this post was submitted on 05 Feb 2025
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I see! So there was some kind of explicit order, or at least concerted effort with explicit goal, to make a game with "a message". And I assume we have all the evidence to look at to see the day-to-day chain of events that led to the market failure.
No?
Seriously though, there were many reasons why DAV failed, and "having a Message" was not even in the top 100. Every piece of media has a message.
...This is literally just the "historical accuracy" argument.
You’re misrepresenting my point. I never claimed there was an explicit directive to prioritize "a message" over game quality—I said it feels like that’s what happened. That’s a critique of execution, not a conspiracy theory.
Yes, every piece of media has a message, but there’s a difference between a theme that naturally emerges from storytelling and one that feels forced or out of place. The issue isn’t that the game has a message—it’s how it delivers it.
Claiming messaging wasn’t in the "top 100" reasons for failure is just hand-waving. You provide no evidence for that, and even if it’s not the primary reason, that doesn’t mean it wasn’t a factor.
Finally, comparing this to the "historical accuracy" argument is a bad-faith deflection. Dragon Age isn’t real history, but it does have established lore and internal consistency. When a game introduces elements that contradict its own worldbuilding, it breaks immersion. That’s the issue.
You're deflecting the real issue here. The issue isn't whether that's factual or just your personal feels. The issue is that you're saying that was the definitive cause of its failure:
And what I was saying was, well, no, it wasn't the definitive cause. Far from it. There's a lot of reasons for the game's failure.
I fail to see how you refute my point by saying that. I never said it wasn't a factor, I said it was insignificant compared to bigger problems.
You know, I didn't list the reasons because I thought they would be obvious to anyone who's actually following what's going on. Buuuut how about the oversaturation of the AAA game publishing space? (People have giant backlogs of great games to play, and there's no end to this stuff.) Rising game prices? (Big game publishers are getting pretty greedy.) Increasing standards of quality from consumers? (Can't release a meh game these days, if people are paying $70+ for games, they have to be beyond excellent.)
Most importantly: people actually want games that were made by studios that give a damn about the end product. Bioware is just EA's puppet, they make product chunks. In my opinion, the biggest reason DAV failed commercially because it was a game nobody was asking for, made by a developer that's a shadow of its former self and everyone knows that. People had scepticism, and rightfully so.
See? I didn't even get into what's in the game. That's what I meant when I said the Message isn't even in the top 100 problems.
No, perhaps I was being unclear. What I meant by that is that it's in the same category as "historical accuracy" whinging. It's a fictional setting, so arguing that it has to match some real world facts and logic is utterly pointless.
So how exactly did it contradict the worldbuilding? Was it specifically established in DA lore that all nb/trans people will use polymorph magic? I'm genuinely curious here.
Or did you mean that this particular logic doesn't make sense to you personally? That's not "lore". That's not a worldbuilding issue. That's projecting your own assumptions.
Besides: Even if it was specifically earlier established in DA lore that all nb/trans characters will just use polymorph stuff, who cares? The writers are well within their rights to retcon their stuff. Worldbuilding is not dogma.
You’re shifting the goalposts. My argument wasn’t that messaging was the sole reason for failure, but that it was a major factor—one that contributed to the game feeling like a product with priorities misaligned from what players actually wanted. Saying there were “many reasons” doesn’t refute that.
Your claim that messaging wasn’t even in the “top 100” is still unsupported. Listing industry-wide problems like oversaturation and rising prices is fine, but none of that explains why The Veilguard failed specifically. Plenty of games thrive under these conditions. The difference? They connect with their audience. DAV didn’t.
As for lore consistency—yes, Dragon Age has established magic that lets people change their gender at will. If that exists, then the idea of medical transition (and scars from it) doesn’t naturally fit within the world. That’s not a personal assumption; it’s a logical question based on the rules the setting has already established. If a game contradicts its own internal logic without explanation, that’s bad writing.
And no, “retcons” don’t excuse anything. A writer can change their worldbuilding, but doing so in a way that breaks immersion, alienates players, or makes the setting feel incoherent is bad storytelling. Just because you can rewrite lore doesn’t mean you should—especially if it weakens the internal consistency of the world.
No, we're having a simple disagreement over whether this was a major reason why the game failed commercially or not. You're the one who's making this complicated.
Insisting that the game having a message is the most major reason the game failed doesn't refute any of what I said either. We're still having a disagreement, nothing more. You've not proven your claim either.
OK, so you continue to be the one who's making the extraordinary claim here, that DAV specifically failed because the game didn't connect with the message, and that it was specifically because it was the message.
There are still plenty of reasons why a game wouldn't connect with the audience, as I said. You've not exactly proven why and how this was the definitive reason. That's the claim that needs to be proven, yet you've not done that.
