Buy Dragon Age 2, Get Mass Effect 2 Free - UPDATED

[RvLeshrac]

Do you think that maybe I use steam for its community features? Or perhaps because it has an offline feature? OR perhaps I would rather only have one game manager on my PC? You're not as clever as you think.

None of that changes the fact that Steam is DRM that phones home to ensure legitimacy. Also, yes I am.

Steam DRM is 100% optional.

I rarely run games without Steam loaded, but I have at least a dozen games purchased via Steam that don't require Steam running, or even installed.

 

[Ickorus]

I love that they're doing this, I may have to tell some friends about it so they get the game and can stop talking out of their asses about how bad the game is seeing as none of them have even fucking played it yet.

 

[Sheaphard117]

Sweet deal!

 

[JRE311]

I understand this is a great oppertunity for those who want these games and either have not had the money or time to get them, but my problem is where is the love for those people like me. I bought ME, ME2, DA:O, and DA2 on release I have beatten each multiple time and love the bioware franchises. May be it's just a little sour grapes but it would be nice to get a little recougnition for the support of bioware

 

[FieryTrainwreck]

Now, I'm not saying that ten children on the web are entirely responsible for creating this tempest in a teacup, but I don't think Bioware is quaking in their boots over DA2 sales at all, and I don't think DA2's lifetime sales are going to be bad. They might be lower than some other Bioware games, but most companies would probably kill for a million sales in 2 weeks.

DA2 sales are not an unmitigated disaster, but they are far below expectations. Some analysts were predicting upwards of 4.5 million total units across all three platforms, but the numbers we've seen so far suggest they'll be lucky to reach half that. Pre-sales generated close to half a million, and the initial two week surge put them over one million. Since then? Precipitous drops - enough to prompt something as drastic as giving away free games.

I understand what you're trying to say here, but I have to disagree with your assertion that this promotion is in anyway selfless on the part of EA/Bioware. It's damage control. If they want to do right by their fans, they should devote an appropriate amount of time to the development of future sequels. That's what interests me - a good company putting in the hours to create a quality game and subsequently reaping the financial rewards. I don't care as much for companies that get their hands stuck in the cookie jar and begrudgingly offer to return one of the cookies.

I understand this is a great oppertunity for those who want these games and either have not had the money or time to get them, but my problem is where is the love for those people like me. I bought ME, ME2, DA:O, and DA2 on release I have beatten each multiple time and love the bioware franchises. May be it's just a little sour grapes but it would be nice to get a little recougnition for the support of bioware

You've hit upon the primary disconnect. It's not a "celebration" between Bioware and their most loyal fans. It's a celebration between Bioware and people who haven't purchased DA2 yet. It's kind of like those celebrations you see in car commercials. The bullshit kind.

 

[RvLeshrac]

I boggle at the naivety in this thread.

Regardless of how you feel about the game, this much is certain: they rushed DA2 badly. You can see signs of it everywhere, from the recycled environments to the abridged fetch quests. And if you don't believe your own eyes, trust the soundtrack's composer; he basically outted them for rushing to market. 14 months in development when the original game took five years? C'mon. You don't save that much time reusing a mediocre engine and a few assets.

So why did they push for such an insane timetable? Why compromise the quality of your product so blatantly? Was it for us? Did we need DA2 right this goddamn second? Of course not. They did it for money. That's it. They wanted to shorten the dev time and pocket the savings. Sure, the game suffered, and yeah, some folks would hate. But brand loyalty and intense marketing would generate enough sales to bridge the gap, right?

Now here they are giving away free copies of ME2 if you buy DA2, and people are gullible enough to defend this as benevolent behavior? Isn't this the company that just knowingly rushed a game to market, with clear negative side effects, in order to make more money off the lot of us? Why in the world would they do something so contrary to the character they just demonstrated not two months ago?

If you benefit from this promotion, great. More fun to you. If you loved DA2, fine. You were somehow well-served by their short shrifting. Me? I've got a crazy idea. Instead of so generously taking a bath on a game giveaway no one asked for, how about you go ahead and save that money so you have enough to properly finish your next sequel.

TLDR version: it's a promotion aimed at counteracting the immense (and deserved) dropoff in DA2 sales.

I'd like to point out that the publishers are often the ones who get to decide when the game comes out, not the developer.

In other words, just chalk another point on the "EA Scale of Evil."

Leave BioWare alone, they're still our good buddies!!! T_T

Fallacy. While publishers have some control, the developer has a large amount of leeway, if they ask for it. This is especially true for developers like Bioware, Blizzard, and Rockstar.

Vanguard is the current classic case of this, where the game was constantly delayed and rewritten as Brad went through all of the development funds and tried the patience of three different publishers before SOE finally told him to ship or get off the pot.

A publisher will give a developer *PLENTY* of time to complete a title - that's what's in the shareholders' best interests.

