The audience was already mature, that’s why the past titles were a success, they should have realized that nothing needed to be dumbed down, but they also use this as an excuse to cut costs. If you broaden the appeal you can also save money by releasing some expensive writers and developers. I also think you really underestimate the harm that injecting controversial themes and topics has had on the financial success of this game. I have watched a lot of videos and read a lot of comments and the number one complaint is the writing and the injection of identity politics into a dark fantasy game.
I think ignoring the DEI elephant in the room here is to the detriment of this analysis. Something happened. Let's not kid ourselves and pretend it has nothing to do with with the obvious. Writers injecting their OCs with an absolutely mind-boggling amount of themselves. It's the sort of shit that's rightly ridiculed in the fanfiction sphere but suddenly we're not allowed to criticize the obvious Modern X in Y Setting? No. I expect better from the media I pay for, and the writing on show in Veilguard was, at times, atrocious. Not always; recurring characters and continuing plot threads are decent though the main antagonist gets super shafted in favour of an inexplicable focus on mindless, pointless triviality. But the vast majority of the new characters created for this entry absolutely reek of weird self-insert fantasy and it is, pardon my Orlesian, fucking creepy. The setting is Thedas. The story is the continuation of the previous game. If your writing team cannot be arsed to give any sort of shit about it and can't pull their collective heads out of their own self-indulgent arses long enough to actually WRITE the fucking plot, then what's the point of this goddamn sequel?
I get where you're coming from. I'm not denying that inclusive language and woke plotlines were included in a unnatural way. My problem with this DEI narrative, however, is that it fails to explain why these so called 'DEI' games are failing in so many other areas, that have nothing to do with diversity or wokeness. The writing in the veilguard, for one, is weak throughout. And there is no evidence of a mass replacement of exisitng staff, with 'DEI' hires, either.
You have old talent leaving or being replaced. You have AAA studios hire and spend funds on consulting that looks for ways to : Remove anything that objectifies or brings attention to the female form Introduces more ethnic groups in timelines that didn't include them Alternative romance options Less masculine male characters Tone down or remove any "problematic themes" Any one thing is not bad if there's a story or gameplay that carries the game but the "message" is what's being pushed. And then you have a saturated market with rushed products and deadlines. Look at Star wars, startrek, marvel, DC, Lord of the rings, Doctor who as some examples of franchise that are dying because of the narrative that is pushed. You branch into games and you've got blizzard, Ubisoft, BioWare who have diversity points chart (blizzard), make a main character in Feudal Japan black and insert top surgery in a medieval fantasy setting... Top selling games have been rejecting the focus on the message and have been getting blasted by "gaming journalists". Wukong for not having enough representation. Stellar for having a hot lead. Space marine for strong males. While you can see Concord, outlaws, unknown 9 and now dragon age get praised... C'mon. Really? I'm part of the market that the DEI team wants to target. Edit: Just to further drive the point home. If you look up the lead Character Designer's (Weisnewski) comment about white people for Concord, Ragnar Tørnquist went into hiding after Dustborn, Ubisoft has Raashi Sikka as New VP of Global Diversity & Inclusion. Sweet baby has helped destroy: Justice League, Flintlock, Unkonwn 9..
@@cosoman The DEI narrative stems from the fact that the director and the consultant that they hired, are Trans. I have personally no problem with it, but you can feel that they wanted to push their Agenda with character taash, trash or whatever "it"s name is. The diversity part i have no clue, if the previous games looked like downtown LA. I like my fantasy games when they give some explanations for muh diversity. That shows the writers really care to create an immersive world, instead of ticking checkboxes. You seem like a smart guy, so let's point the pattern that every of those DEI games have in common - awful/soft writing - Ugly female Characters or in case of Veilguard limited slider by the females for chest and cake -Millennial Humor - Modern commentary on social issues poorly. - "diverse" characters that feel forced and/or stereotypical - if their is a white male 95% of the time he is either whimpey or an antagonist. - girl bosses - gender/race swapped - LGBT representation, that is most of the time on the Nose and feels like a parody - Devs hating the players and fanbase - Some ridiculous self insert - Game " journalist" alias activist, gives the game high rankings, defend the game etc. There are way more, the comment is already long enough, but every woke DEI slop has at least 4 in common. Pattern recognition is truly incredible, don't you think? Would the not be based on the IP Dragon Age, i think it would have flopped harder. English is not my main language, so sorry if there are some spelling errors. I hope that answered to some degree your question.
@@cosoman It's not so hard to understand. Do you now how to kill any fun? Limiting creative people by handing them a list of things they need to adhere to. Exactly the thing that is happening when you lend money from companies like Blackrock. Which will not even lend you money if you do not adhere to DEI and woke principles. Or when you get companies in like Sweet Baby inc. Same impact. You will still have the same people, but they will be unable to do what they want and then turn out garbage.
