Former Dragon Age writer says EA always spoke about a hypothetical ‘nerd cave’ full of diehard RPG fans who would “always show up,” so you “didn’t have to try and appeal to them”
Former Dragon Age writer says EA always spoke about a hypothetical ‘nerd cave’ full of diehard RPG fans who would “always show up,” so you “didn’t have to try and appeal to them”
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Seems like that aged well.
Considering that Veilguard ended up on ps plus 4 months after release, I’m guessing the diehard fans didn’t show up.
Mandatory fuck EA.
Isn’t this the same kind of arrogance that messed up the Star Wars sequel trilogy?
I love sushi, but don’t expect me to eat the ones you bought at the gas station next to the chips with the weird flavours.
That’s a pretty commonly known fact with popular IPs. But it’s also commonly known that you can only get away with that so many times (usually just once) until those die hard fans start to leave.
I am beyond tired of suits taking the IPs I like and molding them into things I hate to get the attention of people who don’t care.
The “Bioware” name hasn’t meant what it used to after DA2. It certainly means nothing now. You aren’t entitled to sales.
Not the first company that has taken for granted their consumer base, wont be the last.
Didn’t Veilguard not sell well? I suppose they overestimated that group then.
Unfortunately, one thing the “nerd cave” hates is when you take a solid RPG like DA:O (and ME to a lesser extent) and constantly dumb it down with every iteration. After D2 I knew I had basically 0 interest in the future of the series.
That actually explains a ton when you look at the trajectory of the series after Origins.
I mean I know history is a circle and all that, it’s not surprising. But it is kinda funny how when you hear about a suit at a game developer 99% of the time its the same carbon copy airhead that lacks any awareness or check on their arrogance. They might as well be clones of eachother and if you put 100 of them in a room none of them would be able to process how games like Veilguard fail.
Let me guess– some idiot MBA heard the phrase “nerd cave”, and having no idea what it actually meant (a room for your nerd stuff), decided it must be a big cave full of nerds who live in the cave.
Hopefully these Bioware alumni are putting their talents to good use in other studios to create great RPGs. I know the head writer for Mass Effect Drew Karpeshyn (forgive my spelling of his name) is working on a space game that looks pretty good, even though it’s once again a space RPG centered solely around humans. Where are my intelligent alien civilizations in video games?
‘We tried pandering to non fans in attempt to buy our game, and ignored long standing fans when they said the pandering is driving them away from buying our product.
Why did the product not sell as much as we projected?’
Schadenfreude is strong there, what happen with Veilguard, EA?
I might be part of this cave, but IMO we show up when the game is decent
“a hypothetical ‘nerd cave’ full of diehard RPG fans who would “always show up,” so you “didn’t have to try and appeal to them”
Have these people forgot Dragon Age 2 was a thing? If it sucks hardcore fans are not going to show up! How the hell do you come to that conclusion?
It turns out people don’t like to be fed piles of shit.
And when those hardcore RPG fans said, “this is bad,” they were insulted and acused of sexism, racism, and bigotry, to cover the fact that these shitheads were making a game none of the core audience wanted.
And I bet that happened with Andromeda and Anthem too.
Fuck them.
Of course, there is some sense to that. If you have a loyal fan base, you have a bit of freedom to venture out to bring in new players without losing your core audience.
But it only goes so far. Especially when you have competition.
I’m one of the more fickle ones. The first Dragon Age blew me away. I loved it. I hated the sequel almost instantly, and never returned to the series.
Confirm what everyone already knew: they tried to appeal to a modern audience that doesn’t exist.
Fucked that up, huh?
I adored DA from the beginning.
It’s not DA anymore to me. I really REALLY tried to like Veilguard in spite of the lack of choices passed through, but too much changed
I mean, they aren’t wrong. Except the under estimate how big said “nerd cave” is. And if your game sucks, the nerd cave will show up, and tell everyone it sucks so you don’t have to find out for yourself.
The nerd cave is the gate keepers for the rest of the community, and we should treat them with respect dammit!
Treat your fanbase with contempt and get rekt. Suits and bean counters are killing this industry like they do with all other industries. The likes of BG3 and Expedition 33 give me hope, at least.
The fact that the teams behind games like Hi-Fi Rush, Prince of Persia: Lost Crown etc get axed immediately after releasing a GOOD game so as CoD 963 can be made is not sustainable.
Funny enough a couple of years ago there were rumors that a Disney executive said something similar but with Star Wars. It baffles me that companies will keep these people on payroll while firing, under paying and ignoring the actual talent they have working for them.
I think that claim mainly applies to Pokemon and not most RPGs.