Dragon Age DLC "while supplies last" » Forum Post by taltamir

In the EA sub-forum, Zoomba has already indicated they still have plenty of keys available.

As for what will happen after those keys are spent... it seems you'd have to start paying for that supposedly integral part of the DDE (according to BioWare).

If you're wondering why the need for this, remember it's EA we're talking about.

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Wee another money grab from EA. Please sir can I have some more?

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EA can money grub all they want, I'm still getting the Wardens Keep DLC for 7$. Do they suck donkey balls? Yeap....Am I still gonna get it so I have all things Dragon Age? ....Yeap.

...Those bastards....

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Betcha Legal or someone threw it on there as a 'just-in-case-something-breaks'. Not a money-grabbing scheme.

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"While supplies last" is a standard scheme designed to coerce potential buyers into actually buying, even if they're unsure. It adds an element of psychological pressure... you know, "get it while you still can!" type of thing.

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Quoting Kitkun,

reply 4

Betcha Legal or someone threw it on there as a 'just-in-case-something-breaks'. Not a money-grabbing scheme.

Not a money-grabbing scheme. Just a marketing one.

Quoting ManSh00ter,

reply 5

"While supplies last" is a standard scheme designed to coerce potential buyers into actually buying, even if they're unsure. It adds an element of psychological pressure... you know, "get it while you still can!" type of thing.

I don't like this trend. Not at all.

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Quoting Kitkun,

reply 4

Betcha Legal or someone threw it on there as a 'just-in-case-something-breaks'. Not a money-grabbing scheme.

Just in case they can't give out more digital copies of something they can just make more copies of on the fly. Nonsense. I am not buying it. If it's a marketing scheme, it's still a money grab. Marketing is meant to drive sales which brings in... money.

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OR, despite the bitterness here, it could be like some of the stardock people mentioned in that they only got a certain number of keys for that DLC, and as such, if they run out of keys, they might not be able to give you access to it. Whether or not EA will give them more keys, it would be irresponsible on the part of stardock to guarantee access to something that they have a limited quantity of when they're not the source.

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Quoting AQuantumEvent,

reply 8

OR, despite the bitterness here, it could be like some of the stardock people mentioned in that they only got a certain number of keys for that DLC, and as such, if they run out of keys, they might not be able to give you access to it. Whether or not EA will give them more keys, it would be irresponsible on the part of stardock to guarantee access to something that they have a limited quantity of when they're not the source.

And what good reason would EA have to deny a legal distributor copies to more keys?

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Stardock employ their own legal team, so I can assure you that they wouldn't be telling their customers that this is a limited offer if it was in fact not limited. The repercussions wouldn't be to their liking should someone enquire. Regardless of how you spin this, it's a cash grab. This is the same as the "First 100 people get this free product" type of marketing, which is a great way to either promote the free product or entice people to purchase the other product. Now, this normally makes sense when you only actually have 100 of that free product. If it's entirely reproduceable at no additional expesne, like Digital Content, the only reason to offer it to a small percentage of Deluxe, or whatever, Edition customers is revenue generation - and it's unethical because they've already paid more than the other customers and proven that they're fans of your game before it's even been released. Then again, the only reason to have pay-to-play launch day DLC is additional profit, so restricting access to that content to only a select few helps make it more enticing, regardless of how unethical the practice behind it is.

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The launch day DLC was actually an attempt to either curb purchasing of used games, for which the company generates no revenue, or to make some money off of used games, since, across all platforms (although not applicable to digital distribution), the Stone Prisoner DLC is only available to the first purchaser (Tied to your XBLA or PSN account, probably), requiring someone who purchases it secondhand or via gamestop used games to buy it separately.

The warden's keep is part of the collector's, but I applaud them making it available to someone who might not want the collectors, or perhaps doesn't have the money for it now, but can grab that later. *shrug* They're simply making the collector's bonus available to others, for a fee. That's pretty logical.

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Quoting AQuantumEvent,

reply 11

They're simply making the collector's bonus available to others, for a fee. That's pretty logical.

What they've done is break up the content to ensure maximum sales; you purchase the pieces you want. Nothing wrong with that in my opinion. However, what they appear doing is limiting the availability of the bonus even to people who purchase the collector's edition - you pay the additional money for the collector's edition and you still have to pay for that particular piece of the bonus content for no reason - it's digital content, it costs nothing to re-produce.