@@cosoman I personally think the DEI narrative is a part of a larger problem: Media is about getting investors, not about Artists. In many cases you need to have a good DEI score to get money. That introduces some bad hires, artists that are ticking boxes and virtue signal instead of expressing how they actually think about stuff. Also DEI is important to members of the press, while the press is important to the shareholders and executives. But its also about being marketable. Its easier to impress a board with "thousend planets" instead of "our dialogue is deep". You need to convince a bunch of people without personal experience in the product, that your work is impressive and deserving of further funding. One way is to following trends (saying "this was successfull, so we will do the same" ). Its not about a studio creating the type of game they like, but the game that is in trend. Since trends change, this can lead to rapid priority changes in production. Also a studio focused on singleplayer RPGs doesnt produce good multiplayer shooters with microtransactions. So I think DEI is overpronounced because its more emotional than coorporate structure and economics. But it is not irrelevant either.
@@Alwaysttango Preaching sexuality to kids has been mainstream for a long time. There's an LGBTQ flag on a pole at my 4 year old step daughter's preschool, and when I asked a teacher about it, she said it's up there because they welcome everyone. Yeah, fine, but why does a preschool feel the need to welcome small children of all sexual preferences? It's weird. My gf says it's just because the kids like the colors, which sounds predatory and manipulative meant to influence you just like advertisement burned into you at early age. Like catching kids in religion before they learn to think for themselves and question things...
@@Fan-wj9mx Yeah its weid as hell. I dont like these lgbxyzte wirdos at all. They barely exist as a statistic and I have to see them in every media as the majority for some reason. Also this trans thing is just like emo was back in the day. Kids like to act like they know better than their elders. It even started with things like that. I still remember the early 2015-2016 "agekin" kids, that claimed their souls are thousands of years old and they are wiser than everyone.
@@Fan-wj9mx I mean, you can be against it but it is not fair to teach that lgbtq people are normal people just like us to the children? Nowadays, there are a lot of Homo families.
@@Fan-wj9mx After saying this, Veilguard still sucks in this regard. I came from St Andrews in Scotland and no one of my Transgender friends liked the game, they pretend it never existed.
Wow, that quote from Darrah says a lot, but one theme I've seen repeated by the DA devs was this constant concern about their place among other franchises and about pursuing trends that they think will appeal to the greatest number of potential players. As much as I recognize that the scaled down reduction of DA2 to a human-only protagonist was largely due to EA's budget and timeline reduction, I remember clearly when devs in the Bioware forums back then were touting out telemetry numbers saying that the vast majority were playing only humans, only 5% ever completing the game as a dwarf, and literally asking us, "So why should we make anything other than humans?" Larian never asked that. Flash forward to Darrah's "gosh, everyone's liking Skryim, so now we gotta make a Skyrim." So they made DAI and everyone bemoaned the idiotically overextended landscape and pointless sidequests. It just smacks of the guy who's always wishing he was popular and keeps doing his "try hard" best to be like the popular kids instead of just being himself. It's not in the writing of DA which Gaider kept developing excellently, but it was in the game dev approach and EA's oversight. DAO was so thoroughly their own and ended up gaining them a legacy franchise and accolades... and thereafter they just looked at the amazing talent that got them there and without a scrap of appreciation just kept asking if they could be something else... No worries though. The new dev team now knows exactly what they want the DA franchise to be: dead.
This is exactly why I want to return to DA2. Times were simpler back before woke culture took over. Plus, it was the Dragon Age I grew up with, the Dragon Age I first played, and it was also my favourite (I never really got into Origins).
This breakdown was exactly what I’ve been thinking but couldn’t put into words! BioWare’s shift is so frustrating - feels like they’ve gone from unique storytelling to chasing that ‘mass appeal’ vibe after Skyrim. Totally agree on the budget vs. creativity thing, too. Sometimes the big studios seem to lose the spark when they try too hard to check every box. Small suggestion: try to improve your mic quality 🙌🏼
You seem to try and brush off the fact this game was overtaken by an ongoing trend on its theme. On earlier instances, it was a parallel topic people would get along with for believing it was just optional and you could complete the whole game without touching those aspects of the narrative. This game is a full-on indoctrination product. If the problem was the developers choosing a form already tired to the audience, this specific theme would not be permeating the totality of the interactions with companions. Also, a game with a different approach, but same obsession for the indoctrination theme would have done well. Different games have failed. For the same reason. It is not idiotic to say woke and DEI have done its work on this game and all the others that failed. Degeneracy must be eradicated from games and other pop culture products alike.
Great video! i would add, that the agendas forced onto customers, are an absolute No No and people have enough. This is another reason these games who wanna please "modern audiences" and money lenders, fail. But I understand you don't want to put into your video. You deserve more subs! ;)
I do think you're putting too much emphasis on Skyrim as bioware since dragon age origins & mass effect 1 have been consistently dumbing down their games to appeal to the "wider audience" I think a good comparison is dragon age vs dark souls Both cult classics but where dragon age abandoned its roots to gain mass appeal, removing the dark from dark fantasy & dumbing down the character build options While Dark Souls consistently focused on its core audience, speeding up gameplay, amending frustrating mechanics, adding new gameplay options & that core audience just balooned into elden ring As for "woke" i think your dismissing it far to lightly as a "woke" game is just as appealing as a "Christian" game It doesn't directly affect the game..... But the story is nuted & you know behind the scenes they arent hiring/promoting their best staff or who has the most passion for the IP but whoever is a better Christian/ideolog so the overall quality goes down
If you think all BioWare games post origins were dumbed down, that’s your opinion. And I can’t objectively refute it. But from a commercial perspective, it’s factually incorrect to say that biowares been on a downward spiral since mass effect 1. The post 1 mass effect series and inquisition were biowares highest selling titles, by far. Inquisition in fact sold 12 million copies on its own, massively outpacing projections. The first single player BioWare title from the ps3 and ps4 era to flop, was Andromeda. And it was at this point that it was clear BioWare were committed wholeheartedly ‘mainstream appeal’ over their original DNA.
