Support NeoGAF

[Loomy]

"DId you just assume the gender?"

Dammit! Quick Seppuku after work. Who wants to be my second?

so then why EA hasn't commented about the sales number? It's been 6 weeks since the release. And we got Black Friday too, and yet they're still quiet about it

For a game they consider to be the next major breakout, the silence about sales number speaks for itself

Because it's probably not good. Still not this person's job to share those ahead of the publisher.
Although based on the way the question was answered - talking about Inquisition's 'long burn' - we can probably guess what the situation is.

 

[RoboFu]

Biowere

 

[Plague Doctor]

Pronouns are Poor/Sales

 

[SmokedMeat]

They need to hire new writers and artists. They need people who know what the fuck a Dragon Age game is, and not hire these Gen Z Fortnite kids that grew up playing happy go lucky jrpgs.

 

[Kotaro]

Dammit! Quick Seppuku after work. Who wants to be my second?


Because it's probably not good. Still not this person's job to share those ahead of the publisher.
Although based on the way the question was answered - talking about Inquisition's 'long burn' - we can probably guess what the situation is.

hate to break it to them, there is no long burn for Veilguard, its pronouns is D/O/A

 

[Bert Big Balls]

Kek.

Seethe.

 

[gtabro]

Fuck it, I'm calling it.

Rare? They’re everywhere recently. Seethe harder.

 

[StereoVsn]

hate to break it to them, there is no long burn for Veilguard, its pronouns is D/O/A

EA needs to quickly drop the price to $5 like Suicide Squad! Seriously that will surely stem the tide!

 

[DonkeyPunchJr]

hate to break it to them, there is no long burn for Veilguard, its pronouns is D/O/A

Yup, no way in hell this will do anything near Inquisition numbers. Inquisition had an overwhelming amount of stuff to do and places to explore, and it got 3 expansions. Veilguard seems a lot more like a “1 and done” experience from what I gather.

Those player counts will just continue their predictable decay and will only spike up temporarily if there’s a deep discount. Heck, in a couple months the concurrent player #s will probably sink below Inquisition and stay there.

 

[mitch1971]

Do the shareholders live by the 3 axe rule as well?

 

[ByWatterson]

They're gonna close the studio

 

[Moses85]

Woke

 

[Sebastian1295]

I lost all interest in dragon age after dragon age 2 because they have completely destroyed what was an incredible series by getting rid of the origins combat system, brutality, character depth, and dark fantasy vibes that those two games had. They replaced all of that with a dumpster fire action combat system combined with garbage writing where the characters have little to no depth. Add to that they got rid of the brutality and dark fantasy elements from origins and 2 and i just don't give two fks about this franchise anymore.

 

[Humdinger]

It says a lot when someone asks a specific question about sales numbers, and the first answer you give is "The team is proud of the game they made" (evasion), and the second answer is "The access journalists said nice things about it" (more evasion). Then, as a brief afterthought, "I can't tell you." lol Might as well just have said, "No comment."

 

[Toots]

I wish i could tell my boss that objective data is not important to quantify my work, and he better look at the abstract values i championed while doing it to see my real worth.

 

[Peroroncino]

Hopefully the man in the director's seat is gonna pull some Barves in front of Android Wilson

 

[Dr Cowley]

The guy who wrote it is interviewed by a guy who gave it 5 out of 5. This'll be unbiased I'm sure. Good job it's only text, I bet the video is like the Wicked press tour

 

[Zacfoldor]

 

[TheChumpNation]

"how was the commercial response, sales seem mixed?"

"well there's three axes we can evaluate that on"

No. No there are not. You were asked about sales, not how much fun you had making the game.

I know it's minor but I find that answer so indicative of these people's mindset. Objective reality just doesn't matter because I am so very special. The prioritizing of their own subjective experience above all else is so shameless it beggars belief.

 

[Fake]

A true return of money.

 

[sloppyjoe_gamer]

Our transgender agenda failed commercially, so now lets give people a free transgender character generator to still push our agenda

 

[Mayar]

Well, I wouldn't discuss it in his place either, because why say something that the press and users will laugh at you for later? That's why he diplomatically kept quiet (although without words everyone understood everything), how bad everything really was, we'll find out, I think, after the new year, EA are still "very good" people, of course, but I think even they have enough shame not to spoil people's mood before the new year, but if after the new year suddenly there will be layoffs in the Bioware office, then everything was very bad.

 

[Gaiff]

They're gonna close the studio

Good riddance. I would rather see BioWare die than remain this disgrace for any longer.

