Yesterday, EA CEO Andrew Wilson made some remarks about why Dragon Age: The Veilguard may have performed below the company’s financial expectations.
These comments have made their way to the team at BioWare and beyond, and they haven’t been received well by key Dragon Age figureheads.
To give context, Wilson’s comments asserted that Veilguard needed the live service features they ended up cutting from the final experience. In response, Dragon Age lead devs Mike Laidlaw and David Gaider gave their thoughts.
Laidlaw, Dragon Age’s former creative director who had been with the IP since its inception, had the harshest remarks of the two:
“If someone said to me, ‘the key to this successful single-player IP’s success is to make it purely a multiplayer game. No, not a spin-off: fundamentally change the DNA of what people loved about the core game.’ I’d probably, like, quit that job or something.”
“Who’d be silly enough to demand something like that?”
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David Gaider’s thoughts were certainly less harsh, but no less dissenting:
“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!'”
“If I really dig into my empathy, I can kinda see the thinking here.”
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Gaider offers his own reason as to why Dragon Age: The Veilguard missed EA’s projections: they were simply set too high.
“For a return of the series after 10 years, they wanted numbers they could ballyhoo. Whatever they are, they didn’t get them. Does that make Veilguard a failure? Depends on your metric.”
Expections And Fallout From Dragon Age: The Veilguard
Expectations are a funny thing. Businesses need to set them for themselves, but they’re also inherently speculative. Viewing Veilguard as a big return for a beloved franchise could certainly have skewed things, live service or not.
At the very least, Laidlaw practices what he preaches. Eurogamer points out that he did indeed leave the development of Dragon Age: The Veilguard at around the time EA wanted to push live service stuff into Veilguard.
Laidlaw’s new team at Yellow Brick Games have released Eternal Strands, a fantasy RPG that isn’t currently a live service. While it’s certainly not reached Dragon Age levels of popularity yet, it also lacks 16 years of history to build hype from.
Meanwhile, Gaider continues his thoughts on the matter, offering advice directly to EA on where Dragon Age could go next.
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. ❤️— David Gaider (@davidgaider.bsky.social) February 5, 2025 at 7:59 PM
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