Dragon Age - DLC Nets a Million
 

Money talks… Electronic Arts executive vice president and CFO Eric Brown discloses sales figures for DA:O DLC.
More information.

I had the Stone Prisoner thing included, but I didn't pre-order. I didn't know it was only for pre-orders (apparantly not!).

Stone Prisoner was not for pre order. Every dvd rom had card which had Stone Prisoner and Blood Dragon armour code in it (at least here in UK)

However if you pre order you got 1 or 2 in game items.

Bloody hell, that's a good effort. Assuming that nobody's really paid for stone prisoner yet (as that'd only be for second hand purchases) that's nearly 150k sales of warden's keep in only a week or so!

Fingers crossed it's beating their expectations and they make bigger chunks of DLC because they think they'll recoup the investment.

When you compare DLC pricing for games such as Dragon Age, Fallout 3 and Oblivion with cost of NWN premium modules, you will see that there is something wrong with that picture. Modules like Mysteries of Westgate or Wyvern Crown of Cormyr had lots of quality content for small amount of money. MoW costs 10$ and has some 10-15 hours of gameplay for single playtrough, with addition of multiple endings and quest solutions that will allow player to replay it more then one with different feel. Then compare that with horse armor and 15$ companion.

I'll just wait for a package deal. $7 for 2 hours gameplay is just not right.

MoW was pretty cheap though IMO. And I'd say there's a difference between the engine creators using DLC to improve profit margins on what they've taken a massive financial risk on and (albeit high quality) amateurs using someone else's engine.

The first rule of DLC is if think it is too expensive then don't buy it. No one is forcing you to get it.

The second rule is that if you choose to not buy it don't whine about it.

$15 stone prisoner in each box, so they've sold roughly 60k copies of the game? Is this a surprise?

This makes no sense to me. If we feel something is overpriced, anything, be it DLC or not, why shouldn't we express our opinion? Yes, it's less meaningful than simply choosing not to purchase with one's currency vote, but that doesn't mean it's meaningless.

I bought the Warden's Keep DLC for DA:O. Until I played it I could not guess at it's worth. Now that I have played it, I felt it was most certainly overpriced for the amount of content but I'm not terribly remorseful for having bought it since I'm enjoying the game as a whole so much. But I certainly should let others who feel they are like-minded to me know what I think so they can make a more informed judgment than I did when I purchased.

BillSeurer first rule sounds fine, however you really need to reconsider the second. :)

I could be reading it wrong but, your premise seems to be: If you don't like it, don't tell anyone else, it could interfere with my profits. Or to put it another way, *Having a opinion (gaming in this case) is not allowed, unless it benefits the developer.*

See? You agree with me. :thumbsup: Until you tried it you had no idea if it was worth it to you. I wait for reviews before buying any DLC; despite me liking Mass Effect and Fallout 3 I never bought any DLC for either.

It's the incessant whining about this stuff that bugs me. "Oh they're trying to rip us all off and it should have been part of the full game and DLC kills cute kittens and is going to bring about the end of the world in 2012 and …" If someone brings up the damn horse armor in Oblivion AGAIN… :furious:

Hang on - my game didn't come with Stone Prisoner and I'm in the UK - did I miss out?

Yes. Where did you buy it from?

My mistake - I just turned over the Blood Armour glossy brochure. Bloody lucky as I threw out the plastic case a few days ago. :)

BillSuerer +1 Pretty much nails it for me too. Nobody is forcing you to whip out your credit card. Don't buy DLC if you don't feel it's justified, but don't whine about not getting it for free.

However, I don't have a problem with folks who have bought DLC reviewing it for the rest of us and telling an opinion whether it was worth the expense. To me, that's a great idea. I don't think Bill has an issue with this either.

I actually agree with you, but the Keep helps you for the rest of the game via storage, vendor and a metalsmith. That said, I got a keep in Baldur's Gate 2 just for going to the first tavern. It cost me nothing.

I suspected that's where you were coming from. I've explained elsewhere why I've tended to dislike DLC. It's not because of the kitten killing ;), it's because I like to play an entire game w/ any in-OC addons on my first playthrough. So 0-day DLC actually appealed to me and I went ahead and purchased Warden's Keep. As I said I don't really regret it.

However, I do feel the amount of content in all DLC to date (for every game of interest to me and for which I've read DLC reviews) has not been in line with their prices for us as consumers. When I compare them to quality expansions of yesteryear, even adjusted for inflation, which have a similar advantage in that the engine is complete and much of the game assets can be reused, I find the content : price ratio to be poor. I think it's important for people to speak up about this even if it's opinion and speculation. I am not arguing that DLC should be free or that they are cutting out OC material for DLC - although it may have been the case on occasion. But it's entirely possible they are gouging on DLC because many consumers don't have the self-control to resist. Of course one can live without DLC! In fact, Warden's Keep is the first DLC I've ever bought for any game and I intend to be similarly cautious in the future. But why not discuss these feelings within a community like this? I suppose I'd rather put up with a little paranoid whining - irksome as it indeed is - if it has even the possibility of engendering productive critical discussion amongst consumers. The only power we consumers have against anti-consumer practices is communication and protest via not buying or convincing others not to buy a product.

