Recently, Electronic Arts CEO Andrew Wilson said that Dragon Age: The Veilguard failed because it was not a live service. Dragon Age screenwriter and creator David Gader denied it.
Wilson’s statement about the reasons the failure of Dragon Age: The Veilguard excited the community. Among the criticisms is the argument that the audience of Dragon Age and online gaming services is somewhat different, and that EA management does not understand its audience. This opinion is shared by David Gader, a screenwriter and writer who worked at BioWare for 17 years and wrote Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age II, and Inquisition, three books in the series, and participated in the development of Baldur’s Gate II, Neverwinter Nights, and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (KOTOR).
«If I really dig into my empathy, I can kinda see the thinking here. Like, let’s say you don’t actually know much about games. You’re in a big office with a bunch of other execs who also don’t know much about games. What are they all saying? “Live games do big numbers!”, “Action games are hot!”».
In a long series of detailed comments to this post on Bluesky, which we recommend read in full, Gaeder continues:
«Your natural response? “We should make more action games, and all our games should have live service!” Cha-ching, right? Then some uppity devs spoil your buzz by saying “that doesn’t apply equally to all games” or “we have an established IP with an audience that has certain expectations”. You frown.».
«My advice to EA (not that they care): you have an IP that a lot of people love. Deeply. At its height, it sold well enough to make you happy, right? Look at what it did best at the point where it sold the most. Follow Larian’s lead and double down on that. The audience is still there. And waiting.
So, those who made the legendary games still know what they’re doing, but businessmen seem to want something different. Let’s hope that Larian’s example will inspire even them — if they find out that thanks to Baldur’s Gate 3 Larian Studios’ revenue increased almost 20 times. And at the same time, strangely enough, an independent studio has made a great game that not hated by fans of the genre.
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