Finally finished the Game.
Only Companion to die was Harding, though that was inevitable. Everybody else, I managed to save. I also tricked Solas with the fake dagger, he more than deserved his final fate. Also romance Bellare, so glad she was okay.
Final mission was truly epic, finally something after over 14 years that at least approached Mass Effec 2's suicide mission in terms of choices of life and death.
The epilogue and ending was a bit abrupt.
All in all, I'd give the game a score in the 70s. It was not bad by any means, in fact there were a lot of things fun about it, but there were a lot of things lacking as well, especially in terms of writing and continuity.
Certified: 48.0% West Asian, 6.5% South Asian, 15.8% North/West European, 15.7% English, 7.4% Balkan, 6.6% ScandinavianThe game severely underperformed. I guess we can say goodbye to this Franchise.....
https://gamerant.com/dragon-age-the-veilguard-sales-underperformed-ea-expectations/
Origins sold 3.2 million copies in around 3 months, Dragon Age 2 sold 2 million in 2 months, Inquisition doesn't have as good specifics, only that it sold 1.14 million in a week and 12 million total since its release. It isn't that out of line an expectation with the past.
Edited by doineedaname on Jan 24th 2025 at 10:28:41 AM
EA has always had unrealistically high expectations for the games its companies produce. We're kinda forced to consider it for the discussion.
Personally, I do think 1.5 million is very low. I wrote somewhere else that at the retail cost of $70 USD, the gross revenue would be around 100 million. Then we've gotta take out some taxes, store fees, and any possible license fees/royalties if they apply. And the game's already been on sale, at least on PlayStation!
So out of the money that's left, have they broken even after production and marketing costs?
If I recall correctly, the first teaser was shown during the Game Awards in 2018 so we're looking at least 5-6 years of development/marketing. It wouldn't surprise me if the game's budget was around 100 million, or even higher.
Edited by Cid on Jan 24th 2025 at 9:33:15 AM
According to its creators, Inquisition outsold any Bioware game, including all the other dragon age games combined, and any Mass Effect (Also according to Bioware, Dragon Age always outsold mass effect).
So like, "it didnt sell as much as this EXTREMELY successful title" doesn't mean much.
That said, the news isnt surprising. Between the troubled production, some really awful marketing, some genuinely frabricated outrage, this was obvious.
Probably because as far as Western RPGs went, Mass Effect was actually practically unique in being one of the very few original spacefaring RPGs of its scale in the market.
Also because of the hot aliens.
Edited by ITNW1989 on Jan 24th 2025 at 7:50:23 AM
Hitokiri in the streets, daishouri in the sheets.It's been discussed earlier in the thread, but according to people who worked on DAI, Bioware and EA struggle to get and understand DA, despite the fact that they overperform.
As we discussed before, Mass Effect, even almost 20 years later, is still kind of unique. You don't get scifi based narrative driven RPG in wholely original settings. While fantasy RP Gs, even "Dark" Fantasy (Which isn't really a label I'd give DA, but whatever), is a much more crowded genre. How many games can you think that occupy the same niche as Mass Effect does? Even if you don't limit yourself to "western" RP Gs, there's no other franchise quite like Mass Effect.
Meanwhile, DA shares elbow room with Witcher, Even Baldurs Gate, small games like Gothic. It's a well populated genre.
Lastly, Mass Effect came first. If you think of the modern Bioware formula, Mass Effect is the one who pushed it first, Dragon Age follows.
You put an N7 armor and an Asari on a poster, people immediately go "Oh, yeah, that's mass effect"
Put an elf and a dwarf on a poster, people don't immediately go "Oh, that's Dragon Age", because that could be anything.
Edited by Ghilz on Jan 24th 2025 at 10:59:13 AM
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Granted, Mass Effect is in many ways a derivative setting, taking from Star Trek and Halo and Star Wars just as Dragon Age took from Lord of the Rings and A Song of Ice and Fire. Asari look similar to Star Wars Tri'leks and the N7 armour isn't that unique. Of course, Tropes Are Tools, and both franchises use the works that influenced them to create something unique and memorable.