@cosoman might be controversial but I don't think all dumbing down/streamlining is negative Personally I prefer ME1 combat for the customisation but ME2/3 even Andromeda do play better no denying that & Dragon age I'm not a fan of the gameplay of origins but it's worth it for the story while 2 & inquisition more action RPG are more fun for me & looking at sales numbers better for mass appeal Its unfortunate what happened with frostbite engine as it's hard to determine at which point the hunt for mass appeal started to come at the cost of the core audience due to technical issues the frostbite caused
Wokeness IS a significant factor though. You’re being disingenuous if you say that hiring incompetent people solely based on diversity isn’t going to ruin your game.
Where’s your evidence for this. Most of the creative leadership were long term BioWare veterans, with substantial involvement in the previous titles. For example, the co- director, epler had been at BioWare since origins and the head writer for veilguard, was also the head writer for tresspasser. So it makes sense that he would be charged with the plot that led directly from it. Just to be clear, I’m not denying that the taash plotline feels forced, but the veiligards problem go way beyond wokeness, and accusing everyone you don’t like of being a diversity hire isn’t helpful.
@@cosoman You're right about Patrick Weekes. The man has clearly left the reservation. But my point still stands. Corrinne Bush, the game director, is a trans person leading a game pushing trans stuff in a franchise that previously did not pander in this way. The end product speaks to how unqualified this person is at their job. Cutting corners in features that are bread and butter to BioWare, and not putting adequate guardrails in the narrative department to prevent trash writing. Also, between Weekes, Bush, and sure, the veteran staff at BioWare, if their guiding principle was to make a game that was 'fun' in all aspects, they would have had greater success than they did. The team was too distracted with 'the message' and cutting corners.
I dont see how any of these failed titles could have been aimed at "a wider audience" or designed to have "mass appeal" when they were all made with a very strict niche in mind, the woke niche.
It's ridiculous to believe, that bioware, a subsidary of EA, one of the shadiest companies in the game industry, would pump at least 200 million into a project they thought would fail. I know your favourite woke youtuber has told you this. But that's not how capitalism works, nor any game company. And if you think the veilguard, in particular, failed because it was 'too woke', then I don't think you've actually played it. The Woke stuff that caused a massive backlash doesn't pop up, until at least 10hrs in, and is mostly optional content, you can choose to ignore. So I find it hard to believe that anyone's who actually played the game, would put taash at the top of their reasons for disliking it. Even its most prominent online critics, like Mr Matty Plays, and Skill up, barely mentioned Taash.
@cosoman its not just about the wokeness in the game itself. it's about the woke mindset of the people behind its creation. They are too focused on pandering and virtue signalling that they go out of their way to push out any talent that dares to be too white/cis/straight/christian/conservative, anyone that doesn't bend the knee before the alter gets pushed out. They only hire others that think like them, thus merit takes a back seat and they now have a studio full of subpar developers. Thats the part you woke defenders dont understand or refuse to even acknowledge, its not solely about what they put into the game, its about the people in control of all decisions
@@blackrabbit3313 The concept for dragon age was created by a gay guy, so was fallout. And I could go on... The game industry has never been dominated by right wing christian conservatives, because the mentality of such a person goes against creativity. Creatives naturally want to push boundaries, not preserve existing one's. Even during the 1950s, when Mccarthy was actively persecuting left wing creatives, he wasn't able to reduce their influence in american culture. So good luck finding these imaginary conservative game devs.
@cosoman a gay guy who didn't ascripe to the current woke ideology. Completely missing the point that was made. I never said the industry was dominated by right-wing Christian, i said the left pushes these people and any other dissenters out when they dont bow at the altar of DEI. The Left currently has not an ounce of creativity left in them except for thinking up the next big brain dead gender identity or sexual perversion or ret@rded parroted buzzwords anf crackpot theories about the big bad orange man and the evil nazis on the right that will execute trannies.
The first part just isn’t true. David Gaider, the lead writer of all the dragon age games, apart from veilguard, actually came out to say dragon age has always been woke. And attacked anti - woke voices. So you’re wrong. But even if you weren’t. Where is your evidence that devs who don’t agree with wokeness, whatever that actually means, are being pushed out. Is this a narrative coming from you, or the devs themselves. Because their main concern seems to be working conditions and not wokeness.
"In the last few years, we've seen big AAA publishers pump more money, time and expertise then we had ever seen before" Money and time? Yes. Expertise? Definitely not.
