Mass Effect - Gold

Bioware's latest goes gold (for the PC) and Blue's News has the press release notes.

BioWare announced today that the award-winning action role-playing game (RPG) Mass Effect for PC, published by Electronic Arts, has gone into manufacturing. Mass Effect will be available in North America on May 28, 2008 and June 6, 2008 to European retailers.

Gamers can still take advantage of pre-order specials and should check with their preferred retailer for information. Alternatively, gamers who pre-order Mass Effect through the Electronic Arts online store at www.eastore.ea.com

Fully optimized for the PC through a collaboration between BioWare and Demiurge Studios, Mass Effect includes a new Tactical Heads-Up Display, higher resolution visuals, an enhanced inventory system, fully optimized controls designed specifically for the PC, individual squad control and a new decryption mini-game. The “Bring Down the Sky” downloadable content for Mass Effect on PC, featuring 90 minutes of new gameplay, will also be available free3 for registered BioWare Community members at the launch of Mass Effect PC.

Originally released for the Xbox 360™ videogame and entertainment system, Mass Effect has received critical acclaim throughout the world with more than 80 awards including 2007 Console Game of the Year and Role-Playing Game of the Year (http://masseffect.bioware.com/previewsawards/).

Mass Effect is rated “M” for Mature by the ESRB. For more information about Mass Effect, please visit www.masseffect.com. will receive bonus items from the game Dead Space™, the highly anticipated sci-fi survival horror game by EA, including the first issue of the Dead Space comic book and a Dead Space poster while supplies last.

More information.

Not available as a digital download in Australia…great. When will publishers learn to look beyond NA?

When will publishers learn to look beyond NA?

When currency is no longer used in the 24th century?

Seriously though, for a "World Wide Web" the internet and services available to us are still segregated and regulated by archaic national border issues.

Those on Steam might consider joining the group Rest of World to express dissatisfaction with the restricted accessibility many publishers impose on their games outside NA/US.
But this doesn't inflict EA, of course, because they don't use Steam for digital distribution of their games.

End of advertisement I guess.

I saw that recently - I might just do that. If it was on Steam (and available down here), I'd already have preorder in. As it is…I'll see.

Lol, you think you have it bad? Here in South Africa we pay per gig of bandwidth. 1 gig would cost me the price of the physical boxed game! Given most games are about 6 gigs these days….even where direct download is offered it isn't worth it.

Sigh, maybe one day I'll move to the 1st world.

I agree insofar as the whole industry is focused imho far too much on the american market due to its sheer size.

Other areas and countries appear like peanuts to them.



("*drool* Money ! Money ! *drool*")

I pay AUD$90 for 25Gb @ 8Mb/s. It's far from the worst but also far from the best in the world.

It's obvious that NA is a huge market and the home territory of many of these publishers but in the case of digital downloads, segmenting the market by country boundaries is completely unnecessary. Eastore and direct2drive already sell Mass Effect and they both already sell to AU (I can buy Hellgate: London direct from EA, for example…yay!)…so it's more work to exclude me than just leave it alone and take my money.

The reason is likely EA Australia doesn't want the parent company competing with local sales. This is ridiculously easy to solve.

I would think the segmentation is a matter of the reality of marketing as well as the geographic and legal barriers. Digital Downloads definitely reduce the cost of such a small market but how much does one need to invest in lawyers and distributors to allow you to legally sell? I would think a successful product in your local market first helps considerably in researching ROI.

The courts in Australia recently struck down regional protections on copyrighted products, not because there's anything wrong with IMO but simply because not enough product seems to make it in your market.

Its a shame how you are stuck and how naturally it would push those willing to obtain products less than legally. The only solution I could see is freer markets. However, how would your government feel about so much capital leaving the country so easily? Look how the gov'ts block gambling websites.

Originally Posted by Dhruin
I pay AUD$90 for 25Gb @ 8Mb/s. It's far from the worst but also far from the best in the world.

It's obvious that NA is a huge market and the home territory of many of these publishers but in the case of digital downloads, segmenting the market by country boundaries is completely unnecessary. Eastore and direct2drive already sell Mass Effect and they both already sell to AU (I can buy Hellgate: London direct from EA, for example…yay!)…so it's more work to exclude me than just leave it alone and take my money.

The reason is likely EA Australia doesn't want the parent company competing with local sales. This is ridiculously easy to solve.

I got seriously turned off by direct2drive lately.

I bought Beyond Good and Evil from them a few years ago. Registered with my real contact info, paid, downloaded, played, eventually deleted when rebuilding my system.

Then I got the feeling that I'd like to play it again. So I logged in, looked for my games, found it, clicked on the download link, and… got a message saying "Sorry, this game is only available in North America."

So I lied: I changed my contact information to Missoula, Montana. And proceeded to download. And resolved never to buy anything from them again, ever, and be extra careful about buying on-line downloads from anyone else either.