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Dragon Age - Collector's Edition and Preorder PR
BioWare and EA have sent out a PR on the Dragon Age Collector's Edition and the Pre-Order Program:
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Preordering sausages?
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Information about the sausage was left out so's as to not damage the sales. ;)
So all NEW copies of DA:O come with Shale and the armor. Used copies will have used those up? How do they tell a used copy from re-installing an old copy? |
I wonder how far off we are from the standard game only containing half the game. To actually get to the end you need to buy the collectors edition. Kind of like a return to shareware.
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Any reason their homepage is full of blood? It's a little over the top if you ask me. Is this the homepage for True Blood or Dragon Age.
You know I've been defending DA a bit. Even with the Manson trailer (Still didn't think it was that bad and definatly fun to put into your comments every now and then), but come on we get it. It's a bloody game… lots and lots of blood. I'm beginning to think that this is a Vampire the Masquarade game. The marketing guys must think that blood = cool and mature. Here is a great thing to put in the collectors edition A Blood Pack :D |
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Iam either gonna buy this one or Risen. Not sure yet, Risen gives me a better vibe….
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I fear that these people are also the targeted audience for DA. |
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Yeah, I don't like the new "blood and white" site. Plus, loading times are a pain for me, so I rarely visit it. |
If the CE is not released in EU too then Ill just buy it for pennies when its in special sale year or more from now.
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AFAICT both Shale and the armor are available for the normal version as well.
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(Shale is featured in DA: The Stolen Throne, btw.) |
Here's hoping that the cloth map is larger than a cocktail napkin. Also, I didn't see any mention of an art book. Did I miss that?
Call me old school, but I don't want to pay $75 for in-game bonuses. I liked when CE's contained real-world loot (like the cloth map, art book, figurines, coins, whatever). "Making of …" DVDs are nice, I guess, but not really a bonus in my book. Soundtracks are nice, if the music is really good (Morrowind and Age of Empires III come to mind). I know "to each his own" (and I guess I've just described "my own") but the quality of CEs have declined in my view. I mean, do you really want to pay extra for a *virtual* item. Just my 2c |
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The press release is definitely confusing. It would be nice if one of the Bioware or EA folks could shed some light on how this actually works. |
FREE CLOTH MAP :D Too many fond memories of Ultima to pass on a cloth map over a few lousy dollars.
Still think they should put in a blood pack. |
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If so, that makes me mad. http://www.cartoon-secrets.com/Photos/DroopyDog2.jpg |
Not at all PJ. It means that you register the code online on your BioWare account, so all you have to do is simply login to your BW account and download it again. They did the same for ME: Bring Down the Sky.
What Dgaider means is: If someone has already registered the code coming with the game to their account, then sells you their DVDs, you can't re-use their code on your account to activate the downloadable content. You can only activate it once, but once it is activated, you can download as many times as you want. At least that's how I understood it. Correct me if I'm wrong, Dgaider. |
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Agreed. Just about every other market has some kind of incentive to buy new.. a game that works 100% as well as the day it was bought kind of doesn't so why shouldn't they add something to reward people who are helping them stay in business? It's not like you can't play the game second hand or anything if you want to save the money.
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This quote from the lead programmer might be interesting, referring to this thread: http://daforums.bioware.com/viewtopi…9524&forum=135. It's honest at least (typos sic):
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I like it; while I don't like EA, for obvious reasons, I still think DA will be a success and his honesty is refreshing.
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Yeah, it´s nice to get info from obviously correct multidudes.
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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 …
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Everyone else will still be free to download Warden's Keep normally, from the Bioware social site (which is the delivery mechanism, no different than downloading something from Steam or what have you). It's not being "held back". |
Ah that is starting to make some more sense. Thanks Dgaider.
I don't want to buy a CE edition as I prefer digital editions now (and my wife won't let me put up game posters/maps even though is is my computer room…). If I can purchase a digital edition and still get all the in-game items I am OK with that even though it is starting to sound like digital rust proofing and undercoating :| |
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. |
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Watcher´s Keep
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Walp, I'm not going for the CE. If I like it enough, I may opt for the extra DLC; if not, that's 15 bucks saved.
