Dragon Age: The Veilguard’s failure has potentially sealed the IP’s fate for good. While fans are unhappy to see how EA’s legendary IP has been treated recently, it seems the publisher’s plans were much grander than anybody anticipated.

In a new video, a former BioWare developer revealed how EA intended to make billion-dollar IPs all the way back in 2016, and one such IP was Dragon Age.

Why it matters: Not many franchises can claim the prized $1 billion target. Because Dragon Age had a history of critically acclaimed releases and BioWare’s leadership behind it, EA believed it was possible to achieve for the series.

 

During his latest video, former Dragon Age boss Mark Darrah discussed thirty years of the series. He reflected upon different stages of the franchise and noted that EA was aiming for bigger and bigger games by 2016.

EA pushes for franchises to be bigger. They want billion-dollar franchises.

-Mark Darrah

This meant that, like other franchises, the publisher wanted Dragon Age to become a billion-dollar IP, and Mark Darrah was tasked with plotting a course to achieve this goal. He noted that the main idea was churning out games one after another.

Joplin, the codenamed next entry, was meant to arrive soon after 2016, followed by two sequels, each arriving 18 months after the last release.

Did it get Dragon Age to be a billion-dollar franchise? It got it closer than you would think.

-Mark Darrah

Unfortunately, things fell apart when EA became one of the many publishers to chase the live-service trend. The development of Mass Effect Andromeda and Anthem also led to the studio diverting resources away from Mark Darrah’s Joplin team. Dragon Age: The Veilguard Director Joins Wizards of the CoastThe Veilguard Was Heavily Criticized For Its Writing

The franchise was effectively sidelined to focus on other IPs and wouldn’t receive another title until eighty years later, in 2024.

This is not the first time a publisher has dreamed of a billion-dollar franchise before completely failing to read the room. Warner Bros. hoped for a similar outcome with Rocksteady’s Suicide Squad, a game that led to $200 million in losses.

The latest RPG release in EA’s IP saw a similar outcome, completely missing its financial targets.