And while some of the paranoia about DLC is obviously just that. If consumers remain careless about their purchases (microtransactions are even more dangerous for this) then, eventually, some of those conspiracy theories are likely to come true. The devs and publishers are out to make money, and I applaud them in that and want the good ones to thrive. But if we don't foster intelligent consumerism amongst our peers, it will negatively affect us all because they will take advantage of us.

We probably largely agree on all of this. I just want to be careful to avoid extinguishing critical discussion in order to weed out pointless whining. At times the two can appear awfully similar and often it takes awareness of a post author's previous opinions and point of view to distinguish between the two.

Crap - after writing all that I'm torn between being too embarrassed to post such a monstrosity and not wanting to make all that typing be for naught by not posting it. On the bright side, probably no one will have the patience to read it. :)

This isn't how I read it. I think this is additional income from sales of Warden's Keep, not adding up the freebies.

And why do you whine about someone criticizing a product one thinks its overpriced, especially compared to similar products. I was not aware that there was universal set of rules made to forbid customers from making negative opinions about products they bought. There is nothing wrong with DLC if they offer their moneys worth, problem is not in developers but in customers that will buy anything no matter the price (horse armor, horse armor, HORSE ARMOR!!!!). I bought Dragon Age and would like to expand my gaming experience by purchasing DLC but what Bioware offers is too little for the price. What you suggest is that everyone who has negative opinion needs to shut the hell up, I think that fans need to openly say that this ratio of price and content is not right, because thats the only way to fix this problem.

I think the developers need to stop releasing DLC at are only a few hours long months after the game release. Customers won't play the game over again just for a couple of hours of content. The sales would be much better if they made mini expansions of about 15 - 20 hours. One way they could do this is actively try to find some outside developers to do this which would be good for smaller and indie developers. They could then release several mini expansions for the game that people would be willing to start a new game to play and the main developer could focus on a new game or full expansion.

PS. I'm not sure but isn't this what they did with NWN or were the premium modules done by Bioware.

Same. The Stone Prisoner in every box is not $15, it's $0. It's basically a form of copy protection. It means they've sold at least 142 858 (assuming no one has payed $15 for Stone Prisoner) of Warden's Keep. I think we're very likely to see more DLC, but I do hope it's more substantial than Warden's Keep. It was a quality 2 hours, but still only 2 hours. The storage is nice, though, and the items, and one of the abilities is very useful.

I think you have totally misread what Bill is saying. Nowhere did he say that negative opinions were not welcomed. There is a difference between, one the one hand, evaluating a product so that the rest of us can make a more informed decision (that is a good thing to do) and, on the other hand, whinging about the existence of DLC at all, or saying that it is wrong for Bioware to release a two hour DLC for $7. It's the people who buy it, knowing what they're buying, and then whinge that they've been ripped off (usually this is where the asinine horse armor references come into it) that really bug me.

WK is a very enjoyable 2 hours, and it gives you som interesting insights into the history of the Grey Wardens. If you take the time to read all the codex entries you get, you're getting more than 2 hours worth of content really. You also collect a nice set of armor that has a unique (as far as I can tell) model. You get a couple of merchants who sell some nice stuff, and of course permanent storage. I don't regret any of the money I've spent on DA, ($138 AU, which is roughly $127 US) the game is easily good enough to justify the money I've spent.

I would prefer the next DLC to be longer, though. WK worked well as a day 1 DLC, but I'll want 5 - 10 hours out of the next one.

So if I dont plan to buy the DLC I should not comment on it? You dont need to purchase something to see that its overpriced. Also the logic of not criticizing something as long as someone is willing to buy it does not work for me. In my opinion, as I already said, the only way for developers to change their business model is by voice of the fans and not shutting your ears, eyes and mouths. I am a big Bioware fan, I own all their games (besides JE and ME) and I am willing to support them by buying DLC and expansions in the future but I will not buy something so overpriced.

I bought Warden's Keep - it is not worth 7$.

Some minor battles, some weapons, some dialog < 1 hour.

+1. Plus, devs need to stop putting in game advertisement for their DLC. I've already talked about this before, but that freaking guy in the camp pisses me off to no end. I don't want to see him if I did not pay for DLC and I especially don't want to see a dialogue option (buy Warden's Keep).

I'm passing on this DLC partly because of the reviews here and partly because of that advertisement. I will have one quest that will never get finished now.

It's funny, but this is why I like DLC. I like having the option to add new stuff to my campaign. I just don't like it when they add in immersion breaking dialogue options and that downloadable 'stuff' needs to have a little more meat on its bones before I get it or it's just not worth it.

To all those complaining about cost of DLC,

Bio has released their tool set for free. This is going to give us lots of wounderful add-ons for free. Some of these add on may even be better than the game!

If they wanted to milk us for the last penny they do have to do this.

I wonder how many others do this…

You're comment appears to assume that people who are complaining about DLC are complaining about Dragon Age, or Bioware. I love DA so far and I generally quite like Bioware. And I love that they released the toolkit as I love modding.

That doesn't affect my opinion about the DLC being overpriced or that I don't like in-game DLC-mongerers peddling out-of-game products. Sure, the DLC doesn't exist in a vacuum. But if we are supposed to treat it as it's own product, and not a shaved off component of the OC (and I do treat it as it's own product) then we should be able to judge it on its own merits.

I spy, with my little eye, a "not welcomed" wrapped in a blanket ad hominem.