Dragon Age Dragon Age: The Veilguard Thread

[Camel]

Most likely even less. "Had 1,5 million players during the quarter" does not equal 1,5 million copies sold - some people may have played it via EU subscription service.

Many people speculated that 89k concurrent Steam players meant 900k - 1 million players bought the game. Looks like it's true and about 1 million people bought Veilguard discounting EA subscriptions which is a disaster for BioWare. DA:O sold 3.2 million copies and 1 million "pieces of DLC" in three months in 2009. Veilguard probably has 1/3 of DA:O sales in three months.

 

[moon knight]

Did bad vibes destroy Veilguard?

That post is not inherently wrong. Influencers are called like that because they influence people. And watching shorts or "reviews" that are filled with negativity does impact your willingness to buy the game. Guardians of the Galaxy comes to mind.

 

[Lagole Gon]

Ouch, EA stock has a bad day.

 

[Elttharion]

Did bad vibes destroy Veilguard?

As much as I dont really like Shillup his 'HR was in the room' quip was a death blow for the game. I have seen that get quoted even in random facebook posts by boomer rpg players.

 

[Falksi]

Non-paywalled: https://www.cnbc.com/2025/01/22/ea-lowers-q3-guidance-as-soccer-and-other-games-underperformed.html

Dragon Age underperformed by 50%

 

[Falksi]

Dragon Age underperformed by 50%

It's joever.

I hope whoever owns the IP in 10 years has better luck with Dragon Age Origins 2.

You need to make a budget piss-take of all this.

Say a 2-5 hour JRPG where a team of SJWs including "Cory No-Bush" go on an adventure to change gaming for the better, but end up destroying it in the process instead.

 

[gurugeorge]

Did bad vibes destroy Veilguard?

As much as I dont really like Shillup his 'HR was in the room' quip was a death blow for the game. I have seen that get quoted even in random facebook posts by boomer rpg players.

It only became a meme because it hit the bullseye tho.

 

[Decado]

They're lying about their expectations for the game, most likely. There is no way a company like EA would expect "only" 3 million copies sold (forgetting for a second the very real difference between copies sold and the number of people who "played the game.") They were banking on at least double that in sales. Decent action RPGs can sell 10 to 12 million units within the first few months. Elden Ring sold 13.5 million in the first month, and FF7 Remake sold 3.5 million in its first opening weekend. Dragon's Dogma 2 sold 2.5 million copies in 11 days, which is amazing when considering how niche and (relatively) unknown that franchise is. And the fact that the development team for that game is fucking tiny.

The truth is, Veilguard MASSIVELY underperformed. This is a humiliating, embarrassing performance for a well-established CRPG brand, especially one owned by EA, one of the largest video game publishers in the world. It's a shame to witness.

 

[Camel]

They're lying about their expectations for the game, most likely. There is no way a company like EA would expect "only" 3 million copies sold (forgetting for a second the very real difference between copies sold and the number of people who "played the game.") They were banking on at least double that in sales. Decent action RPGs can sell 10 to 12 million units within the first few months. Elden Ring sold 13.5 million in the first month, and FF7 Remake sold 3.5 million in its first opening weekend. Dragon's Dogma 2 sold 2.5 million copies in 11 days, which is amazing when considering how niche and (relatively) unknown that franchise is. And the fact that the development team for that game is fucking tiny.

The truth is, Veilguard MASSIVELY underperformed. This is a humiliating, embarrassing performance for a well-established CRPG brand, especially one owned by EA, one of the largest video game publishers in the world. It's a shame to witness.

Unlikely EA expected 10 million sales for Veilguard, the DA always sold less than ME. The ME trilogy sold 20 million copies combined. 3 million copies for DA:V sounds optimistic but it could’ve been possible with a good game by old BioWare which is long gone.

 

[SayMyName]

Non-paywalled: https://www.cnbc.com/2025/01/22/ea-lowers-q3-guidance-as-soccer-and-other-games-underperformed.html

Dragon Age underperformed by 50%

Bioware is most definetly getting shut down

 

[ERYFKRAD]

It's a shame to witness.

Nix, brother, it's a pleasure to witness. A shame to have accomplished such a feat, so to speak, but utter schadenfreude to see it.

 

[SayMyName]

Dragon's Dogma 2 sold 2.5 million copies in 11 days, which is amazing when considering how niche and (relatively) unknown that franchise is. And the fact that the development team for that game is fucking tiny.

Dragon's Dogma 2 underperformed, and its team wasn't small

The truth is, Veilguard MASSIVELY underperformed. This is a humiliating, embarrassing performance for a well-established CRPG brand, especially one owned by EA, one of the largest video game publishers in the world. It's a shame to witness.