Whether or not you're acknowledging it or not, you're acting as if as you think the game having a message is the sole reason why the game failed commercially. You acknowledge that it was a "major" reason, but then, above, you're also specifically saying that industry-wide problems aren't affecting the game's situation at all. Why? Why isn't the industry downturn affecting this game specifically? Why can't we explain this game's failure in large part with the incompetence and greed of major publishers?
You didn't answer my question. I didn't ask if it "naturally" fits the world. I asked if it was established that this is what is actually happening in the lore.
Because you're still projecting your own assumptions on how the world should work on the work. You're not criticising the game's writing on its own merits. You're complaining that the game writers didn't write the game the way you wanted. In other words, this is still the "my historical accuracy in my fantasy game" argument.
Besides, there's plenty of reason why, in a fantasy setting, you could have trans/nb characters who don't get to use polymorph magic. Cost. Class gap. Haves and have-nots. The class divide is a pretty common topic that is often explored in fantasy literature and people being denied this kind of magic treatment, for whatever reason, is a valid catalyst for a story. It'd make an excellent fantasy plotline. But that's not relevant to DA specifically.
You’re asking me to prove that the game’s messaging and story issues were a major reason for its failure, but you’re not holding yourself to the same standard. You claim that industry-wide issues like oversaturation, pricing, and publisher greed were the real reasons, yet you’ve provided no evidence that these factors impacted The Veilguard more than any other game.
The backlash against DAV wasn’t primarily about price, oversaturation, or competition. The loudest complaints were about the game’s tone, character writing, and perceived prioritization of messaging over deep storytelling. If industry trends were the dominant factor, we’d expect similar pushback against every game in this space—not just DAV.
The Dragon Age series once had strong audience trust, but that eroded over time, largely due to shifting priorities in writing and design. The skepticism around DAV didn’t just appear out of nowhere—it was a reaction to a pattern of changes fans disliked.
If DAV’s failure was mostly about the industry downturn, we’d expect all comparable RPGs to be struggling just as much. Yet, games that focus on strong player-driven storytelling (Baldur’s Gate 3, for example) have thrived. The key difference? They gave players what they wanted.
The burden of proof goes both ways. If you’re going to claim story issues and messaging weren’t significant reasons for DAV’s failure, you need to prove that too. Just pointing at industry-wide problems doesn’t explain why this game failed more than others.
https://www.polygon.com/analysis/520290/dragon-age-the-veilguard-sales-ea-bioware-layoffs
https://thatparkplace.com/dragon-age-the-veilguard-sales-lower-than-reported/
https://gameworldobserver.com/2025/01/23/dragon-age-launch-sales-veilguard-vs-previous-games
This isn't true. I'm perfectly willing to prove my viewpoints. You're continuing to jump the gun here. I'm about to explain my viewpoint, eventually. I was just hoping you would prove your viewpoints first. We're having a conversation online, we have all the time in the world. Everything in due time, right?
(It's as if you're engaging in this kind of complaints as a stalling tactic. This conversation would go so much smoother if you'd just address the points. Furthermore, you're repeating yourself a lot, it makes the comments hard to read. So please, address the points. I'm cutting this down for brevity.)
Are you absolutely sure it had nothing to do with several key players in Bioware leaving over the years and EA quietly gutting the studio, replacing the talent and increasing their meddling? Because, as I said before, that raises the fanbase's eyebrows. The Bioware that made DAV simply isn't the same company that made DAO. Bioware hasn't really been independent of EA's meddling since 2016 at least - Mass Effect Andromeda was the clearest example of what happened when EA decided to assume more direct control of the process. Fans have had every reason to be suspicious of Bioware's output ever since. It's frankly a miracle Dragon Age Inquisition was anywhere near as good as it was.
Bioware doesn't exist in vacuum, they're not the only ones who are making decisions here.
Who exactly made the shifting writing decisions here? Can you give me concrete examples? I've not played DAV so it's harder for me to compare the things.
I've seen EA put this same kind of ruin on a lot of studios over time. Many classic game series - including celebrated RPG series - have been ruined by EA's meddling. What happened to Origin Systems has been happening to Bioware for over a decade now.
That is part of provable history. I would link to sources, but I suggest you read up on the history of EA and their studios (in particular Origin) on yourself - the information isn't hard to find, the ones in Wikipedia are a very good start.
Just reminded me: Are you seriously saying DAV is unique in this regard? This kind of pushback is levied against a lot of games these days. There's so much of this kind of cries aimed at a lot of games these days. As long as people keep making lists about "woke" games on Steam, I don't think DAV was a special case at all.
These sources appear to confirm that Dragon Age Veilguard was not as great success commercially as EA hoped. This was not part of our dispute, and I was never even claiming that DAV was a financial success story. The opposite, in fact.
These sources do not, however, appear to support your particular claims about the message being the primary reason why the game failed commercially.
Also, I see you did not respond to the more interesing questions I asked earlier, so allow me to reiterate: Was the whole polymorph magic issue ever addressed in the Dragon Age lore? And allow me to expand on that - what did you think of the narrative ideas I presented? I'm just curious about that.