The game is incredibly polished, with a very striking visual design, and highly cinematic set pieces. All of it which requires a high degree of genuine expertise to pull off. There’s even plenty of long term BioWare talent in the writing staff. So while I completely get where you’re coming from, I don’t think insulting the professional qualifications of game devs who have worked on successful projects, often for decades, is helpful. Many of biowares recent troubles come from the top down, not bottom up.
Good, solid analysis, that goes beyond just looking at 2024, the woke debate and the culture wars. Agree very much about "the Skyrim effect". Although Skyrim might not be "the best game ever", or even "the best RPG game ever", it single-handedly changed the entire industry through sheer sales numbers brute force. This had both an effect on how DAI looked and felt (significantly more Skyrim'ish than DA:O and DA2), on how Bethesda itself acted (an almost-endless stream of re-releases of Skyrim), and on other games studios.
Wrong. It was wokeness. Wokeness killed Dragon Age. 15-year-olds aren't the target audience of an M-rated game. Wokeness destroys the mind. The mentally ill can't produce anything valuable. So the current DA "writers" took the lazy route and destroyed the lore. And no, Weekes is not a good writer. Trespasser sucked and was the red flag that a future title would be garbage as well.
How dumb do they have to be to fumble the obvious bag this woulda brought them. Me, personally, I would buy the previous installments if I didn't understand references in later games. They could've sold plenty of copies of the old games this way and kept their loyal fans, who just wanted a fuckin Dragon Age game, happy as clams. My word, we've been waiting for 10 years only to be presented with a game that insults your intelligence every step of the way. Uninstalled after Act1, nearly bought a sturdy rope and went tree shopping.
BioWare is a shell of its former self the people who made Mass Effect and Dragon Age Origins are long gone especially the writers. That’s why their last few games were trash Anthem and Mass Effect Andromeda. BioWare is totally incompetent. Combine the woke DEI bullshit inserted into the game, boring repetitive gameplay, trash writing and goofy marvel characters and you have a recipe for disaster. Game doesn’t even look like Dragon Age
I think it's a great fun game, combat is incredible, and story is pretty good, i have more fun playing this then i did dragons dogma or baldurs gate, play the game yourself before you let some you tube video decide for you, i think half these people who review these games never even played them, glad i played it and made my own decision
Wokeness killed this game don’t know why your trying to refute that fact lol Skill up said it best it’s like playing with HR in the room. The dialogue and writing is piss poor nothing compared to previous games. You got characters acting like marvel characters and others talking about being non-binary and doing pushups for misgendering someone. What a joke of a franchise
Be Honest, did you watch the full video? Because I explicitly said the veilguard has unoffensive, overly safe dialogue. I just proposed a reason for this, that wasn't focused on this vague term that focuses on niche issues, rather than the bigger picture.
Saying a bunch of buzzwords isn't an argument. I'm hearing a lot of people just regurgitate, what their favourite culture war channel told them, as though it's just common sense. If you want to challenge my 8 minute long argument. Come with some facts, and analysis.
@cosoman well if you read my initial post I already have . And don't pretend like accept them if I did , because it's just gonna come back to the same conclusion of these " buzzwords "
Dragon Age Inquisition wasn't innovative it was a skin wearing inauthentic uncreative peace of garbage that the lop eaters loved slurping like it was hot noodle soup and they got EXACTLY what they deserved with Valeguard, ever since DA2 i couldn't stand Dragon Age anymore because it lost its soul it lost what made it special and why it was both commercial and creative success it became a mixture of Mass Effect and as a result didn't quite know what it was or where it was going this only intensified when Inquisition followed that path and intensified it by further expanding on removal of everything that made Dragon Age itself it is only natural that Valeguard continued the trend so you get "pretty" looking slop.
Skyrim? Why not just say Internet change everything? Pfft Now we measure good game on total sale? My brother who not hardcore gamer also know Skyrim why? Meme and Internet. Same as Inquisition it trash but it massive hit? why? it like Marvel movie, they trash but people love it. For most people Inquisition was success but for hardcore fan it shit. Mainstream will always be mainstream it NEVER mature. Talk about Mature but show Larian for expample?????? what? BG3 is not true BG game at all goshhh you people are stupid but think themself "Mature" You just Mainstream. Now woke shit trying to be Mainstream.
You're giving too much props to Bioware, if they were that intelligent they wouldn't have failed this hard
They failed when it hit 5 year in delvopement hell.
They game was in a state they teased it, but never was gonna profit from it regardless of success
The audience was already mature, that’s why the past titles were a success, they should have realized that nothing needed to be dumbed down, but they also use this as an excuse to cut costs. If you broaden the appeal you can also save money by releasing some expensive writers and developers.
I also think you really underestimate the harm that injecting controversial themes and topics has had on the financial success of this game. I have watched a lot of videos and read a lot of comments and the number one complaint is the writing and the injection of identity politics into a dark fantasy game.
I even watched a really interesting channel from a TRANS person criticizing the identity politics in this game
I think ignoring the DEI elephant in the room here is to the detriment of this analysis.