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True enough, and if it becomes an issue, it would suck. Hopefully EA supplies them with new keys if/when needed. If not, well, stardock is pretty good about refunds from what I understand (never returned a product myself).

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Quoting AQuantumEvent,

reply 8

OR, despite the bitterness here, it could be like some of the stardock people mentioned in that they only got a certain number of keys for that DLC, and as such, if they run out of keys, they might not be able to give you access to it.

Yep. And EA did this to all distributors. GameStop ran out a while ago.

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i personally dislike the lottery aspect... "pay 15$ extra for the collector's and you may or may not get a 7$ item with it..."

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Quoting taltamir,

reply 15

i personally dislike the lottery aspect... "pay 15$ extra for the collector's and you may or may not get a 7$ item with it..."

What's lottery about it? Stardock has said there are plenty of keys for it, there is no lottery. They have good customer support.

Gamestop...not so much.

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Provided they notify people when they run out of keys, it's not really lottery or misinformative.

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Dragon Age is the perfect game for me.

I'm not going to buy it.

Announcing a DLC even before the game is released is an insult. In fact, this business practice causes me to never ever buy a product from any company embracing consumer exploitation like this.

I wish EA financial ruin.

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Quoting Aroddo,

reply 18

Dragon Age is the perfect game for me.

I'm not going to buy it.

Announcing a DLC even before the game is released is an insult. In fact, this business practice causes me to never ever buy a product from any company embracing consumer exploitation like this.

I wish EA financial ruin.

Despite the fact that one of the "DLC" packs is included with all new copies, and the other is part of the collector's edition? That's not exploitation, because you can get them as part of your purchase, without paying additional fees.

+1

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Quoting AQuantumEvent,

reply 19

Despite the fact that one of the "DLC" packs is included with all new copies, and the other is part of the collector's edition? That's not exploitation, because you can get them as part of your purchase, without paying additional fees.

You know what else it is not, not actually waiting for player feedback to expand the game. I guess with 2 years of DLC already lined up, no reason to find out what fans want, or what the game needs, only what EA thinks it can sell.

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They never actually said that they had the specific content planned out, just that they had plans to release more content on for about 2 years on a rough schedule. And actually they've already started talking to the community about these things over on the dragon age forums on bioware's site. They've taken ideas, and will continue to take feedback. I know you want to demonize EA, but bioware is trying to do things right for the community.

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Quoting AQuantumEvent,

reply 21

They never actually said that they had the specific content planned out, just that they had plans to release more content on for about 2 years on a rough schedule. And actually they've already started talking to the community about these things over on the dragon age forums on bioware's site. They've taken ideas, and will continue to take feedback. I know you want to demonize EA, but bioware is trying to do things right for the community.

You don't know me so don't pretend like you do. If you want to worship the ground EA and Bioware walks on, that's your choice. It has nothing to do with me.

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Okay, wish me luck on this, guys. Here's the plan:

While I loved the Baldur's Gate games (especially BG2) and I followed DA:O very closely, I am not going to rush out and buy this game. The temptation is great--I've already read good reviews, and the game does not even have obnoxious DRM. However, I am going to wait about a year. As I figure it, that will be enough time for Bioware to do a proper expansion and bundle it--along with all of the DLC--into a "Game of the Year" edition. And that will be the version that I buy: lots of content, all patched up, discounted price.

As has already been said, EA/Bioware wants to draw you in with all of the DLC trickling out, hoping that you will buy it all individually. However, if you can just wait until they bundle it all togehter into the Gold or GotY edition, you'll get a great deal of content at a discount. They all do it this way--Oblivion, Fallout 3, Neverwinter Nights, the Sims 2, Dawn of War, etc.

Now, I'm not saying that I'll be able to resist the temptation to buy DA:O pretty shortly. But that's the plan. Wait until the Game of the Year edition.

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I do trust stardock, but I don't trust EA. And EA is the one holding all the cards here.

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@the_hunger: Sounds like a solid plan and I wish you luck. However, I knew that I would never hold out that long and went ahead and bought it.

http://xkcd.com/606/ :

+1

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