NVIDIA announced it partnered with BioWare and EA to give Dragon Age: The Veilguard away for free with the purchase of a GeForce NOW Ultimate bundle as evidence grows that the game is not selling well.

A screenshot from Dragon Age: The Veilguard (2024), BioWare

On its blog, NVIDIA shared, “Fight for Thedas’ future at Ultimate quality this fall as new and existing members who purchase six months of GeForce NOW Ultimate can get BioWare and Electronic Arts’ epic RPG Dragon Age: The Veilguard for free when it releases on Oct. 31.”

The GeForce NOW Ultimate bundle costs $99.99 for six months and along with Dragon Age: The Veilguard includes GeForce RTX 4080 Rig | RTX ON, and access to the RTX 4080 servers, up to 4K resolution and 120 FPS, no ads, and an 8-hour session length.

The bundle is only available to purchase through October 30th.

A screenshot of NVIDIA’s various options

 

This bundle announcement comes in the wake of a number of metrics indicating that the game’s pre-order sales are not doing well and interest in the game is low.

Craig Skistimas aka Stuttering Craig, the host and owner of the Side Scrollers Podcast on YouTube, revealed information from his retail insider that the game had only received a total of 1,957 pre-orders between both Xbox and PlayStation 5.

He wrote on X, “, “Between both the ‘gold’ and standard editions, in their 800+ stores, they have just under 2000 pre-orders between PS5 & Xbox: PS5: 1552 Xbox : 405 Total: 1957.”

 

This is an increase from the 1069 that Stuttering Craig reported had been pre-ordered back in September.

A retail insider, who manages over 900 stores, also shared with That Park Place that these numbers are three times less than what Spike Chunsoft’s Dragon Ball: Sparking! ZERO did in the lead up to its release on October 10, 2024.

The insider shared that Dragon Ball Sparking! ZERO had a total of 5,952 total pre-orders on the Friday before the game released, October 4th. There were a total of 5,538 PlayStation 5 pre-orders and 414 Xbox pre-orders.

Furthermore, the insider shared that the pre-orders might have actually been higher for Dragon Ball: Sparking! ZERO, but they actually sold out of the Ultimate edition for PlayStation 5. Thus it was not available to pre-order.

A screenshot from Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero (2024), Spike Chunsoft

Over on Steam, the game sits in 28th place on SteamDB’s Most Wishlisted Upcoming Steam Games and just inside the top 50 at 46th in top sellers.

A screenshot of Dragon Age: The Veilguard’s ranking on Steam DB’s Most Wishlisted Upcoming Games list. Screenshot taken on October 21, 2024 at 7:31 AM ET.

If one looks at Google Trends, the game is being crushed by the likes of Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero and Metaphor: ReFantazio.

A screenshot of Google Trends comparing Dragon Ball: Sparking! ZERO and Metaphor: ReFantazio to Dragon Age: The Veilguard

In fact, the game is nowhere near the peak of Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League when that game released at the end of February.

A screenshot of Google Trends comparing Dragon Age: The Veilguard to Suicide Squad Kill The Justice League

Warner Bros. Discovery infamously had to take a $200 million impairment charge due to the game’s poor performance. Warner Bros. Discovery Chief Financial Officer Gunnar Wiedenfels revealed, “Starting with Studios, the $400 million+ year-over-year decline during Q1 was primarily due to the very tough comp we faced in games against the success of Hogwart’s Legacy last year in the first quarter, in conjunction with the disappointing Suicide Squad release this past quarter, which we impaired, leading to a $200 million impact to EBITDA during the first quarter.”

Not only did Warner Bros. Discovery take a $200 million impairment charge on the game, but Tom Philips at Eurogamer reported the company laid off over half of its Quality Assurance department reducing it from 33 to 15 at the beginning of this month. The report also claims that the layoffs affect those outside of Quality Assurance as well and have affected individuals across the board from junior staff to individual who have been with the company for over five years.

Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League Sweet Baby Inc. credits

Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League hit a peak concurrent player count of 13,459 when it released, but has since seen a decline of nearly 99% of that peak count to date. In the last 24-hours it only hit a peak concurrent player count of 140. That’s a decline of 98.9%.

A screenshot of the Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League SteamDB charts taken on September 26, 2024 at 5:33 PM ET

What do you make of BioWare partnering with NVIDIA to give away Dragon Age: The Veilguard for free?