EA CEO Misses Again, as Dragon Age: The Veilguard a Failure Due to ‘Lack of Live-Service’

Dragon Age: The Veilguard has had a surprisingly disappointing run since its release in October 2024 with Bioware’s bold new take on the well-established franchise failing to achieve the results that the studio had originally envisioned.

In the wake of its disappointing performance despite an excellent narrative and good reviews of the game, Andrew Wilson, the CEO of Electronic Arts (EA) has offered up his opinions on the subject during a recent quarterly financial call with a statement that suggests that EA may not have approved of pivoting away from live service elements in the game back in 2021.

Dissecting Why Dragon Age: The Veilguard ‘Failed’

It’s well known that Dragon Age: The Veilguard steered away from including live-service elements in its gameplay loop in favor of a more story-driven single-player experience, which seemingly worked in BioWare’s favor when many of the game’s positive reviews were considered.

Featuring a narrative that includes characters both new and old against the backdrop of a narrative that once again puts players in control of a character looking to save Thedas from its latest crisis, Dragon Age: The Veilguard certainly had a lot going for it, making its poor sales all the more surprising.

However, that may be attributed to the narrative highs that BioWare was able to achieve with its predecessors considering how Origins and Inquisition were able to chart a new course for the franchise in their own right while The Veilguard was a solid RPG experience that many players believed did not measure up to them despite the studio’s best efforts.

Could BioWare and EA Have Done Better?

Wilson’s statement about Dragon Age: The Veilguard showcases the studio’s distinct lack of understanding with regard to what made the Dragon Age franchise so great to begin with:

In order to break beyond the core audience, games need to directly connect to the evolving demands of players who increasingly seek shared-world features and deeper engagement alongside high-quality narratives in this beloved category.

Those “evolving demands” are a reflection of Wilson’s emphasis on live-service elements, a sentiment that reflects EA’s push to include such elements in its games with a reported 74% of the studio’s business coming from live-service titles.

However, Wilson needs to look no further than the failure of Anthem to realize that perhaps Dragon Age: The Veilguard’s failure was simply because it could not match up to the benchmarks that its predecessors set for the franchise among other factors including a weaker story, linear progression and a seemingly never-ending controversy drummed up by the ‘Anti-DEI’ crowd all proving to be problems for the latest entry in the franchise.

Wilson’s emphasis on live-service elements in games when coupled with his previous assertions about EA embracing generative AI to improve development timelines and costs showcases a rather short-sighted approach towards creating games that achieve the heights of previous Dragon Age titles.

That’s further exacerbated by the fact that arguably only Helldivers 2 and Marvel Rivals were able to hold their own among all other live-service titles in 2024, a fact that showcases how devastatingly competitive the segment is in modern gaming when Sony’s Concord is considered.

Add on to that the ridiculous amount of studios canceling their own live-service efforts including big IPs such as Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League and the many PlayStation had in the works, it’s certainly not a place that BioWare would have wanted to place its revamped take on Thedas in the wake of Anthem’s dismal showing.

For more Thumb Wars gaming coverage, check out how Battlefield fans have reacted to EA’s announcement about a new addition to the franchise or how Indiana Jones and the Great Circle has failed to catch the attention of Xbox Game Pass subscribers.