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I'm basically getting this for the map. What can I say I'm a sucker for cloth maps. They're great for covering up CD cases or hanging on the wall in the computer room. Call it nostalgia if you will, but 15 dollars doesn't seem too high a price to pay for a cool decoration. I spend more on Christmas decorations than a measly 15 dollars and I don't have to take it down after the holidays.
The extra content is just a bonus for me. |
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Unless your complaint is that, because Watcher's Keep is available when the game comes out, it should be included in the game for free? It's being worked on by a seperate team. I could maybe see the complaint if you weren't already getting a complete game that is a pretty hefty size all on its own, but you are. Suggesting that the farmer who offers you a bushel of apples for $1 should sell you two bushels for the same price because they're both in his truck doesn't make much sense -- this content was always intended to be seperate. You can call us disingenous if you wish, but I don't see what's so difficult to understand. I know there is a fair amount of anxiety with relation to DLC because of what some other companies have done, but what we're doing seems pretty simple to me. Everyone who buys an original copy of the game gets Shale for free -- a full companion that was a great deal of work for the PRC team to restore -- and those who buy the digital version of the CE get Warden's Keep for free. Otherwise those things are available for download, as no doubt will other things created by the PRC team. If you don't want any of those things, don't purchase them. DAO is a complete package on its own. |
Let me clarify - and also thank you very much for taking the time to engage me in this discussion! To an extent it is moot since I already did my GameSpot pre-order …
Couple of things: - The fact that for $5 more than the X360 standard version I get the full CE content is another nice reason to be a PC gamer :) - When I spoke of Throne of Bhaal and Watcher's Keep, I wasn't saying that they should be offered for free, but since Throne of Bhaal is in itself a complete expansion without Watcher's Keep, there was no reason that Bioware couldn't have held back Watcher's Keep as a $5 post release add-on … but they didn't, because until ~2006 and the X360 and micro-transactions, with EA leading the way by charging for tutorials and manuals, that sort of thing wasn't done. - In other words, starting with EA and Bethesda there was more and more of an appearance of companies setting aside content that was ready for day of release to be used as an added revenue stream. Again, I understand the economics - heck, I remember paying $60 for a Sega game for my brother in law way back in the early Genesis days, though PC games were still cheaper then. |
I agree, in fact, with what Ross Gardner says (in the quote above). Games are a business now, they certainly weren't 10 or 12 years ago. As for the price of a game, 11½ years ago, I would pay about 350 Danish Crowns (DKK) for a new game; today I still pay 349 DKK for new a game, or maybe 399 DKK for a new game. If we ser inflation to say 2-2½% a year, I would pay at least 25-30% more for a new, possibly more, maybe up to 50% more for a new game, making a new game cost between 449-549 DKK, possibly closer to the latter price. [Prices are in DKK, since it is really difficult to compare prices today in US dollars with US dollars 11½ years ago, because of the currency exchange rate that may have been different back then].
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…. As for the DLC in Dragon Age: Origins, I would like to know how many hours, we can expect to be playing, 5 hours, 10 hours or 15 hours… And 15 US dollars for a DLC pack is a bit steep, I think…. |
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On the same side, they have pretty much said that the practice of holding back parts of the game is in order to supplement part of the revenue stream lost to piracy and used game sales / trading. So once again, it is the matter of paying customers losing out in many ways - DRM, single-use DLC, held-back content being sold for extra money, and so on. *We* are paying for the pirates in both figurative and literal ways now. 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. |
I'm not getting the issue, Mike. It seems a reasonable approach to me to make the digital CE more attractive. I also don't understand the "single use" complaint; didn't we establish it will be tied to your Bioware account, allowing you to access it as required?
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Put another way, I have no objections to not paying for things I don't play, and I think that a pricing scheme that's more fine-grained than the currently dominant "all or nothing" one might serve both game makers and game players better. Hell, I have nothing in principle against rent-type game licenses, that would for example allow only a single play-through, or a single activated installation. My objections are practical -- prices do not currently reflect the installation limits, and the games are still masquerading as something you buy rather than something you rent. |
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