Something happened. Let's not kid ourselves and pretend it has nothing to do with with the obvious. Writers injecting their OCs with an absolutely mind-boggling amount of themselves. It's the sort of shit that's rightly ridiculed in the fanfiction sphere but suddenly we're not allowed to criticize the obvious Modern X in Y Setting?
No.
I expect better from the media I pay for, and the writing on show in Veilguard was, at times, atrocious. Not always; recurring characters and continuing plot threads are decent though the main antagonist gets super shafted in favour of an inexplicable focus on mindless, pointless triviality. But the vast majority of the new characters created for this entry absolutely reek of weird self-insert fantasy and it is, pardon my Orlesian, fucking creepy.
The setting is Thedas. The story is the continuation of the previous game. If your writing team cannot be arsed to give any sort of shit about it and can't pull their collective heads out of their own self-indulgent arses long enough to actually WRITE the fucking plot, then what's the point of this goddamn sequel?
I get where you're coming from. I'm not denying that inclusive language and woke plotlines were included in a unnatural way.
My problem with this DEI narrative, however, is that it fails to explain why these so called 'DEI' games are failing in so many other areas, that have nothing to do with diversity or wokeness. The writing in the veilguard, for one, is weak throughout. And there is no evidence of a mass replacement of exisitng staff, with 'DEI' hires, either.
You have old talent leaving or being replaced. You have AAA studios hire and spend funds on consulting that looks for ways to :
Remove anything that objectifies or brings attention to the female form
Introduces more ethnic groups in timelines that didn't include them
Alternative romance options
Less masculine male characters
Tone down or remove any "problematic themes"
Any one thing is not bad if there's a story or gameplay that carries the game but the "message" is what's being pushed.
And then you have a saturated market with rushed products and deadlines.
Look at Star wars, startrek, marvel, DC, Lord of the rings, Doctor who as some examples of franchise that are dying because of the narrative that is pushed.
You branch into games and you've got blizzard, Ubisoft, BioWare who have diversity points chart (blizzard), make a main character in Feudal Japan black and insert top surgery in a medieval fantasy setting...
Top selling games have been rejecting the focus on the message and have been getting blasted by "gaming journalists".
Wukong for not having enough representation. Stellar for having a hot lead. Space marine for strong males.
While you can see Concord, outlaws, unknown 9 and now dragon age get praised...
C'mon. Really? I'm part of the market that the DEI team wants to target.
Edit: Just to further drive the point home. If you look up the lead Character Designer's (Weisnewski) comment about white people for Concord, Ragnar Tørnquist went into hiding after Dustborn, Ubisoft has Raashi Sikka as New VP of Global Diversity & Inclusion. Sweet baby has helped destroy: Justice League, Flintlock, Unkonwn 9..
@@cosoman The DEI narrative stems from the fact that the director and the consultant that they hired, are Trans. I have personally no problem with it, but you can feel that they wanted to push their Agenda with character taash, trash or whatever "it"s name is. The diversity part i have no clue, if the previous games looked like downtown LA. I like my fantasy games when they give some explanations for muh diversity. That shows the writers really care to create an immersive world, instead of ticking checkboxes.
You seem like a smart guy, so let's point the pattern that every of those DEI games have in common
- awful/soft writing
- Ugly female Characters or in case of Veilguard limited slider by the females for chest and cake
-Millennial Humor
- Modern commentary on social issues poorly.
- "diverse" characters that feel forced and/or stereotypical
- if their is a white male 95% of the time he is either whimpey or an antagonist.
- girl bosses
- gender/race swapped
- LGBT representation, that is most of the time on the Nose and feels like a parody
- Devs hating the players and fanbase
- Some ridiculous self insert
- Game " journalist" alias activist, gives the game high rankings, defend the game etc.
There are way more, the comment is already long enough, but every woke DEI slop has at least 4 in common. Pattern recognition is truly incredible, don't you think?
Would the not be based on the IP Dragon Age, i think it would have flopped harder.
English is not my main language, so sorry if there are some spelling errors. I hope that answered to some degree your question.
@@cosoman It's not so hard to understand. Do you now how to kill any fun? Limiting creative people by handing them a list of things they need to adhere to.
Exactly the thing that is happening when you lend money from companies like Blackrock. Which will not even lend you money if you do not adhere to DEI and woke principles. Or when you get companies in like Sweet Baby inc. Same impact. You will still have the same people, but they will be unable to do what they want and then turn out garbage.
@@cosoman
I personally think the DEI narrative is a part of a larger problem: Media is about getting investors, not about Artists.
In many cases you need to have a good DEI score to get money. That introduces some bad hires, artists that are ticking boxes and virtue signal instead of expressing how they actually think about stuff.
Also DEI is important to members of the press, while the press is important to the shareholders and executives.
But its also about being marketable. Its easier to impress a board with "thousend planets" instead of "our dialogue is deep". You need to convince a bunch of people without personal experience in the product, that your work is impressive and deserving of further funding.
One way is to following trends (saying "this was successfull, so we will do the same" ). Its not about a studio creating the type of game they like, but the game that is in trend.
Since trends change, this can lead to rapid priority changes in production.
Also a studio focused on singleplayer RPGs doesnt produce good multiplayer shooters with microtransactions.