But you are right in that, as a game series as a whole, Mass Effect is a very unique beast. A Sci-Fi space third person shooter RPG focused on player choice? The only game franchise I can think of that's similar (other than some Spiritual Successors to Mass Effect itself) is Knights of the Old Republic, which Mass Effect clearly derives from. Dragon Age stands out less. Of course, that also means that, relatively speaking (as it's still very popular), Mass Effect is more niche than Dragon Age.
Edited by king15 on Jan 24th 2025 at 4:11:10 PM
I'd say that still makes it less derivative than Dragon Age.
Mass Effect's genius is in how it takes familiar things, and mixes well enough that its easy for players to get while all the while coming up as original and fresh and brand new. The Asari have the dna of the Twi'Lek, Elerians, Vulcans and Minbari in them, but at the same time feel fresh. The Turians, Krogans and Salarians all draw inspirations from various classic scifi races, but remix them enough to come up as fresh. And I mean all this as a sincere form of flattery. Mass Effect expertly threads that needle to feel original yet remain very accessible
Compare to the DA Dwarves who are, for the most part, bog standard fantasy dwarves. Non magical, check, live underground, check, known for being craftsmen and smiths, check, known for their tenacity, also check.
Same for the elves. Associated with forests/living in the wild (Check with the Dalish), ancient race with an old ancient civilization that has declined/collapsed (check), which was known for its advanced magic (check).
And again, this isn't a dig on Dragon Age, or even calling it inferior. Genre tropes are useful, and efficient. It's useful if you can show players a Dwarf, and players know immediately what the dwarf is about because its a dwarf. Nor do I mean DA doesn't do anything unique with its races either.
Either way, you can see that if you're EA, you want Mass Effect on the poster. It stands out, its unique, it has no real competitors. It has brand recognition.
Edited by Ghilz on Jan 24th 2025 at 11:20:15 AM
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Pretty much what I had in mind with my post. Even to this day Mass Effect still has few peers alongside as a spacefaring RPG. Sci-fi RPGs we have tons, and always have had a lot, but very few actually go to the stars (literally) like Mass Effect. Off the top of my head we have Outer Worlds and Starfield, but Outer Worlds is okay at best, while the less said about Starfield the better.
Scifi is harder in general because unlike Fantasy, it's not been dominated by just one work, the way LOTR and D&D defined fantasy. You make a fantasy setting, you have all these races who come mostly prepackaged. You can twist and subvert them (What if all elves were poor and oppressed!) but it's all laid out for you to use, and it comes with an audience who is preconditioned to understand it. Again, Genre tropes are efficient.
Scifi doesn't really have that to the same degree. You have genre tropes (Proud Warrior Race Guy to pick just one), but there's a lot of room between the Klingons, the Turians, the Peacekeepers and Wookies. A scifi setting takes a lot more of handholding and guiding for the player, to explain to them how things work. And that's without going into "Okay, how does space travel work here". As oppose to Fantasy where it's just "People walk. Use horses. Boats."
Edited by Ghilz on Jan 24th 2025 at 11:32:37 AM
Mass Effect is also unique in that it's a trilogy and a bona fide Space Opera that tries to tell a story by relying on the games that came before it. It's hard to jump into the third without playing the first (though people obviously did), and the decisions you make throughout one game echo throughout the next game. You can argue that it's messy and janky, but it was an ambitious effort.
Dragon Age tends to be more contained, which allows new players to jump right into it, so they can start wherever. Inquisition makes sense even if you've never played Origins, even if there is stuff that would make more sense if you're familiar with the entire series.
Edited by SilentColossus on Jan 24th 2025 at 12:02:38 PM
Granted, it's probably easier to jump straight into Mass Effect 3 than Mass Effect 2 as there was an effort to make sure the former would also be accessible to newcomers, but you are right. Mass Effect's biggest strength is that it's a self-contained trilogy (sans the spinoffs, of course) where your choices change the narrative of future games, but that presumably must also limit its sales somewhat. As you say, each Dragon Age game (except for The Veilguard, and even that tried to be a bit more self contained) is quite self contained whilst also tying into the other games well.

Edited by SilentColossus on Dec 12th 2024 at 9:11:18 AM