The comments here are something else. This event is completely independent of the sales of the game (a game that probably did just fine). She’s a director who left a company after 18 years at the end of a project, which directors often do, because that’s the best way to accept a lucrative offer without burning bridges. 18 years is a long time to stay at the same company.
EDIT: Oh, apparently this departure is a part of some manufactured internet culture war drama. Allow this from Jeff Grubb to clear the air:
Corrine Busch, director of Dragon Age, really is leaving BioWare. But I don’t think EA is closing BioWare Edmonton. Was told there is nothing solid about that part of the rumor.
In her letter, she said she is moving to a new team to work on a new RPG.
Just to give you all the timeline: Two people reached out to me directly with details about the story before I ever saw Grummz or whoever’s tweets (I have all those blocked). Regardless, their posts contained lies to fuel a pathetic culture war, so I never would’ve felt good about crediting them.
I thought the game was pretty okay. The romance with the detective lady was a little disappointing. The difficulty fell off a cliff pretty early on as a mage with life drain.
The arc with whatstheirface and their mother not accepting them seemed pretty plausible to me. I’ve got a friend going through something like that now. Seeing something like that in media is meaningful to people.
The loyalty mission prompt was kind of meh. I can see that they wanted loyalty missions, but it felt like they struggled to fit them in.
Overall it wasn’t quite the game I wanted, but it wasn’t bad.
https://steamdb.info/app/1845910/charts/
About 1m estimated sales on steam, so probably 2m across all platforms, not bad - I wonder what her next project will be?
That’s pretty bad for something as big as Dragon Age.
That’s not a lot for a big game like dragon age, no?
Inquisition was almost a decade ago and didn’t have a long tail. The IP isn’t as strong as it used to be tbh
DA:I sold 12 million copies. That makes it the top selling game Bioware ever had.
I said it didn’t have a long tail. I didn’t say it didn’t sell a lot of copies. Huge and critical difference, hence why I said what I said. I’m not sure what point you’re trying to make here if you understood what I wrote.
BG2 came out in 2000. It didn’t exactly have a huge sales happening in 2023 either. It was largely considered as a shelved IP. Yet BG3 came out with massive success. My point is that you have no point. DA was (I would say “is” if veilguard wasn’t such a horrible piece of shit) a strong IP with or without inquisitions long tail given from past sales alone. No one ever goes and says their best selling product ever is a weak IP. It’s completely bollocks that you’re framing it as a weakening IP. Clearly BioWare thought it was strong too since they’ve spent huge amount of budget into veilguard. You’re presuming you know more than their huge investment and sales projection team about Inquisition sales.
Besides, how would you even know if Inquisition had a long tail or not? You have no figures, this game was released exclusively on ea platform at first and continued to be for a long time until it was finally released on steam. I know, because I remember begrudgingly buying it on ea origin. Steam’s public data in this is hardly a meaningful pie. My 12m Inquisition data on sales was their Sept 2024 release info. Which I assume BioWare released to imply a long tail and and continued popularity to get more sales into veilguard. But let’s not assume.
Btw, I didn’t say you said it didn’t have a lot of sales either.
Probably not what they wanted, no.
Ya people play video games to escape these politics. Glad to see this game fail miserably
Because you apparently missed the parts of Dragon Age 1, 2, and 3 where you are involved in heavily ethical government decisions? And that’s on top of the heavy messaging about abuse of power by mortal leaders that starts literally from the first few minutes of DA1.
“People play Dragon Age to escape politics” lmao good one
They don’t play it to be lectured on politics that’s for sure. The sales speak for themselves lol
Yeah, definitely it was because of your issues and not just because it was a bad game. How did disco Elysium gross 84 mil being such a political game, again? Helldivers 2? Cyberpunk? Rdr? Metal gear? Fallout? Deus ex? Papers please?
C’mon… I’ve never heard of a good game being unpopular because of its politics… are there any?
Bf5 and bf2042 were largely rejected by the entire gaming community due to similar shit. It’s not about politics but more like virtue signaling I suppose
They were rejected because they were broken at launch you moron. This whole “go woke go broke” bullshit falls apart when Baldurs Gate 3 was as successful as it was.
Nobody preordered bf5 because of the trailer. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fb1MR85XFOc
17M views 6 years ago
The game is bad because of bad writing not because of politics.
BG 3 is even more “woke” and it’s great.
The game is bad because it’s repetitive and just not fun to play, which are design flaws.
I’ve been having fun with it but I wanted a hack and slashy fantasy game that wasn’t depressingly “souls like”. This kinda scratches that itch.
The taash bits are a little on the nose sometimes with the gender stuff but it’s really not a big deal or a lot of the game.
I really like the deep lore of the game though I haven’t played any of them since like the first one or two. I like how the dialogue “feels” but I don’t think there is much of an impact on how you behave other than key events, and sometimes there’s a little too much dialogue, but it does seem to flow like real conversations with good voice acting a lot better than other rpgs I’ve played. And it’s beautiful, the maps are sandboxy but layered. Some stuff is time gated so I’ll be trying to figure out how to get somewhere only to give up and it be available later.
