Dragon Age: The Veilguard Sales Leak

Overview

Dragon Age: The Veilguard Sales Leak refers to a notable Bioware Studio data leak regarding the sales of Dragon Age: The Veilguard, alleging the game has failed to recover its costs. The leak sparked significant discourse online in November 2024, as the game was already being heavily criticized for its alleged restrictions on the review code for gaming journalists who didn't like the hands-on gameplay preview of DATV. Internal sources allegedly told that Bioware launched an internal investigation to find the leakers of the sales data, as the content is believed to have been sent by an Electronic Arts (EA) employee to YouTuber @SmashJT.

Background

On November 13th, 2024, YouTuber^[1] @SmashJT uploaded an exclusive article alleging he received data from a source from within Electronic Arts, revealing that Dragon Age: The Veilguard has surpassed 1 million in sales, which he describes as a sales failures, as "many estimates are pinning the break even for sales numbers somewhere in the 5 million copies sold range."

SmashJT also posted a video^[2] (seen below) on November 14th, 2024, explaining with further details the sales data leaked to him, which amassed more than 77,000 views and 5,100 likes in a few hours.

Developments

Bioware Internal Investigation

On November 14th, 2024, rumors started to appear online that Bioware Studio launched an internal investigation to find the leakers of the DATV sales data. Fandom Pulse^[3] was one of the first websites to mention the alleged investigation, writing that Smash JT was told by the anonymous source the gaming company is trying "to find who these people[leakers] are that are trying to call it out elsewhere because they’re afraid for their job if its gets called out internally. Because you’re not allowed to be critical of any of the decisions at this company if you work there.”

Smash JT's^[4] video about the ongoing Bioware investigation (seen below) received roughly 152,000 views and 10,000 likes in a day.

Online Reactions

DATV leaked sales data sparked various comments on social media, getting comparisons and essay videos, as well as memes on X and Reddit. For example, on November 14th, 2024, YouTuber^[5] used the debate about the game's sales adding that Dragon Age: The Veilguard players' number was also outperformed by Farming Simulator 25 on Steam. The video (seen below) received more than 20,000 views and 2,000 likes in a day.

On November 15th, 2024, TikTok^[6] user @generalfrigus posted a SpongeBob Squarepants meme about the DATV leaked data, amassing roughly 845 plays and 31 likes in a few hours.

Search Interest

External References