Dragon Age 2 - Free Mass Effect 2 PC for All Owners

Dhruin

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Interesting marketing fairly soon after the release of Dragon Age 2... BioWare has announced "Sequel Celebration" - everyone who purchased Dragon Age 2 new can redeem a free download code for Mass Effect 2 PC. If you don't have DA2 yet, you have to April 30th to get in on the deal. The blurb also specifies Dragon Age 2 sales of 1M in the first two weeks, which is hard to compare because most of the sales figures we've seen for previous BioWare titles at this stage were sell-in numbers:
Thanks to gamers like you, Dragon Age II is off to a great start – breaking the 1 million mark in less than two weeks and faster than Dragon Age: Origins. We appreciate your support. As a special thank you for helping with the game's early success, BioWare would like to present you with a download code for 2010's Game of the Year, Mass Effect 2 on PC. As always, we sincerely appreciate your support and passion as we remain focused on delivering quality interactive experiences now and in the future. Look for more exciting things coming from Dragon Age, Mass Effect, and Star Wars: The Old Republic in the future, including our recent launch of Mass Effect 2 Arrival DLC.
Thanks to Kalniel for a similar submission.
In semi-related news, Alrik writes of a scavenger hunt at the German DA2 site to win an in-game item and Eurogamer has news of a 4th Mass Effect novel planned.
More information.
 
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While it does smell of desperation for further sales it's still a cool thing to do, especially since you get the PC version of ME2 even if you bought a console version of DA2. It could bring a lot of console gamers to the PC to try it out.
 
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Thats great but how many people that bought da2 don't already own me2?
 
2 games for the price of 1 is a good enough formula that it would attract those who wouldn't buy any of these games separately before.
 
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Thats great but how many people that bought da2 don't already own me2?

On the off chance someone bought it used - this one at least will come with cerberus access card for free like original purchases do.

And yes this may be somewhat desperate of a gesture to boost ME3 sales when that launches to make up for other dissapointments - but as gestures go this one is a heck of a lot nicer than crap like "blood dragon armor."
 
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5. Do I still get a Mass Effect 2 PC copy if I bought Dragon Age II on my console (Xbox 360 or Playstation 3)?

Yes you do. Everyone who purchased a new copy of Dragon Age II, no matter what system they purchased Dragon Age II for, is still eligible for a PC copy of Mass Effect 2.

6. I play on the Xbox 360 or Playstation 3, can I get a console copy instead?

No, the offer is for a digital download through the EA Store for Mass Effect 2 on the PC.
That is VERY interesting! I wonder if this will lead to a bunch of console owners discovering that their PC can, in fact, play games?
 
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That is VERY interesting! I wonder if this will lead to a bunch of console owners discovering that their PC can, in fact, play games?

Some of them will I hope - and some of them will discover just how terrible their graphics card is for playing anything besides WoW. Most people have laptops only now and most laptops have god awful 3d gaming performance. Now college students who are perhaps in an engineering program where the minimum recomended specs for their computer purchase included the ability to run things like AutoCAD probably will find out that "hey, this thing they carry around with them 24/7 is a not so bad game platform."

I do imagine some developers will look at this though and realize that part of the value of having a PC version of a major game like ME2 is that you can do this. Not only is digital distribution a cheaper prospect but the lack of licensing fees mean you can actually give it away. Without negotiating as special deal with either MS or Sony, giving away the console versions would riectly cost millions and millions of dollars as opposed to just the distribution costs and opportunity cost of potential lost sales.

If this boosts ME3 sales enough, the value of having a PC version of major releases may become far more tangible to companies. They'll see that it gives them at least one version of their major titles that they can use as sales boosting incentives - more than making up for the disparity in PC vs console sales of those releases.
 
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My brother bought me2 from ea store because of a sale. He never could get it to work. He said he researched online and many people had the same problem and fixed it by installing off a disc and then putting in the digital download code. He ended up buying the retail version after tech support was no help.

All of this is second hand information so I don't know if it's valid. But what a mess it will be if the give away the game and a lot of people can't get it to work.
 
I bet a lot of people won't because, as jhwisner said, a lot of people have mighty bad PCs when it comes to games. But they are a lost cause anyway, it's the ones that happened to buy a PC in the last year or two that may discover that their PC can do at least as well as their old console. Maybe some folks will look into why their cruddy PC can't play ME2 and buy themselves a $50 video card so it can play the game.
 
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Its just desperation the sales of DA2 fell quick so now there trying to get people to buy the game. As said before its a good deal but frankly I dont care.

There is no point in supporting a boat with many leaks. Let it sink and make sure the third one is not a disappointment.
 
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Heh ~ Bioware, "We're so desperate to sell this crappy Dragon Age II, that in return we'll give you an equally crappy game!"
 
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DAII sold 1 million copies in two weeks, not bad for a sinking ship....

It seems they are gearing towards ME3, and who can blame them. The casual gamer market is lapping it all up. It signals the end of Bioware making games for true gamers.
 
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It seems they are gearing towards ME3, and who can blame them. The casual gamer market is lapping it all up. It signals the end of Bioware making games for true gamers.

This promotion is designed to pull in anyone who hasn't bought into the Mass Effect universe as of yet. In my mind, it is clearly a marketing move aimed to sell more units of Mass Effect 3. Specifically, I think it is designed to try and catch the PC RPG fans, who obviously have good enough PCs to play Dragon Age II already, and get them interested in Bioware's upcoming release.

I learned my lesson last time with ME 2 though. I will not buy ME3 until it suffers from some dramatic price drops. Cross platform games just don't seem to hold value in the PC market at all. I also personally felt ME2 was a step down from the complexity/fun I had with ME1.
 
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...is a classic NIN album!

Remarkable little incentive from those cuddly BioWarians at EA. Kind of adds salt to the injury tho' for those who were already yelling "get your Shepherd out of my DA II!"
 
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I would think the number of console players who don't already own ME2 but will buy a new video card to play it on PC is vanishingly small.

I'm more interested in the people with Macs who could run it through bootcamp.
 
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