Former Dragon Age lead developers have reacted to the suggestion by publisher EA that the series’ most recent entry would have sold better as a live-service game.
This week, EA boss Andrew Wilson said players “increasingly seek shared world features and deeper engagement”, while the company’s chief financial officer bluntly claimed that “Dragon Age: The Veilguard underperformed, icing the competitive dynamics of the single-player RPG market”.
The remarks raised eyebrows among fans, not least because Dragon Age: The Veilguard previously pivoted to being a live-service game mid-way through its development, only for EA to see sense and revert it back after BioWare’s actual live-service effort Anthem was a flop.
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“Look, I’m not a fancy CEO guy,” former Dragon Age creative director Mike Laidlaw wrote on social media, “but 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’ to me, I’d probably, like, quit that job or something.”