Veteran Bioware Dev Mark Darrah Calls Out Player Toxicity towards Developers after Dragon Age: The Veilguard Backlash

Dragon Age: The Veilguard has been a huge let down for fans of the longtime RPG series in more ways than one–from the game’s alarmingly divisive writing that many fans have considered to be an insult to the series to EA’s recent downsizing of Bioware and laying off many developers who were involved with making the game, it’s safe to say that the fan base of Dragon Age has seen much better days. And recently, there have been numerous instances of fan backlash towards the developers of Dragon Age: The Veilguard in social networks and other platforms, which ranged from abusing several devs online to fans of the series celebrating layoffs for the devs (which is downright brutal).

In response to all of that vitriol, veteran Bioware dev Mark Darrah who was with Bioware for a total of 23 years, have called out the players who are spewing out toxicity towards the developers of Dragon Age: The Veilguard in a new video in his Youtube channel titled “Your $70 Doesn’t Buy You Cruelty”. And even though he hasn’t really mentioned the Veilguard by name, his comments clearly appear to be in reference to the 2024 Action RPG.

In the video, he gives multiple reasons as to why gamers shouldn’t be cruel and hateful towards the developers which is just plain wrong in every way.

“I’m not saying you’re not allowed to be angry about it, I’m not saying you don’t get to express your dissatisfaction with the content of the game that you’re not enjoying” he states. “But when you climb into someone’s personal social media and start actively attacking that person, when you celebrate layoffs at a studio because the game that you don’t like didn’t do that well, you’re crossing a line into being cruel and fundamentally you should have more grace for other human beings.”

He also says that in many cases, the fans may actually be getting angry with the wrong people since it’s not always the developer who decides everything that’s put in the game and many decisions that lead to a game being the way it is. What he suggests, is that gamers can miss the bigger picture of the totality of choices that the publisher makes for the game which EA has been known for doing many times in the past.

“When you decided to personally attack that one specific person on social media, how certain are you that it was their fault, that they are responsible for that thing that you don’t like?” he argues. “You shouldn’t be certain, because you don’t know exactly what was going on within the project.”

And while the anger from the gamers’ part is clearly understandable as EA had silently pulled the plug on a long running and beloved series of games which is unfair and wrong in every way, still, attacking the devs are never the right way of voicing the collective dissent. There has to be a better way for expressing all the angst and the disgust cause we shouldn’t forget that as great and wonderful as videogames are, they can never be equal to a live Human being.