David Gaider, known for his work as a writer on the Dragon Age franchise, has revealed some details about how publisher EA looked at the franchise. In a post on the social media platform BlueSky, Gaider wrote about the differences EA perceived between Dragon Age and BioWare’s other big franchise at the time, Mass Effect.
According to Gaider, EA had a preference for the sci-fi franchise rather than Dragon Age‘s fantasy settings and more strategic gameplay. He wrote about the marketing team also having the same preference since they were unsure of how to market a dark fantasy franchise like Dragon Age, while Mass Effect‘s sci-fi trappings and more action-oriented gameplay were more marketable.
“While I was at BioWare, EA *always* preferred Mass Effect, straight up,” wrote Gaider. “Their Marketing team liked it more. It was modern. It had action. They never quite knew what to do with [Dragon Age], and whenever DA outperformed ME, ME got the excuses. If you ask me, it was always just shy of the axe since DA Origins.”
With his post, Gaider was responding to a fan of the Dragon Age franchise who commented on the sense that EA seemingly had a preference for Mass Effect even from the perspective of someone outside of the industry. A follow-up question was asked about whether the marketing team’s inability to figure out how to work with the Dragon Age franchise led to each game being quite different from its predecessor.
“Maybe in part,” responded Gaider. “I’d say the biggest reason was that, while I was there, the BioWare teams were bad at overreaction. They’d take the feedback/criticism to heart – both our own and the fans’ – and generally fixed that but also over-corrected. And then there was EA’s influence on top of that, yes.”
The first game in the Dragon Age franchise, Dragon Age: Origins, was released all the way back in 2009. Several DLC releases followed, and it also received a full-fledged sequel in 2011 with Dragon Age 2. The series then went quiet for a while as BioWare started wrapping up the Mass Effect trilogy before getting Dragon Age: Inquisition in 2014.
The most recent game in the franchise was last year’s Dragon Age: The Veilguard, released in October 2024 on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S. For more details, check out our review. As for some insight into some of the game design decisions that were made around The Veilguard, check out our coverage of the UX designer’s comments on changing the game’s interface due to feedback from QA teams.
Unfortunately, Dragon Age: The Veilguard underperformed in the market according to EA’s earnings report back in January. EA CEO Andrew Wilson revealed in February that he believed it was because of the RPG’s lack of multiplayer and shared-world features. According to Wilson, despite its warm critical reception, the game failed to resonate with a broader audience in the competitive market.