Software houses lie all the time about expectations. Veilguard should have done at least 5M. Dogma could have got away with 4, but both games had awful user reception which impacts 2nd and onwards week sales, which is why both games barely moved any copies after the very release.

 

[Elttharion]

They're lying about their expectations for the game, most likely. There is no way a company like EA would expect "only" 3 million copies sold (forgetting for a second the very real difference between copies sold and the number of people who "played the game.") They were banking on at least double that in sales. Decent action RPGs can sell 10 to 12 million units within the first few months. Elden Ring sold 13.5 million in the first month, and FF7 Remake sold 3.5 million in its first opening weekend. Dragon's Dogma 2 sold 2.5 million copies in 11 days, which is amazing when considering how niche and (relatively) unknown that franchise is. And the fact that the development team for that game is fucking tiny.

The truth is, Veilguard MASSIVELY underperformed. This is a humiliating, embarrassing performance for a well-established CRPG brand, especially one owned by EA, one of the largest video game publishers in the world. It's a shame to witness.

3 million was probably the absolute bare minimum they expected and it definitely would still leave then deep in the red. EA also probably expected that at 3 million sales/players the game would have better/more significant word of mouth and a long sales tail, kinda like Inquisition. That one was also crap but it still managed to find an audience due to word of mouth and a different climate, this otoh is absolutely fucked.

 

[Decado]

Dragon's Dogma 2 sold 2.5 million copies in 11 days, which is amazing when considering how niche and (relatively) unknown that franchise is. And the fact that the development team for that game is fucking tiny.

Dragon's Dogma 2 underperformed, and its team wasn't small

This is wrong. First, Dragon's Dogma 2 performed so well that Capcom revised their earnings forecast for the year.

Second, the team that worked on Dragon's Dogma 2 is tiny compared to the sizes of other teams for other games, including other RPGs.

According to data posted on MobyGames (which appears to have been compiled based on the closing credits of Dragon’s Dogma 2), there were 392 members of staff involved in the game’s development. On the other hand, Resident Evil 4, released by Capcom in February 2023, counts 1,504 staff members, not including special thanks. Street Fighter 6, which was released in June 2023, involved 1,828 people. This means that compared to Dragon’s Dogma 2, both titles were developed by more than three times as many staff members.

Furthermore, the same gap exists with other titles by Hideaki Itsuno, the director of Dragon’s Dogma 2. The development of Devil May Cry 5 (2019) involved 1,222 staff members, and the credits of the first Dragon’s Dogma (2012) counted 616 people – a lot more than the latest sequel.

As far as other AAA titles go, Hogwarts Legacy credits 3,429 staff members and Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is close by with 3,077. Although this is based only on what is visible in credit rolls, Dragon’s Dogma 2 seems to have been developed on a significantly smaller scale.

In a prerelease interview, Dragon’s Dogma 2’s producer Yoshiaki Hirabayashi told us that Capcom had been waiting for Itsuno to become available to work on the sequel, which is why development started in earnest after the release of DMC 5 five years ago. During this time, Capcom was also in the midst of developing the previously mentioned Resident Evil 4 and Street Fighter 6.

The second point is important in tandem with the first, since a big part of how well a game does is measured by how much it cost to make. Also, if you consider that the franchise itself is totally niche, and that the new title was following up a game that had been released in 2012, 3m copies sold is fucking great.

 

[Elttharion]

Just as a point of comparision:

11 minutes:


27 minutes:


Also jap wages are way lower

 

[Odoryuk]

Second, the team that worked on Dragon's Dogma 2 is tiny compared

It got even tinier when the visionary behind the game left the company

 

[Lord_Potato]

They're lying about their expectations for the game, most likely. There is no way a company like EA would expect "only" 3 million copies sold (forgetting for a second the very real difference between copies sold and the number of people who "played the game.") They were banking on at least double that in sales. Decent action RPGs can sell 10 to 12 million units within the first few months. Elden Ring sold 13.5 million in the first month, and FF7 Remake sold 3.5 million in its first opening weekend. Dragon's Dogma 2 sold 2.5 million copies in 11 days, which is amazing when considering how niche and (relatively) unknown that franchise is. And the fact that the development team for that game is fucking tiny.

The truth is, Veilguard MASSIVELY underperformed. This is a humiliating, embarrassing performance for a well-established CRPG brand, especially one owned by EA, one of the largest video game publishers in the world. It's a shame to witness.

Unlikely EA expected 10 million sales for Veilguard, the DA always sold less than ME. The ME trilogy sold 20 million copies combined. 3 million copies for DA:V sounds optimistic but it could’ve been possible with a good game by old BioWare which is long gone.

Not really. Inquisition sold 12 million copies.

Of course the devil lies in the details - in what timespan and for what individual price those sales were made, how often games were on discount etc. But DAI showed that Dragon Age can be as big, or even larger seller than Mass Effect.