbait addled dip****s as yelling about whatever acronym they're mad about this week, because those people will eat steaming diarrhea from a toilet and call it gourmet.

All of this puts me in an awkward situation because I would very much like to hate on DAVe but also don't want to roll in that mud. I was hating on this **** before launch and these vermin scurry in to start as soon as they see sales figures aren't great.