So I think DEI is overpronounced because its more emotional than coorporate structure and economics. But it is not irrelevant either.
I don't think their target audience is 15. I was craving for dark edgy games at those years, as most 15yo do. So, perhaps they targeted 10? 8?
Which sounds awfully predatory knowing the preachy political ideology this game has, aimed at kids of all things...
@@Alwaysttango Preaching sexuality to kids has been mainstream for a long time. There's an LGBTQ flag on a pole at my 4 year old step daughter's preschool, and when I asked a teacher about it, she said it's up there because they welcome everyone. Yeah, fine, but why does a preschool feel the need to welcome small children of all sexual preferences? It's weird. My gf says it's just because the kids like the colors, which sounds predatory and manipulative meant to influence you just like advertisement burned into you at early age. Like catching kids in religion before they learn to think for themselves and question things...
@@Fan-wj9mx Yeah its weid as hell. I dont like these lgbxyzte wirdos at all. They barely exist as a statistic and I have to see them in every media as the majority for some reason.
Also this trans thing is just like emo was back in the day. Kids like to act like they know better than their elders. It even started with things like that. I still remember the early 2015-2016 "agekin" kids, that claimed their souls are thousands of years old and they are wiser than everyone.
@@Fan-wj9mx I mean, you can be against it but it is not fair to teach that lgbtq people are normal people just like us to the children? Nowadays, there are a lot of Homo families.
@@Fan-wj9mx After saying this, Veilguard still sucks in this regard. I came from St Andrews in Scotland and no one of my Transgender friends liked the game, they pretend it never existed.
DEI activists instead of real developers.
Its woke tho. very clearly.
Wow, that quote from Darrah says a lot, but one theme I've seen repeated by the DA devs was this constant concern about their place among other franchises and about pursuing trends that they think will appeal to the greatest number of potential players. As much as I recognize that the scaled down reduction of DA2 to a human-only protagonist was largely due to EA's budget and timeline reduction, I remember clearly when devs in the Bioware forums back then were touting out telemetry numbers saying that the vast majority were playing only humans, only 5% ever completing the game as a dwarf, and literally asking us, "So why should we make anything other than humans?" Larian never asked that.
Flash forward to Darrah's "gosh, everyone's liking Skryim, so now we gotta make a Skyrim." So they made DAI and everyone bemoaned the idiotically overextended landscape and pointless sidequests. It just smacks of the guy who's always wishing he was popular and keeps doing his "try hard" best to be like the popular kids instead of just being himself. It's not in the writing of DA which Gaider kept developing excellently, but it was in the game dev approach and EA's oversight. DAO was so thoroughly their own and ended up gaining them a legacy franchise and accolades... and thereafter they just looked at the amazing talent that got them there and without a scrap of appreciation just kept asking if they could be something else...
No worries though. The new dev team now knows exactly what they want the DA franchise to be: dead.
Dei tanked dragon age 4 and killed dragon age as a whole, my favorite story. I want vengeance!
This is exactly why I want to return to DA2. Times were simpler back before woke culture took over. Plus, it was the Dragon Age I grew up with, the Dragon Age I first played, and it was also my favourite (I never really got into Origins).
I want the dreadwolf, the real follow up to dragon age Inquisition. Not this vashedan!
This breakdown was exactly what I’ve been thinking but couldn’t put into words! BioWare’s shift is so frustrating - feels like they’ve gone from unique storytelling to chasing that ‘mass appeal’ vibe after Skyrim. Totally agree on the budget vs. creativity thing, too. Sometimes the big studios seem to lose the spark when they try too hard to check every box.
Small suggestion: try to improve your mic quality 🙌🏼
You seem to try and brush off the fact this game was overtaken by an ongoing trend on its theme.
On earlier instances, it was a parallel topic people would get along with for believing it was just optional and you could complete the whole game without touching those aspects of the narrative.
This game is a full-on indoctrination product.
If the problem was the developers choosing a form already tired to the audience, this specific theme would not be permeating the totality of the interactions with companions. Also, a game with a different approach, but same obsession for the indoctrination theme would have done well.
Different games have failed. For the same reason.
It is not idiotic to say woke and DEI have done its work on this game and all the others that failed.
Degeneracy must be eradicated from games and other pop culture products alike.
Great video! i would add, that the agendas forced onto customers, are an absolute No No and people have enough. This is another reason these games who wanna please "modern audiences" and money lenders, fail. But I understand you don't want to put into your video. You deserve more subs! ;)
You gotta admit, though, the DEI, or what these people understand by DEI, isn't exactly helping, either.
I do think you're putting too much emphasis on Skyrim as bioware since dragon age origins & mass effect 1 have been consistently dumbing down their games to appeal to the "wider audience"
I think a good comparison is dragon age vs dark souls
Both cult classics but where dragon age abandoned its roots to gain mass appeal, removing the dark from dark fantasy & dumbing down the character build options
While Dark Souls consistently focused on its core audience, speeding up gameplay, amending frustrating mechanics, adding new gameplay options & that core audience just balooned into elden ring
As for "woke" i think your dismissing it far to lightly as a "woke" game is just as appealing as a "Christian" game
It doesn't directly affect the game.....
