Originally Posted by txa1265 (Post 1060964598)

Exactly … and as you also said, this is a clear anti-used game shot. Which I hate! I know it is EA at work here, but there is a part of me that hates Bioware a little for this crap.

Originally Posted by Ross Gardner

Some of the posts in here really make me sad. There is no conspiracy here, we are just a studio that loves making games and we want to continue to make games that people play and love. If we don't sell enough copies or make enough money from DLC then we won't be making games like this again or any games for that matter. Fundamentally we are a business and we need to get paid so that the people that work here can get paid and we can live our lives.

Games like this are not cheap to make any more - the cost of making them has risen by several orders of magnitude over the last 20 years, but interestingly the price for games has not gone up (even at the rate of inflation) during that period. Games were still 60 bucks when I bought Civ 1 almost 20 years ago - and 60 bucks went a lot further back then. So we rely instead on selling more and more copies - and the truth is that piracy and resale do hit right on the bottom line. That is also why you see increasingly shorter games - because one way to make more successful games is to make them shorter.

Dragon Age Origins on the other hand is NOT small. I don't think I can say how long the game is but trust me - it is rediculously long. :biggrin: I think everyone that buys the game will be really happy with the value they get, it is probably one of the biggest games to come out in the last several years (other than MMO's of course). Also I think that fact that the (seperate) DLC team has something ready for launch should be exciting - it is a sign of a committment to ongoing support and effort, especially for people that love the game and want to build cool mods with the released toolset and play more DAO.

Also EA is not rolling in billions of dollars in profits - like many other game companies and most other companies in the world right now we are losing money and have been for a while. That is why 10% of the staff were laid off last year and several studios closed (ERTS). I'm NOT saying feel sorry for EA. What I'm saying is that the game industry is like any other and ultimately all of us consumers are the judges and we vote with our dollars.

I'm not posting to argue and I will not post further in this thread, but I did want to say that. No conspiracy, just a bunch of people who just want to keep making great games. :biggrin:

Originally Posted by txa1265 (Post 1060964694)

That is a wonderful story, but there is a huge difference between dishing out a Ring of Anti-Nail Breaking +1 and holding back Watcher's Keep for only those who spend $15 more for the CE, and then making it so that they can only register it permanently to their EA / Bioware account. Which *is* what they are doing …

Originally Posted by Dgaider (Post 1060964697)

No. What we are doing is providing Warden's Keep as DLC, extra content that you can download for a fee. It is also being provided for free to those people who purchase the digital version of the CE, as the extras in the non-digital version (ie. the map) are physical in nature.

Originally Posted by DeepO (Post 1060964704)

Watcher´s Keep

Originally Posted by txa1265 (Post 1060964700)

Perhaps it is a matter of semantics … but since Warden's Keep was *part of Throne of Bhaal* and the Dragon Age added area is ready at day of release but is *not* included in the standard game, isn't that pretty much the definition of held back?

I chose Warden's Keep specifically since it is content that has absolutely no bearing on the story of BG2, yet is a great optional dungeon. It was ready day of release, and was therefore released as part of the game. Content that is ready day of release and can very easily be activated and integrates readily … is pretty easy to characterize as having been held back.

It is not that holding back is necessarily a bad thing - I understand the economics, but avoiding calling it what it is to avoid negative press is disingenuous.

Originally Posted by aries100 (Post 1060964772)

As for DLC, I'm OK with that. I see this as a way to combat piracy by offering (extra) content for download, making an incentive for people to get the actual game, instead of….

Originally Posted by txa1265 (Post 1060964810)

Hold on tight to your wallet - if this goes well then next year might have to pay $5 to be female, another $2 to be an elf, $3 for a sorcerer, because the game only comes with a male human paladin … anyone pretending that this trend isn't progressing is kidding themselves.