The disaster surrounding Dragon Age: The Veilguard just keeps getting worse. Less than four months after launch, GameStop has already slashed the price of brand-new copies to just $24.99, a staggering 65% drop from its original $69.99 price tag.
Dragon Age: The Veilguard is now just $24.99. pic.twitter.com/mYV8nZhi0L
— GameStop (@gamestop) January 29, 2025
This level of discounting is almost unheard of for a major AAA title so soon after release, signaling that demand for the game has completely collapsed.
It’s not just new copies that have tanked in value. GameStop devalued trade-ins for The Veilguard almost immediately, offering just $22 for a copy in its first week on shelves.
Now, the company lists a trade in value of $13 for Veilguard on PS5, and $11 for XBox.
A screenshot from Dragon Age: The Veilguard (2024), BioWare
That’s an astonishingly low trade-in price for a brand-new release, suggesting that players were returning or trading in the game in massive numbers—so many, in fact, that GameStop had little choice but to tank its value to avoid being flooded with unwanted inventory.
Over 30,000 Returns Reported
The sheer volume of dissatisfaction among players is staggering. YouTuber Endymion, citing an industry source, reported that The Veilguard saw over 30,000 returns.
“I’m also told in terms of refunds that currently the game has had at least 30,000 refunds in the past few days,” Endymion said in a video on his channel shortly after the game released in November. “Which is not good for your game that has barely sold half a million copies to be hemorrhaging players like this. So, generally speaking, Veilguard is not a commercial success.”
A screenshot from Dragon Age: The Veilguard (2024), BioWare
If accurate, this number represents one of the most significant mass rejections of a AAA game in recent memory. Even notoriously bad launches like Cyberpunk 2077 didn’t see this level of immediate backlash in terms of physical returns—most players stuck with the game, banking on patches and updates.
For The Veilguard, however, there’s no such patience, as its new GameStop price shows.
The game was met with glowing reviews from main stream virtue signaling outlets and and scathing criticism from fans who felt that BioWare abandoned the franchise’s core identity in favor of identity politics and shallow writing. Many longtime Dragon Age fans rejected the game outright, refusing to engage with what they saw as a betrayal of the series’ original vision.
EA’s Financial Nightmare Worsens
The catastrophic failure of The Veilguard and its plummeting price is just one of many problems BioWare’s parent company EA is currently facing. The publisher recently slashed its revenue forecast for the fiscal year, citing both The Veilguard and EA Sports FC 25 as the primary culprits for its financial woes.
The company originally expected mid-single-digit growth from its live-service titles but now expects a mid-single-digit decline—a multi-hundred-million-dollar shortfall.
A screenshot from Dragon Age: The Veilguard (2024), BioWare
This collapse in confidence led to EA’s stock plummeting nearly 20% in just a matter of days. Shares tumbled from $142.35 to $125.90 on January 22 and then fell further, bottoming out at $116.29 before slightly recovering to $118.58. It fell again today, bringing it back down to $16.64 as of this writing.
Investors are clearly fleeing the company, spooked by the unexpected financial hit and the realization that EA’s high-profile releases are failing to meet even the most conservative expectations.
BioWare’s Restructuring Amid the Fallout
The Veilguard price reduction isn’t the only Dragon Age news this week.
In response to The Veilguard’s commercial disaster, BioWare has announced a major restructuring, cutting down its team and shifting its focus entirely to Mass Effect. Studio general manager Gary McKay assured fans that veterans from the original Mass Effect trilogy—Mike Gamble, Preston Watamaniuk, Derek Watts, and Parrish Ley—are now leading development, a clear indication that EA is trying to restore trust after The Veilguard debacle.
A screenshot from Mass Effect Legendary Edition (2021), BioWare
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Though McKay avoided mentioning layoffs directly, BioWare is reallocating staff to other EA divisions, which strongly suggests that some employees will be let go as part of the restructuring. Notably, The Veilguard’s director, Corinne Busche, recently departed the company, claiming that it was a voluntary decision.
The Road Ahead
With Dragon Age: The Veilguard now sitting in bargain bins at GameStop and its trade-in value at rock bottom, it’s clear that the game is a financial disaster for EA. Players have rejected it, retailers can’t get rid of it, and EA is now scrambling to recover from one of its biggest misfires in years.
A screenshot from Dragon Age: The Veilguard (2024), BioWare
Whether EA learns from this failure or continues down the same misguided path remains to be seen. What’s undeniable, however, is that The Veilguard will go down as one of BioWare’s biggest blunders—one that may have permanently altered the studio’s future.
Are you surprised at the new Veilguard price at GameStop? Sound off in the comments and let us know! And keep it here on That Park Place for all the news that should be fun!
I wouldn’t play it if they paid me $25.
EA, Microsoft, et all are infected by the woke mind virus. All the right-wing men leave, and what’s left is a left -wing organisation. Such organisations are doomed to fail, unless they are defacto globalist monopolies who are immune from competition.
I don’t think I’d play it even if it was free. The characters are unattractive, the story is vague, and the only thing worth it is the name Dragon’s Age, but this time they’ve made the series worthless. If they’d sold it for $5 from the start, more people might have bought it.
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