Yes, three "disappointing" games. I used the quotes for a reason because there are always people who don't see the last three BioWare games as disappointing. DA 2 wasn't exactly a smashing success. Every time you mention DA 2 on this forum it easily devolves into people telling you how disappointing that game was. And that is solely on this forum, a forum with mostly DA fans. Or how about mentioning ME 3? Every time ME 3 is mentioned a thread turns sour.
And the third is SWTOR. A game which sold well in the beginning but people soon left in droves.
And I am not talking about the press, I am talking about the gamers. Nowadays it doesn't really matter much what the press thinks of a game because the gamers now have the power to make a game sell or not. A lot of gamers no longer listen to gaming journalists but they listen to gamers who specialize in video reviews, the "non-journalist". Or how about Gamergate? A good amount of gamers don't exactly believe in the integrity of gaming journalists any more so why would they instantly believe DAI is a must buy over other big games?
Also, Bungie didn't exactly have to combat a bad image prior to Destiny's release, BioWare certainly does, especially for the gamers who feel slighted by the three mentioned games. I want BioWare to do well with DAI but BioWare most certainly has got a bad name at the moment and with the amount of big hitters coming out around the time DAI comes out it can absolutely hurt DAI's sales to the point DAI could be the last DA game.
There is the catch with The Old Republic being labeled a "disappointing game" for it might be a disappointment here, but unless their expectations were to match World of Warcraft its doing fine. In 2013 the game was estimated to be the fourth highest grossing game behind World of Warcraft, Lineage 1, and Tera Online. Source
With Dragon Age 2 for it was a disappointment to many, but they have gone out of their way to show everything that has been improved based on the complaints people gave. Its the same with Mass Effect 3, with it being BioWare's best selling game (according to VGChartz which is highly inaccurate, but the only place I know of to find sales numbers) and has a similar drop off as Mass Effect 2. Now there is no way to know for sure that Dragon Age: Inquisition will do the same numbers as Mass Effect especially with how Dragon Age 2 was received, but when allocating a budget for the game I am pretty sure the decision makers kept all the factors in mind.
At times I think with how popular a game will or won't be is perceived is because of how much an echo chamber the internet seems to be anymore for people will go out and find the information that supports their arguments because its easy to find anything that might confirm your personal feelings.
You mentioned Bungie, they might not have had a bad image, but Activision did with how they were talking about spending $500 million on Destiny or how they fired Marty O'Donnell and then they also had the disappointment that was Call of Duty: Ghosts which didn't perform as well as previous Call of Duty titles. Now I don't know who was responsible for some of the statements to the press, but when it feels like ego is involved about how important Halo was and how they "changed how people game" while announcing they aren't releasing the game for PC also can hurt a companies image long before a game's release too. I know I didn't buy a console or the game which I was thinking of to play with my friends because of a lot of the things that were said to the press.
With the trust issue, I really wonder outside of the areas people who visit message boards really know what is happening. There are going to be more people that don't trust the press, but there has been incidents in the past that people have yelled "I don't trust professional reviewer" and there will be more things like that happening in the future. Its the same as all those Let's Play people that have admitted they took money to play a specific game on their channels, but I don't see anyone saying they can't trust any of them. On a slight tangent how with Valve people were okay with them looking up the domain addresses of any webpage you have open when using their VAC software.
I am not saying what you saying isn't true, for there are going to be people that feel the same way. Its just hard for me to believe that the BSN/any forum out there is an accurate sampling of how the majority of people feel about an upcoming/past game.
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