'Dragon Age: The Veilguard' Writer Says Franchise Is Not Dead After EA Gutted Studio And Axed Entire Writing Team
Dragon Age: The Veilguard writer Sheryl Chee claims the Dragon Age franchise is not dead despite EA gutting developer BioWare and axing much of the writing team.
Chee wrote on BlueSky, “DA isn’t dead. There’s fic. There’s art. There's the connections we made through the games and because of the games. Technically EA/BioWare owns the IP but you can't own an idea, no matter how much they want to.”
Chee added, “DA isn't dead because it's yours now.”
Her comments come after she announced she had been relocated within EA to Motive.
Chee wrote, “I'm now with Motive. It's been a hard two years seeing my team get chipped away and having to still keep going. But I'm still employed, so there's that.”
Chee’s comments also come in the wake of EA admitting that the entire Dragon Age franchise missed expectations by 50%.
EA said in a press release, “Dragon Age engaged approximately 1.5 million players during the quarter, down nearly 50% from the company’s expectations.”
A week after that announcement, BioWare General Manager Gary McKay announced that BioWare was making cuts and that a number of staff had been moved to other studios within EA.
He wrote in a blog post, “We have incredible talent here at BioWare, and so we have worked diligently over the past few months to match many of our colleagues with other teams at EA that had open roles that were a strong fit.”
Of note he said “many” instead of “all” with the implication that a number of employees were let go.
Following this announcement numerous Dragon Age: The Veilguard writers and editors announced they were no longer with BioWare.
In fact, former BioWare writer Ann Lemay claimed that none of the writers or editors she worked with between 2011 and 2016 were left at the company.
Lemay wrote, “I was a writer at BioWare for 5 years (2011-2016). I leaned a lot during that time from exceptional folx in many disciplines, but also specifically from my fellow writers & our amazing editors, on both the ME & DA brands. Today, not a single one of those writers & editors remains employed there.”
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Those who publicly announced they were no longer at BioWare include Writing Lead Patrick Weekes, Editing Lead Karin West-Weekes, editor Ryan Cormier, writer Brianne Battye, editor Ben Gelinas, the aforementioned Chee, and writer Syvlia Feketekuty.
Writer John Dombrow left for Sunker Punch in 2023 and is a Senior Writer working on Ghost of Yotei. Similarly, Courtney Woods joined Sucker Punch back in September 2022.
Mary Kirby’s LinkedIn profile claims she left BioWare in September 2023. Lukas Kristjanson also left the company in 2023. Cameron Harris announced she was not only leaving BioWare, but the video game industry at-large back in 2016.
Jo Berry left BioWare in 2017 and has been at Motive since then.
For all intents and purposes, Chee’s comments read like cope and it appears the franchise is indeed dead and it was killed by her, Game Director Andrew Busche, Creative Director John Epler, the rest of the writing and editing team, and BioWare executives who allowed the game to be turned into a piece of transgender propaganda.
What do you make of Chee’s comments?
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I don't want these studios and franchises to die. I want them to stop making slop and get back to decent storytelling. But they've repeatedly proven themselves unwilling or unable to do that.
Cry harder you faggot troon!