 

[DonkeyPunchJr]

It says a lot when someone asks a specific question about sales numbers, and the first answer you give is "The team is proud of the game they made" (evasion), and the second answer is "The access journalists said nice things about it" (more evasion). Then, as a brief afterthought, "I can't tell you." lol Might as well just have said, "No comment."

Yeah I wouldn’t expect the exact sales #s to be revealed in an interview. But if they were good then I’d at least expect something like “we are pleased with the commercial response so far”, “it’s in line with our expectations” etc. not just outright dodging the subject.

 

[jason10mm]

I'm curious how much, if any, pushback there was internally over some of the plotlines. I GOTTA think a big chunk of the animators, writers, and whatnot had some reservations about some of that stuff at least being cringe, if not outright offensive, but where there honest internal discussions about which direction to go and if the risk:reward ratio worked out? Or was virtually everyone on board and golf clapping themselves into a multi-million dollar hole? I'd like to think that you could pull some meeting minutes where its clear that most of the dev team didn't favor "pulling a barve" and "top scars" and whatnot but were just over-ridden, gives me hope that the core of the company is salvageable. It's probably hard to see the finish line whilst in the middle of the race but surely the overall direction of (some of) the content HAD to be brought up.

 

[Humdinger]

I'm curious how much, if any, pushback there was internally over some of the plotlines. I GOTTA think a big chunk of the animators, writers, and whatnot had some reservations about some of that stuff at least being cringe, if not outright offensive, but where there honest internal discussions about which direction to go and if the risk:reward ratio worked out? Or was virtually everyone on board and golf clapping themselves into a multi-million dollar hole? I'd like to think that you could pull some meeting minutes where its clear that most of the dev team didn't favor "pulling a barve" and "top scars" and whatnot but were just over-ridden, gives me hope that the core of the company is salvageable. It's probably hard to see the finish line whilst in the middle of the race but surely the overall direction of (some of) the content HAD to be brought up.

I'd be curious, too. Maybe Jason Schrier will give us one of his famous insider investigations and own the chuds once and for all. ;p

Speaking of "insiders," we did have several anonymous sources, all allegedly within Bioware, painting a fairly consistent picture. They described a team loaded with people who were all pretty much in ideological alignment with each other, and a culture of "toxic positivity" where alternative views were squashed. It's up to you how much credence you want to give these anonymous reports, but they were pretty consistent, and it does help make sense of the final product. It sounded like the groupthink echo chamber we've come to expect.

 

[TheChumpNation]

I'm curious how much, if any, pushback there was internally over some of the plotlines. I GOTTA think a big chunk of the animators, writers, and whatnot had some reservations about some of that stuff at least being cringe, if not outright offensive, but where there honest internal discussions about which direction to go and if the risk:reward ratio worked out? Or was virtually everyone on board and golf clapping themselves into a multi-million dollar hole? I'd like to think that you could pull some meeting minutes where its clear that most of the dev team didn't favor "pulling a barve" and "top scars" and whatnot but were just over-ridden, gives me hope that the core of the company is salvageable. It's probably hard to see the finish line whilst in the middle of the race but surely the overall direction of (some of) the content HAD to be brought up.

I admire your optimism, but I think BioWare culled anyone with influence who would push back on the direction of this game a long time ago.

 

[Hookshot]

Owner estimations​

• ~208.3 k by PlayTracker
• ~596.1 k by Gamalytic
• ~893.0 k by VG Insights
• ~2.24 M by SteamSpy

 

[Crystal Winters]

We make fun of them, but the level of delusion they suffer is actually sad. They really need to seek help if they believe these things. As for me, I hate that I gave them the benefit of the doubt like I did with Silent Hill 2.

 

[iAmAtomic]

Currently, there are still 6,700 online, and the maximum in the last 24 hours was 11,000.
And I love everything about it.

 

[delishcaek]

"We are happy with the reviews we bought!"

"If it had sold 10m copies I'd be happy to tell you, but since it sold ass I can't tell you right now or our investors might jump ship, but let me tell you this... we saw massive sales of Inquisition whenever we threw it into the bargain bin for $3.74, so once we do the same for Veilguard we will surpass Inquisitions sales numbers over the next 15 years! You can look forward to this!"

 

[Gamer_By_Proxy]

Dude will need Metamucil for this shit to return to form.

 

[Humdinger]

Owner estimations​

• ~208.3 k by PlayTracker
• ~596.1 k by Gamalytic
• ~893.0 k by VG Insights
• ~2.24 M by SteamSpy

Interesting. I've never seen those sites before. Are they just estimating sales on PC, or are console sales included as well?

