Summary
- According to David Gaider, EA always preferred Mass Effect.
- EA’s marketing team didn’t know what to do with Dragon Age.
- Gaider believes Dragon Age was close to being cancelled before every single release.
Mass Effect and Dragon Age: science fiction and fantasy – symbiotic siblings or intense rivals? Many BioWare fans likely enjoy both series, but plenty of players have only played one or the other. According to David Gaider, lead writer on Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2 and Dragon Age Inquisition, Dragon Age was always second-favourite to Mass Effect in the eyes of BioWare’s parent company Electronic Arts.
In response to a post on Bluesky, Gaider elaborated on EA’s relationship to both games, saying, “While I was at BioWare, EA always preferred Mass Effect, straight up their marketing team liked it more. It was modern, it had action. They never knew quite what to do with Dragon Age, and whenever Dragon Age outperformed Mass Effect, Mass Effect got the excuses. If you ask me, it was always just shy of the axe since Dragon Age Origins.”
The Unloved Child
While I was at BioWare, EA *always* preferred Mass Effect, straight up Their Marketing team liked it more. It was modern. It had action. They never quite knew what to do with DA, and whenever DA outperformed ME, ME got the excuses. If you ask me, it was always just shy of the axe since DA Origins.
— David Gaider (@davidgaider.bsky.social) 2025-04-14T07:11:01.939Z
As someone who played both series at the time of their initial releases, Mass Effect always seemed to have a more focused marketing campaign. Both series essentially boil down to saving humanity, but Mass Effect’s setting as the real world in the future is perhaps more marketable, i.e, saving Earth rather than Thedas.
In response to a commenter who asked if EA’s confusion regarding marketing Dragon Age was one of the reasons each subsequent Dragon Age game was a lot different from the last, Gaider replied, “Maybe in part. I’d say the biggest reason was that, while I was there, the BioWare teams were bad at overreaction. They’d take the feedback/criticism to heart – both our own and the fans’ – and generally fixed that but also overcorrected.”
The future of Dragon Age appears bleak as BioWare laid off many of the developers who worked on Dragon Age: The Veilguard, which in and of itself is a polarising title, praised by critics but lambasted by fans.
BioWare is currently working on Mass Effect 5 with a small team.
- Released
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November 3, 2009
- ESRB
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M for Mature: Blood, Intense Violence, Language, Partial Nudity, Sexual Content