But the story is nuted & you know behind the scenes they arent hiring/promoting their best staff or who has the most passion for the IP but whoever is a better Christian/ideolog so the overall quality goes down
If you think all BioWare games post origins were dumbed down, that’s your opinion. And I can’t objectively refute it.
But from a commercial perspective, it’s factually incorrect to say that biowares been on a downward spiral since mass effect 1. The post 1 mass effect series and inquisition were biowares highest selling titles, by far. Inquisition in fact sold 12 million copies on its own, massively outpacing projections. The first single player BioWare title from the ps3 and ps4 era to flop, was Andromeda. And it was at this point that it was clear BioWare were committed wholeheartedly ‘mainstream appeal’ over their original DNA.
@cosoman might be controversial but I don't think all dumbing down/streamlining is negative
Personally I prefer ME1 combat for the customisation but ME2/3 even Andromeda do play better no denying that
& Dragon age I'm not a fan of the gameplay of origins but it's worth it for the story while 2 & inquisition more action RPG are more fun for me & looking at sales numbers better for mass appeal
Its unfortunate what happened with frostbite engine as it's hard to determine at which point the hunt for mass appeal started to come at the cost of the core audience due to technical issues the frostbite caused
Wokeness IS a significant factor though. You’re being disingenuous if you say that hiring incompetent people solely based on diversity isn’t going to ruin your game.
Where’s your evidence for this.
Most of the creative leadership were long term BioWare veterans, with substantial involvement in the previous titles. For example, the co- director, epler had been at BioWare since origins and the head writer for veilguard, was also the head writer for tresspasser. So it makes sense that he would be charged with the plot that led directly from it.
Just to be clear, I’m not denying that the taash plotline feels forced, but the veiligards problem go way beyond wokeness, and accusing everyone you don’t like of being a diversity hire isn’t helpful.
@@cosoman You're right about Patrick Weekes. The man has clearly left the reservation. But my point still stands. Corrinne Bush, the game director, is a trans person leading a game pushing trans stuff in a franchise that previously did not pander in this way. The end product speaks to how unqualified this person is at their job. Cutting corners in features that are bread and butter to BioWare, and not putting adequate guardrails in the narrative department to prevent trash writing. Also, between Weekes, Bush, and sure, the veteran staff at BioWare, if their guiding principle was to make a game that was 'fun' in all aspects, they would have had greater success than they did. The team was too distracted with 'the message' and cutting corners.
There are several reasons, my dear consoomer.
I dont see how any of these failed titles could have been aimed at "a wider audience" or designed to have "mass appeal" when they were all made with a very strict niche in mind, the woke niche.
It's ridiculous to believe, that bioware, a subsidary of EA, one of the shadiest companies in the game industry, would pump at least 200 million into a project they thought would fail.
I know your favourite woke youtuber has told you this. But that's not how capitalism works, nor any game company.
And if you think the veilguard, in particular, failed because it was 'too woke', then I don't think you've actually played it.
The Woke stuff that caused a massive backlash doesn't pop up, until at least 10hrs in, and is mostly optional content, you can choose to ignore. So I find it hard to believe that anyone's who actually played the game, would put taash at the top of their reasons for disliking it.
Even its most prominent online critics, like Mr Matty Plays, and Skill up, barely mentioned Taash.
@cosoman its not just about the wokeness in the game itself. it's about the woke mindset of the people behind its creation.
They are too focused on pandering and virtue signalling that they go out of their way to push out any talent that dares to be too white/cis/straight/christian/conservative, anyone that doesn't bend the knee before the alter gets pushed out.
They only hire others that think like them, thus merit takes a back seat and they now have a studio full of subpar developers.
Thats the part you woke defenders dont understand or refuse to even acknowledge, its not solely about what they put into the game, its about the people in control of all decisions
@@blackrabbit3313 The concept for dragon age was created by a gay guy, so was fallout. And I could go on...
The game industry has never been dominated by right wing christian conservatives, because the mentality of such a person goes against creativity.
Creatives naturally want to push boundaries, not preserve existing one's.
Even during the 1950s, when Mccarthy was actively persecuting left wing creatives, he wasn't able to reduce their influence in american culture.
So good luck finding these imaginary conservative game devs.
@cosoman a gay guy who didn't ascripe to the current woke ideology.
Completely missing the point that was made.
I never said the industry was dominated by right-wing Christian, i said the left pushes these people and any other dissenters out when they dont bow at the altar of DEI.
The Left currently has not an ounce of creativity left in them except for thinking up the next big brain dead gender identity or sexual perversion or ret@rded parroted buzzwords anf crackpot theories about the big bad orange man and the evil nazis on the right that will execute trannies.
The first part just isn’t true. David Gaider, the lead writer of all the dragon age games, apart from veilguard, actually came out to say dragon age has always been woke. And attacked anti - woke voices. So you’re wrong.
But even if you weren’t. Where is your evidence that devs who don’t agree with wokeness, whatever that actually means, are being pushed out.
Is this a narrative coming from you, or the devs themselves. Because their main concern seems to be working conditions and not wokeness.
