BioWare, developer of the wildly popular Mass Effect and Dragon Age video game series, is at the center of a new battle.
Following the failed launch of two costly triple-A titles, the studio was banking on a win. Its latest offering is the fourth title in the Dragon Age series; the last was released 10 years ago.
Initial reactions to trailers for Dragon Age: The Veilguard were decidedly negative. Longtime fans of the series criticized the softer, stylized art of the new game, comparing it to a Disney-Pixar movie.
But after BioWare invited a group of streamers and critics to a private, hands-on demo of the game, hope was rekindled. Those who had experienced Veilguard firsthand were generally positive, and encouraged fans of the series to wait for the full release.
Days before its release, clips of Veilguard were leaked, revealing that the game was rife with transgender ideology and messaging based on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI).
Another scene, in a high fantasy setting with dragons and elves, showed a character revealing to her parents that she identified as nonbinary.
The game’s character customization system does not allow for the creation of curvy female characters but it does allow players to add mastectomy scars.
Corinne Busche, Veilguard’s game director, is also transgender. Busche told co-workers that the goal for the Dragon Age team at BioWare is to use games to create a safe space for the LGBT community.
“It’s such a rare thing for marginalized communities to have representation where we feel proud and powerful in how we are depicted. It’s so deeply meaningful for so many,” Busche said in a developer interview on BioWare’s website.
While it is true that previous Dragon Age titles featured LGBT characters—and allowed players to romance same sex characters in-game—Veilguard’s approach seems to have struck a different chord this time.
Critics’ Reviews
While some fans were still scratching their heads at the leaked clips, early critic reviews for Veilguard were mostly positive.The game received the thumbs-up from Eurogamer, Game Rant, and GamingBible—all of whom awarded it a perfect 100 out of 100. Even Finger Guns, which gave it a lower-end score of 60, called it “a solid, albeit, unspectacular RPG experience.”
IGN—notorious for giving scores of seven—gave Veilguard a nine out of 10.
That review was received differently when it was revealed the critic identifies as transgender; IGN released an alternate, less positive review shortly thereafter.
Some critics were more tepid in their response.
Games journalist Skillup gave the game a “cannot recommend” evaluation. He didn’t mention the progressive content and instead referred to the game’s “silly and childish” tone, and lack of narrative subtlety.
“This game cannot surface any ideas without just saying them aloud,” he said.
“Every interaction sounds like HR is in the room.”
He—and others—also criticized the “hollow and repetitive” gameplay loop. “Zero variety in mission design,” he noted. He said he eventually lowered the game’s difficulty settings, just so he could rush through it more quickly.
The disparity between professional critic reviews and those by consumers is stark: Metacritic shows the game’s audience score is 3.8 out of 10 for Playstation users; the score for PC users is 2.5.
Costly Business
Triple-A game development is a risky, expensive business. Games can cost hundreds of millions and take years to develop; one failure may drive a studio out of business.Official sales numbers for Veilguard have not been released—a common practice unless a game does very well—but speculation abounds. It is unlikely the real numbers will be known before EA’s earnings call in February
One way of gauging sales is to look at the number of concurrent players on STEAM, the world’s largest digital PC video game marketplace. Veilguard reached a maximum of just over 89,000 players on Nov. 3.
By comparison, Farming Simulator 25 peaked at more than 135,000 concurrent players.
Veilguard is reported to have sold more than a million copies—not a great result for a triple-A title that may have cost between $80 million and $200 million to develop.
By contrast, Game Science’s recent release Black Myth: Wukong sold 18 million copies within its first two weeks.
And while Veilguard was given positive reviews by gaming media, Wukong’s development team was accused of sexism, fat-shaming, and homophobia just ahead of the release.
Screenrant gave the game a 6/10, citing technical issues, but also a lack of diversity and inclusion. The game is about the mythical Chinese Monkey King.
Likewise, Saber Interactive’s Warhammer 40k: Space Marine 2 sold two million copies within 48 hours of release.
Saber’s CEO, Mark Karch weighed in on the comments section of a YouTube video discussing the game, and elaborated on his development philosophy.
“I spent some time as Chief Operating Officer at Embracer, and I saw games there that made me want to cry with their overblown attempts at messaging or imposing morals on gamers,” Karch said. Embracer is the owner of the Tomb Raider game franchise.
“We just want to do some glory kills and get the heart rate up a little. For me that is what games should be about,” Karch added.
Noticing the Agenda
The popular franchise The Last of Us, recently made into an HBO series, was a tale about a young girl—and the grizzled man who protects her fighting to survive a sort of zombie apocalypse.The sequel, The Last of Us 2, sold well enough, but some fans were confused by the decision to make the main character a lesbian who turns her nose up at “bigot sandwiches.”
Players also panned a lengthy section of the game that requires them to go on a killing spree as the heavily muscled transgender “Abby.”
Gamers began to question: Who is asking for this content, and why does it keep popping up?
A Brazilian player, who goes by the online name Kabrutus Rambo, took note of the recurring pattern of “woke” and “virtue-signaling” messaging in games, and found a common denominator: consulting firms hired to make games less “problematic.”
Those firms include agencies such as Sweet Baby Inc. (SBI), which bills itself as a “narrative consultancy.”
SBI has consulted on some of the most popular game franchises of recent years, including Spider-Man 2, Alan Wake 2, and God of War: Ragnarök.
God of War did especially well, raking in handfuls of technical, acting, and story awards, along with two “Game of the Year” wins.
It also raised eyebrows when it depicted Angrboda, a character from Norse Mythology, as a young black woman.
Kabrutus Strikes Back
In response to his discovery that consulting firms were involved, Kabrutus curated a page on STEAM called “Sweet Baby Inc. Detected.” It contained a list of every game that he could confirm had hired SBI as consultants.During an interview with Twitch streamer Asmongold, Kabrutus said he wanted to draw attention to the fact that video games were being used for political purposes.
“Diversity in games isn’t a bad thing at all you know, when it’s done properly ... the thing is they politicize stuff,” he said.
In an email to The Epoch Times, Kabrutus said he tried to play Veilguard for review purposes, but was unable to finish, citing the boring combat scenes and “cringe” dialogue.
“When they focus so much into inserting a specific political agenda into the game it certainly affects its overall quality. The combat will likely be less interesting and the story will probably end up having tons of propaganda,” he said.
Kabrutus has launched a website called “DEI-detected” that looks to inform gamers before they spend their cash on games filled with such messaging.
“If they REALLY wanna make a game that talks about progressive ideas, do it in a new franchise and try to grow an audience of their own instead of trying to hijack the audience from another well established franchise,” he said.
It is unclear what the future holds for the video game fan base, but the BioWare situation shows that, in part, people vote with their wallets.
Several recent triple-A games that partnered with SBI, such as Concord, Forspoken, Suicide Squad, and Unknown 9: Awakening failed miserably on launch.
Unknown 9: Awakening reached 285 concurrent players; Concord, which was reported to have cost $400 million to make, cratered so badly that its development studio was shut down.
