DA:Inquisition - EA “Very Excited” for Long Term

Gamingbolt has some new information from EA & Bioware this week for DA:Inquisition.

Bioware’s Dragon Age: Inquisition has been a strong success for the company, mopping up most Game of the Year awards (including our own) for 2014. It also recently won Game of the Year at the DICE Awards and EA CFO Blake Jorgenson says the company is excited for the future.

“Longer-term, we’re very excited. BioWare, they just won Game of the Year at the DICE Awards. We’re very excited about the success of that team and what we can do with that team. I think there’s a huge opportunity for [Dragon Age].”

There won’t be any Dragon Age in 2015 so don’t worry about the publisher fast-tracking a sequel like Dragon Age 2 again. The key was in retaining what made Bioware’s games a success while still breaking new ground as producer Mike Darrah told GameSpot.

“I think really it’s both a return to form, a return to what BioWare did in its roots: exploration, story-telling, character development. Us starting to explore new areas [being] deeper, open-world gameplay. I think just that combination is what really resonated with people.”

Now bring on the usual comments everyone.


More information.

I'm still working through DA:I. Yes there's a lot of extra stuff, and I'm trying more and more to stick to the story. I think ultimately the crazy amount of content will make a second play through more rewarding. But holy cow, this game is huuuuuge.

I don't often agree with the crowd here. I like Bioware games. Refreshing to play fleshed out characters and story vs. number crunching. And keyboard and mouse is only an interface, not a suicide pact.

I'm happy that the fans, reviewers and so on have managed to convince EA that RPGs like Dragon Age need development time.

It's basically a matter of voting with our wallets, and DA: I seems to be the clear winner compared to DA2, which is good.

It was very good, so this is good news indeed. Strange how much better your game becomes if you give the developers some time to develop it, eh EA?

Originally Posted by Maylander
I'm happy that the fans, reviewers and so on have managed to convince EA that RPGs like Dragon Age need development time.

It's basically a matter of voting with our wallets, and DA: I seems to be the clear winner compared to DA2, which is good.

That's a good point - whatever its flaws, the wallets have spoken, and the message is that big, rich, single player RPGs are a winner.

It's been hard to hear many sensible words about DA:I over the clamour of the anti-Bioware bratmobs, and the mainstream GOTY hype. The ravings of the pathologically entitled on the Bioware forum beggar belief.

Originally Posted by Maylander
It's basically a matter of voting with our wallets, and DA: I seems to be the clear winner compared to DA2, which is good.

That sentence should look like "DA: I seems to be the clear winner compared to DA2 and pathetic MMO attempts".

I'm curious to see how much Bioware's net revenue will be for this quarter. If it is up significantly, then it may further encourage EA to allocate sufficient development time for their releases in the future.

The metric that matters to the suits on whether to crank out shallow product or do long development cycles is not income from a product in the first couple months, but overall income rate per, say, averaged over every few years. Would bware make more money every few years if it churned out crap fast, or stuck with long development cycles? I wonder… There sure are a lot people brainwashed by the hype to always buy the newest games, even if there are bad signs that it's likely shit.

So good to see BioWare back in the drivers seat… a good feeling indeed.