Dragon Age - Collector's Edition and Preorder PR

Originally Posted by txa1265
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.

I don't know, seems fair enough to me . . . a carrot for people buying in a way that increases profits for the developers rather than a stick, seems a better way to increase revenue than some of the alternatives.

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.

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):

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. 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.

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.

Yeah, it´s nice to get info from obviously correct multidudes.
…

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 txa1265
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 …

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.

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.

Originally Posted by Dgaider
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.

Quoted for intricacy.

Watcher´s Keep

Originally Posted by DeepO
Watcher´s Keep

I started correctly … lost track in the copy & paste …

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.

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.

Originally Posted by txa1265
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.

Sorry, not sure what you're trying to say here. Watcher's Keep was part of an expansion to BG2 -- which is PRC (post-release content) just like DLC is. The only difference is the method of delivery.

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….

Originally Posted by aries100
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….

Really? So you are assuming that the folks who pirate the core game will have *any* problem finding the DLC to pirate as well? Hehe … naive!

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?

Originally Posted by txa1265
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.

If the pricing model was fairly done, though, I would have no objections to it. If the base game cost, say, $10, with character options priced like you describe, an individual play-through might cost $20, with each dramatically new character build costing another $10 or so. For games I really like, I probably would end up paying up to $60 or so; for games I never complete, I'd be paying $20, and for games I like well enough to play through twice, I'd be paying $30 or so.

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.