Schmooples' Den! The DA News Discussion Thread

Why couldn't Veilguard reach half a billion sales? Is Bioware stupid?  

It never went away for Inquisition - and even with the fairly recent reveal that it sold 12 million units over years (and is the best-selling BioWare title to date) there are people calling that into question 

Veilguard won Game of the Year, Best Narrative and Best Direction in Cinelinx's 2024 Game Awards.

In the following video, Mark Darrah discusses how EA based/bases? (don't know if it's changed) their sales projections logic on how many copies the previous installment in a franchise sold.

(should start at 2:58)

Cliffs notes:
-selling 2-3 million copies is "very low" and "not selling super well" (but I think that's in the context of AAA franchises, not the "niche" genre of rpgs like DA per se)
-EA expected DAI to sell in the 2-3 mil copy range based on how DA2 sold; It did over 10 mil in total
-Darrah thinks predominantly basing sales expectations of a new game on the previous game in a series, especially one that fundamentally reinvents itself with every installment like DA, is fallacious

So we know DAI did exceptionally well--it was one of those first "breakthrough" rpgs that defied the genre's usual low ceiling in sales and mainstream appeal, pre-Witcher 3 and BG3. We know DA2 was a disappointment for EA, but they still greenlighted another game even though they expected it to only do marginally better.

Did EA pull another "anchor bias" with DAI's sales when projecting DAV's sales (we know that DAV pre-orders were well within their projections, at least)? Did EA learn from its mistakes and not do that, and use a more informed measure? Did they take into account that the IP has been slumbering for 10 years into their sales projections, or do they think that's irrelevant because, you know, line must always go up?

Not only do the actual sales numbers matter (we'll likely not get that without a legit Schreier-like leak, but we'll likely get the ballpark range gist of it soon enough), but what EA considers good enough to greenlight another game, and with what budget, also matters.

Kingdoms of Amalur was a bit of a weird situation, though. It actually surpassed EA's sales expectations, but 38 Studios needed it to sell at least 2 million copies because EA had loaned them a large amount of money so they could get the game out the door at all.

plus the state government of whatever state it was in.

It was way too ambitious. Like, Metaphor Refantazio sold a million copies at launch but is being hailed as a revolutionary success, but Atlus only has 300 odd employees split into 3 internal teams (apparently) and release 2 or 3 games a year. 

I think RPGs need to be strictly AA and smaller TBH. 

Dude, I can't even THINK of many AAA RPGs anymore. There's Diablo 4, I think which releases once every 10 years, you can classify Genshin as one which is live service. CD Projekt Red. After that Fromsoft only has 400 employees so I don't know if you'd consider them one when CD Projekt has over a thousand (and Ubisoft has like 20000), and Bethesda 450 so possibly them also but that's teetering on the edge. Other than that, almost all the RPGs are AA I think. FF16 was Square Enix sure, but they were Creative Business Unit 3 which have now been disbanded, and they're notoriously cheap with labor *looks at FF14, they're cash cow funding all sorts of doomed projects*

AAA is so freaking expensive now that when you get into AAA you almost have to think of alternate forms of monetization. Bioware downsizing to what? 300. I honestly think it's a good idea. AAA development is honestly doomed. 2 billion dollar GTA incoming. A) How can you compete and B ) It better sell well for like 20 years. Even then Genshin just puts gambling in their games and makes 5 billion dollars so *shrugs*

Skyrim, another fucking money machine!