"In the last few years, we've seen big AAA publishers pump more money, time and expertise then we had ever seen before"
Money and time? Yes. Expertise? Definitely not.
The game is incredibly polished, with a very striking visual design, and highly cinematic set pieces. All of it which requires a high degree of genuine expertise to pull off.
There’s even plenty of long term BioWare talent in the writing staff.
So while I completely get where you’re coming from, I don’t think insulting the professional qualifications of game devs who have worked on successful projects, often for decades, is helpful.
Many of biowares recent troubles come from the top down, not bottom up.
@@cosoman Expertise isn't just technical. Besides, the same can't be said about all AAA games. SW Outlaws is one of them.
Good, solid analysis, that goes beyond just looking at 2024, the woke debate and the culture wars.
Agree very much about "the Skyrim effect".
Although Skyrim might not be "the best game ever", or even "the best RPG game ever", it single-handedly changed the entire industry through sheer sales numbers brute force.
This had both an effect on how DAI looked and felt (significantly more Skyrim'ish than DA:O and DA2), on how Bethesda itself acted (an almost-endless stream of re-releases of Skyrim), and on other games studios.
Wrong. It was wokeness. Wokeness killed Dragon Age. 15-year-olds aren't the target audience of an M-rated game. Wokeness destroys the mind. The mentally ill can't produce anything valuable. So the current DA "writers" took the lazy route and destroyed the lore. And no, Weekes is not a good writer. Trespasser sucked and was the red flag that a future title would be garbage as well.
No its not
BG3 is woke
Cyberpunk woke
Metaphor woke
Hogwarts woke
Bioware been woke
Tekken woke
Street fighter woke
Stop crying
I agree rpgs scope got too big after skyrim.
How dumb do they have to be to fumble the obvious bag this woulda brought them. Me, personally, I would buy the previous installments if I didn't understand references in later games. They could've sold plenty of copies of the old games this way and kept their loyal fans, who just wanted a fuckin Dragon Age game, happy as clams. My word, we've been waiting for 10 years only to be presented with a game that insults your intelligence every step of the way. Uninstalled after Act1, nearly bought a sturdy rope and went tree shopping.
BioWare is a shell of its former self the people who made Mass Effect and Dragon Age Origins are long gone especially the writers.
That’s why their last few games were trash Anthem and Mass Effect Andromeda.
BioWare is totally incompetent. Combine the woke DEI bullshit inserted into the game, boring repetitive gameplay, trash writing and goofy marvel characters and you have a recipe for disaster.
Game doesn’t even look like Dragon Age
I think it's a great fun game, combat is incredible, and story is pretty good, i have more fun playing this then i did dragons dogma or baldurs gate, play the game yourself before you let some you tube video decide for you, i think half these people who review these games never even played them, glad i played it and made my own decision
Wokeness killed this game don’t know why your trying to refute that fact lol
Skill up said it best it’s like playing with HR in the room.
The dialogue and writing is piss poor nothing compared to previous games.
You got characters acting like marvel characters and others talking about being non-binary and doing pushups for misgendering someone.
What a joke of a franchise
Be Honest, did you watch the full video?
Because I explicitly said the veilguard has unoffensive, overly safe dialogue. I just proposed a reason for this, that wasn't focused on this vague term that focuses on niche issues, rather than the bigger picture.
Stoopid Disney ohh me so quirky ahh jumper fade vs Alistair the witty grump?
Of course I pick my King
Son , it's dei identity politics bs.
It's the common denominator in games that seem to fail .
Saying a bunch of buzzwords isn't an argument. I'm hearing a lot of people just regurgitate, what their favourite culture war channel told them, as though it's just common sense.
If you want to challenge my 8 minute long argument. Come with some facts, and analysis.
@cosoman well if you read my initial post I already have .
And don't pretend like accept them if I did , because it's just gonna come back to the same conclusion of these " buzzwords "
BioWare is ass bro 😂
Dragon Age Inquisition wasn't innovative it was a skin wearing inauthentic uncreative peace of garbage that the lop eaters loved slurping like it was hot noodle soup and they got EXACTLY what they deserved with Valeguard, ever since DA2 i couldn't stand Dragon Age anymore because it lost its soul it lost what made it special and why it was both commercial and creative success it became a mixture of Mass Effect and as a result didn't quite know what it was or where it was going this only intensified when Inquisition followed that path and intensified it by further expanding on removal of everything that made Dragon Age itself it is only natural that Valeguard continued the trend so you get "pretty" looking slop.
Skyrim? Why not just say Internet change everything?
Pfft Now we measure good game on total sale?
My brother who not hardcore gamer also know Skyrim why? Meme and Internet.
Same as Inquisition it trash but it massive hit? why? it like Marvel movie, they trash but people love it.
For most people Inquisition was success but for hardcore fan it shit.
Mainstream will always be mainstream it NEVER mature.
Talk about Mature but show Larian for expample?????? what? BG3 is not true BG game at all goshhh you people are stupid but think themself "Mature"
You just Mainstream.
Now woke shit trying to be Mainstream.
I'm unclear where the imaginary notion that this critically successful game has flopped comes from.