Satisfying combat, great production values, impressive character customization, and excellent performance. Dragon Age: The Veilguard seemingly ticks a lot of the right boxes. Yet there’s already talk about it being one of the biggest gaming flops of the year, mere weeks following its release.
While it’s still a bit early to say how The Veilguard will turn out, some early indicators of its commercial performance aren’t too encouraging.
Dragon Age: The Veilguard is off to a slow start
The fourth mainline Dragon Age game was released for PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC on October 31. SteamDB data shows that it peaked at roughly 89,500 concurrent Steam players shortly afterward.
Although it’s impossible to accurately deduce overall sales from concurrent player counts alone, this metric is still useful for comparing momentum between different games. And The Veilguard doesn’t look too good next to the biggest Steam releases of 2024, including Black Myth: Wukong and Palworld, both of which exceeded two million concurrent Steam players this year.
Narrowing the comparison to RPGs alone, Shadow of the Erdtree drove over 781,000 Steam users back to playing Elden Ring back in June, while Dragon’s Dogma 2 peaked at roughly 228,000 players on Valve’s storefront three months earlier. Dragon Age: The Veilguard’s PC momentum is currently closest to Metaphor: ReFantazio, which had around 86,000 concurrent Steam players in mid-October.
Estimating the sales numbers
According to an average of estimates from Gamalytic, VG Insights, and PlayTracker, The Veilguard sold approximately 510,000 copies on Steam as of mid-November 2024.
The RPG is also available via the EA App and Epic Games Store, though Steam holds roughly 85% of the digital PC games market, according to Epic. If 510,000 represents 85% of its sales on Valve’s storefront, it’s possible The Veilguard sold around 600,000 PC copies as of today.
Assuming the console gaming market is roughly one quarter bigger than its PC counterpart, we can (naively) guesstimate that the new Dragon Age game possibly sold a quarter more copies on consoles than PC, totaling approximately 744,000 units.
Taking all these figures together, The Veilguard’s lifetime sales may currently be in the ballpark of 1.34 million units. It’s safe to assume that the majority of its sales were made outside of EA’s own PC store, meaning most of them will pay out a 30% cut to Valve, PlayStation, or Xbox.
Breaking down The Veilguard’s earnings
| Platform | Price | Est. Sales | Revenue |
|---|---|---|---|
| Steam | $59.99 | 510,000 | $21.4m |
| EA app | $59.99 | 45,000 | $2.7m |
| Epic Games Store | $59.99 | 45,000 | $2.4m |
| PS/Xbox Stores | $69.99 | 744,000 | $36.5m |
| Total | 1.34m | $63m |
Based on all assumptions, the platform sales estimates mentioned above, and the $10 price difference between the PC and console versions of the game, The Veilguard may have generated around $63 million for EA in its first three weeks on the market.
This estimate might be inflated by assuming a 24% higher console sales figure, which could be lower. However, it’s also deflated by assuming every buyer purchased only the base game, ignoring those who opted for the $20 pricier Deluxe Edition.
How much did Dragon Age: The Veilguard cost to make?
Looking at online chatter, there’s no shortage of players who seem convinced The Veilguard had a budget in the ballpark of $200 million. But, like most publishers, EA isn’t in the habit of reporting game development budgets. Therefore, it’s time for some more napkin math.
The Veilguard is estimated to have spent over eight years in development. It was also reportedly rebooted twice during this period: First as a live-service game code-named Morrison, then—circa early 2021—as the single-player RPG it was originally meant to be.
The majority of time that went toward its development before its final reboot was presumably spent in pre-production, so only a fraction of BioWare employees would have been working on the game between 2015 and 2020.
BioWare last reported its headcount in 2019, stating it employed 320 people. While the studio has likely hired more staff since then, it also laid off 50 employees in 2023. Therefore, for the sake of argument, let’s go with a conservative estimate that 300 people have been working on The Veilguard since 2021, and that the project had 100 staffers prior to that.
BioWare is located in Edmonton, Alberta. The average game developer salary in this area is CAD $68,000 per year (roughly USD $48,500). Based on the headcount assumptions mentioned above, The Veilguard staff might have cost BioWare around $24.25 million in salaries up until late 2020, and $58.2 million between 2021 and 2024. This comes out to $82.45 million in total.
The above figure isn’t adjusted for inflation, and it also doesn’t account for outsourcing, which has long been on the rise in the game development industry. There’s also no way to tell how much EA spent on marketing The Veilguard.
An estimated $150m–$200m budget
But seeing how typical AAA game marketing budgets can reportedly range from $50 million to over $100 million, it’s safe to say the latest Dragon Age game wasn’t cheap to advertise. If EA gave a new IP like Immortals of Aveum a $40 million marketing budget, it’s unlikely a new entry in a long-running BioWare franchise received any less.
So, although the oft-repeated $200 million figure might be on the higher end of what The Veilguard actually cost to make, it’s not entirely out of the question.
Between the conservative estimates of $82 million in salaries and $40 million in marketing costs, the latest Dragon Age game seems to be nowhere near breaking even right now.
So, did Dragon Age: The Veilguard flop?
Although AAA game sales do tend to be front-loaded, it’s not unprecedented to see a big-budget title sell way more copies long-term than its first month. Nevertheless, The Veilguard appears to be a flop, no two ways about it. While it’s not the gaming flop of the year, a title that belongs to Concord, it definitely seems to have burned a hole in EA’s pockets.
Had EA invested $120 million into S&P 500 in June 2015, it would have made $270 million by October 2024. Instead, by channeling that amount—or even more—into The Veilguard, it’s currently likely at least $59 million in the red.
Why are people rooting for The Veilguard to fail?
Some vocal individuals, including popular content creators like Asmongold, have long predicted that The Veilguard would flop. While this group may feel vindicated by the game’s early performance, their past forecasts were largely rooted in the “go woke, go broke” mantra rather than some deeper analysis.
That’s to say, The Veilguard has become the latest focus in the long-running culture war over inclusiveness in video games, as reflected by its abysmal Metacritic user score of 3.8/10.
However, impressions from people who actually bought the game rather than just registered for a Metacritic account to review-bomb it paint a more favorable picture. The game currently holds “Mostly Positive” user reviews on Steam, as well as 4.18 and 3.8/5 stars on the PlayStation and Xbox Stores, respectively. Its Metascore is also at a respectable 82.
While it remains to be seen whether The Veilguard recovers from its bad launch, it’s probably safe to say that “wokeness” didn’t kill it any more than it killed Baldur’s Gate 3 or Starfield, which were some of the best-selling games of last year despite—or because of—being inclusive of minorities.
