Another BioWare whistleblower has come forward to correct and clarify some of the information previously reported on the internal strife at the EA-owned developer and Dragon Age: The Veilguard sales numbers.
The insider spoke anonymously to YouTube content creator Smash JT, addressing some of the points he made in a recent video on his channel.
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In that video, JT’s initial source told him that Dragon Age: The Veilguard sales were better than anyone thought, with three million copies sold. However, that’s apparently not the case.
“Your number of copies sold is wrong,” the insider said. “The number the whistleblower gives you is a projection with the tail (basically over the lifetime of the game with sales). It currently has less than 1.5 million sold. Sold to consumers. Not retail. So that is a MAJOR disaster for us at BioWare.”
A screenshot from Dragon Age: The Veilguard (2024), BioWare
It appears as though the three million sales numbers initially reported was an internal projection of what the title could stand to make over its entire lifecycle. In reality, the game has moved less than half that amount. The three million copies projection was far more realistic than the company’s initial pre-launch goal, however.
BioWare initially believed that it would sell north of ten million copies of Veilguard. Smash JT reported this figure in his previous video and his second source confirmed that this was the belief running through both BioWare and EA.
“The projections of copies sold are correct,” the whistleblower said. “They were expecting around ten million. EA is allergic to risks nowadays and wants big blockbusters.”
A screenshot from Dragon Age: The Veilguard (2024), BioWare
Of course, with such a massive failure on its hands, many within BioWare are concerned at the threat of mass layoffs. Smash JT’s source confirmed that while this is a fear internally, many of the BioWare staffers have been moved to other projects within EA, even those outside BioWare.
“There is indeed a lot of talk of layoffs,” the whistleblower said. “However, you can confirm with your sources, but most of the staff was reassigned to other projects within EA for the time being. I myself have also been asked to help another project, but not at BioWare. Most people are not on Bowie [sic] at the moment. If your source says otherwise, then they are not telling you the truth.”
A screenshot from Dragon Age: The Veilguard (2024), BioWare
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The whistleblower also confirmed that initially Veilguard was conceived and developed to be a co-op game. This was over a decade ago, before the failure of Anthem. However, when Anthem became such a massive bomb, BioWare moved on from co-op gameplay and shifted Veilguard’s development to a single player RPG. The game was then in development for well over a decade.
BioWare’s last three major launches have been Dragon Age: The Veilguard, Mass Effect: Andromeda, and Anthem. All three of those titles fell flat on their faces for different reasons.
Anthem was a boring co-op game with a paper thin story, which is the opposite of what people want from the studio that created Mass Effect and Star Wars: Knights of The Old Republic.
A screenshot from Mass Effect: Andromeda Deluxe Edition (2017), BioWare
Mass Effect: Andromeda was (and still is!) a buggy mess of a game with unfinished animations and game-breaking glitches galore. The game also failed to recapture the scale and stakes of the original Mass Effect trilogy.
Then, of course, Veilguard failed because it injected identity politics and ideology into the game in such a ham fisted finger-wagging manner. It also threw out all player choices from the previous three Dragon Age games and made sweeping changes to the look and feel of what was once an epic dark fantasy series.
BioWare has one last chance to stick the landing with its next Mass Effect game, but the fact that EA is shuffling employees around to different projects within the company doesn’t bode well for the developer’s future.
Do you believe EA is going to start laying off BioWare employees? Are you surprised by the dismal Dragon Age: The Veilguard sales? Sound off in the comment section below and let us know!
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1.5 millions is a bit more beliable, i still think they are counting free codes, and Refunds in those “sales” though
The best entertainment you can get from a woke game has nothing to do with actually playing it.
It’s over for EA. Their track record is atrocious, their name is mud and draws immediate negative PR whenever it’s mentioned publicly, and their customers have largely abandoned them over their repeated disastrous games and greedy monetization. If US lawmakers were to restrict paid loot boxes and/or other MTX in any way, they (and most other triple-A studios) would implode immediately as investors bailed on the only thing making any sort of money.
The identity politics were partly why Andromeda failed as well… we just weren’t allowed to talk about it then, and forums like this one were just getting started. Social agendas and ugly characters were the elephant in the room, but anyone who pointed it out was immediately shot down by the mob and made to go away. Thankfully, times have changed.
That picture is a whole lot a’ horns blowing’ a whole lot a’ horns. Gross.
So much for not taking risks
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