Anyway I’d give it like a 7 or 8 at this point
Woke is fine if it doesn’t break immersion. In BG3 it feels like part of the in game universe. In dragon age it feels like it was just forced in like “hey look how progressive we are” and it’s just very tiresome
It reminds me of the runescape pride parade. The whole community was mad not because they are anti gay it’s just not a place for blatant real life political stuff when we are all playing for the sole purpose of escaping real life
The whole game has bad dialogue. It sounds stiltet or like a bad Marvel movie no matter what they talk about.
Also, including gay characters is only political if it is something you object to. Are black characters also political?
including gay characters is only political if it is something you object to. Are black characters also political?
Exactly. I’m never even aware of these controversies until I see people whining about it online, because a gay or trans character in a video game means literally nothing to me. Why would I care?
And there are people that it does matter to; representation in media is important. So that’s just all positives and no negatives in my mind.
Also makes for more variety in plots and settings. Win/win/win.
The problem is blatant references to the real world in a fantasy game. The game literally goes out of its way to remind you that you are playing a human made video game.
With better writing this wouldn’t be a problem, I agree
Things that break immersion for some gamers:
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Main character isn’t a white cishet male
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NPCs that don’t reinforce the primacy of white cishet males
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Acceptance of non-cis/het people in a story involving fantasy creatures that is otherwise totally believable, well-written, and, above all, where only this scene is clumsily delivered (and not the fact the supporting character’s hat appears to be a folded bird)
No sarcasm in the third point at all. (Edit: That’s more sarcasm where I’m indicating I’m being sarcastic in point three)
Otherwise well written? This game is trash. Go replay an older dragon age if you forgot what good writing is
Do you actually just assume random people are racist for zero reason in your day to day life? I couldn’t help but go into your profile and I laughed when you complained about toxicity on lemmy.
I’ve been working on being more civil online, so be assured the following is a much kinder response than that which I was initially inclined to:
🤡
Plus the bit about “I went on your profile and couldn’t help laughing about…” It absolutely puts the big red nose on the clown. How are you writing all of this? Aren’t cell phones banned for students in school in the US? Are you skiving off?
I’m honestly unsure what you’re upset about lol
How do you know if someone is worth blocking if you don’t vet them a bit
I didn’t have to vet your profile at all to figure out you’re worth blocking. You did all the work for me.
Anyone who thinks I’m a dunce is simply upset. Reading is hard and I don’t know what the words mean!
FTFY
I made a mistake: point three was dripping with sarcasm, so I followed with a line meant to highlight this, but I unthinkingly wrote it in the same highly sarcastic manner.
Do you actually just assume random people are racist for zero reason in your day to day life?
I have no idea what you’re trying to infer. Please tell me this isn’t a prelude to “all racism has some truth to it”.
Like which gamers exactly are upset about non white npcs?
I don’t understand the relevance of bringing up race here unless you meant to infer that’s something which bothers me in games
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Ya people play video games to escape these politics.
Speak for yourself
What’s most laughable is they’re clearly unaware of the political themes in the games they’ve listed as nonpolitical. I’m torn between them being an absolute doorknob that is outraged by whatever outrages their in group, or them being an absolute doorknob that only just began to comprehend the simplest of video game plots and is outraged every aspect doesn’t match their myopic worldview.
exactly, which is why politics free games like assassins creed and call of duty sell like hotcakes…
wait, Ass cree is a series about political intrigue throughout history and call of duty is about warfare as a result of political goals.
Are you sure people play games to escape politics?
Yeah uh what the hell was Mass Effect and the Witcher if not extremely political. You could be a genocidal Shepard remember, you could let the entire council die and push for a human only version. Most people who cry out “it’s woke” just have never put it together before.
Yeah but those aren’t the same on the nose reminder of real life politics that dragon age is guilty of
The game literally stops to lecture you on how progressive of a game it is, it’s just stupid virtue signaling
LGBTQ people existing in video games is only “political” if you’re a bigot. It’s really that simple.
There are lots of games who have LGBT that literally nobody has a problem with. BG3 is good example
This one is alright, it’s “one of the good ones”.
*honk honk*-🤡
It’s like they don’t even think.
Yeah I think video games are primarily used as escapism
You know people play cod because they like the 6v6 arcade shooter mode, not for the story or the campaign
What politics?
The entire series has some pretty heavy handed messaging. To be clear, I love the series.
Snowflakes are so upset that they have to see or interact with LGBTQ character(s) in video games, because to them their very existence is “political.”
Same as saying a game is “political” because there’s a black person in it.
It will undoubtedly turn many gamers off entirely, not necessarily because they’re unsympathetic to trans rights, but because they’re tired of being preached at.
Good dog
Every comment in your history is toxic and negative. Blocked.
Well trained