And do you have a sense of which one(s) are reliable? That's a huge variance in estimates - from 208K to 2.24 million. I assume the first estimate is wrong. The second seems unlikely, too, unless it's just on PC.

 

[Hookshot]

Interesting. I've never seen those sites before. Are they just estimating sales on PC, or are console sales included as well?

And do you have a sense of which one(s) are reliable? That's a huge variance in estimates - from 208K to 2.24 million. I assume the first estimate is wrong. The second seems unlikely, too, unless it's just on PC.

It was on the Steam DB site so probably just PC. As you say they vary wildly.

 

[yazenov]

They can easily identify to have record sales like they change their genders. Non binary sales figure

 

[delishcaek]

Interesting. I've never seen those sites before. Are they just estimating sales on PC, or are console sales included as well?

And do you have a sense of which one(s) are reliable? That's a huge variance in estimates - from 208K to 2.24 million. I assume the first estimate is wrong. The second seems unlikely, too, unless it's just on PC.

They're estimates. SteamSpy was very accurate in the past because it accessed API data, it was usually off by +-10% (a couple publishers admitted that much). Steam then changed something and broke how they accessed data, so it's best to take their estimate with a grain of salt. I wouldn't put much trust into any of them tbh...

 

[Hawk The Slayer]

Well deserved flop for trying to push disgusting insane woke shits on people, things that shouldn't have been a debate or even existed in the first place. Glad to see this as another pile of shit along with all the other woke garbage that flopped this year both games and shows.

 

[NickFire]

Mentioning that the predecessor was a long burn to hit its numbers feels rather telling.

 

[TheChumpNation]

The refusal to talk about the sales numbers, the lack of any riposte to the interviewers claim that sales aren't great, the dressing of the answer by citing other "positives" that aren't sales....plus every other data point about this game's commercial performance all indicate the same thing. It didn't sell well.

On the specific topic of Inquisition's long burn sales, it's probably worth noting that Inquisition ended in many senses on a cliffhanger, then had a couple substantial DLCs which directly progressed the story and the fallout from that cliffhanger (or big reveal? I dunno, call it what you want). It makes sense that people would continue to be invested in the months and years after release.

To my knowledge, DAV ends by blowing up much of the established setting with an air of finality. And then there's a secret ending cutscene which leaves open some nebulous possibility of future story. But overall, this game ends the existing narrative full stop. Add that to the hundred other reasons this game won't have some long consistent sales tail.

 

[TheMan]

I’m not gonna blame “wokeness” cause I don’t think that’s the issue. Rather, they took the role playing out of the RPG and Disneyfied the story and characters into something people didn’t want from Dragon Age, even if the game itself is pretty fun. BG3 showed the world how to create a real role playing game and dragon age just could not compete with that

 

[Humdinger]

Another thing about the "long burn to hit the numbers" quote. Seems to me that a game has to hit big numbers early on - within the first two or three months - or it faces diminishing chances of making its money back. Games generally sell at full price only for a short period of time, a few months maybe. After that, it is discount, discount, and more discount - which means much less profit per copy sold, and so greatly diminishing returns over time (and so harder to turn a profit).

It's sort of like how a car depreciates quickly after leaving the lot - only with a game, the dropoff is much faster, much more precipitous. DA:V opened at $70 and now is available everywhere for $50. It hasn't even been out 6 weeks. Some games do hold their value pretty well (e.g., big Nintendo games, BG3), but DA:V isn't one of them.

 

[Rush2112]

Elon buy EA and Blizzard. Save gaming please.

 

[Madflavor]

Good. They deserve their failures.

Keep it up Western Devs. Continue to not read the room.

 

[semiconscious]

so: 'what if someone released one of the very best, highest-quality aaa games of the generation, but, for whatever reason, hardly anyone had any desire to buy/play it?'...

 

[MALpractice311]

They need to hire new writers and artists. They need people who know what the fuck a Dragon Age game is, and not hire these Gen Z Fortnite kids that grew up playing happy go lucky jrpgs.

I really don't think it's Fortnite kids that are the problem. I think the problem is they're hiring the obsessive compulsive Bioware fanboys/fangirls from the old Bioware forums, if anyone remembers those. They were the kind of people that postulated what Talk Zorah's sweat tasted like and tried to used science to guess. They also fanboyed/fangirled themselves over the least important aspect of the games, the romance options.

 

[panda-zebra]

 

[Randall365]

 

[Kamina]

Lol Failguard

 

[ap_puff]

"There's three axes we can measure this by"

I was thinking there was a 4th axes and that's when EA axes the studio

 

[BbMajor7th]