 

[JRE311]

I understand this is a great oppertunity for those who want these games and either have not had the money or time to get them, but my problem is where is the love for those people like me. I bought ME, ME2, DA:O, and DA2 on release I have beatten each multiple time and love the bioware franchises. May be it's just a little sour grapes but it would be nice to get a little recougnition for the support of bioware

You've hit upon the primary disconnect. It's not a "celebration" between Bioware and their most loyal fans. It's a celebration between Bioware and people who haven't purchased DA2 yet. It's kind of like those celebrations you see in car commercials. The bullshit kind.

I understand why they are doing this and I'm ok with it just wanted to get my feeling about it out there. I will buy TOR, ME3, and DA:3 when they make it because I have played all of Bioware?s RPGs and i have yet to find any of them to not be excellent, some better that others but all around fantastic.

 

[Jimmy T. Malice]

Yay, trying to boost the sales of a poor game by offering a free copy of an awesome game! Does anyone still not own Mass Effect 2?

 

[Taerdin]

Yay, trying to boost the sales of a poor game by offering a free copy of an awesome game! Does anyone still not own Mass Effect 2?

I don't own Mass Effect 2, but I would sooner buy that at it's current reduced price than pay $60 for DA2 for it.

Don't get me wrong, I'm pumped about DA2, but I want ME2 on steam, and I can afford to wait on DA2 before buying it.

 

[The.Bard]

DA2 sales are not an unmitigated disaster, but they are far below expectations. Some analysts were predicting upwards of 4.5 million total units across all three platforms, but the numbers we've seen so far suggest they'll be lucky to reach half that. Pre-sales generated close to half a million, and the initial two week surge put them over one million. Since then? Precipitous drops - enough to prompt something as drastic as giving away free games.

I understand what you're trying to say here, but I have to disagree with your assertion that this promotion is in anyway selfless on the part of EA/Bioware. It's damage control. If they want to do right by their fans, they should devote an appropriate amount of time to the development of future sequels. That's what interests me - a good company putting in the hours to create a quality game and subsequently reaping the financial rewards. I don't care as much for companies that get their hands stuck in the cookie jar and begrudgingly offer to return one of the cookies.

Dang you and your agreeable logic. Why, why, WHY didn't I break your legs?!? *ahem* Sorry, had to give you a Farnsworth quote to congratulate you on your great debating success.

I can often be verbose, so my points are often lost in a large jumble. What I was trying to say is not that Bioware is being selfless or generous, but that we are being given something for free. Whether it's a cost to them or not isn't as important to me as they are providing something at $0 cost of their own volition. I just don't see anger/outrage as an acceptable response to this. Accept the gift and make use of it, or shrug and walk away if you're not interested. The entitled anger confuses me. (I'm using the universal 'you,' so please don't think I'm literally pointing at you, because you seem quite level headed in this discussion)

Although in talking to a coworker about the issue, I think I'm beginning to see the crux of this whole thing. The nerdrage seems to be less about the giving of ME2, and much more about anger over DA2's quality (or the perceived lack thereof).

Initially, I thought the feeling seemed to be: "How dare you give me ME2 for free when I wanted something else!"

But the more I see, the anger seems to lean more towards: "I'm angry DA2 was less than I wanted, and I want more than this to compensate me for your failure."

I may be wrong, but that's what it seems like. I am in no way defending the sales drops, as you may be 100% correct. Warranted or not, there is certainly a perceived drop in quality on the internet that may prevent people from trying the game. Which I think is sad, because the game is nowhere near as bad as the people shouting claim it to be.

Honestly, I think the critics want to put Bioware into the fire no matter what they do. If they said they were going to give away ME3 for free on PC, I think people would STILL be complaining. Which I think is a shame, but such is life on the the interwebz.

 

[justnotcricket]

I wish it wasn't just the PC version though - I have been wanting to get into ME, but my dinosaur PC sure as hell isn't going to run anything like it =( So I play my Bioware games on PS3 (I know, that precludes me from playing ME1, but I could live with that).

 

[zombiejoe]

So your telling me I could have just waited to get free Cerberus network, instead of preordering the game?


my response

 

[anthony87]

I have a(possibly dumb)question.

If I get Mass Effect through this deal and use the EA downloader, can I use and DLC if I purchase it through Steam?

 

[gring]

Why this upsets me is not because some people are going to play ME2 for free. Grats to them, seriously.

But why it upsets me is that because I already own ME2, I don't get anything from this. If this is supposed to be a gift to "loyal fans", then its meaningless if I don't actually get anything.

Not only that, but the deal is mostly there to encourage more people who don't have the game and don't know any better to buy it, and not for "damage control" to the people who already have it, because if it really was to chill out their "loyal fans" they would gift something that includes every person who actually bought the game, like some DLC, because content is what the game really needs the most.

 

[internetzealot1]

Like I wan't to play TPS on a PC

 

[LogicNProportion]

I boggle at the naivety in this thread.

Regardless of how you feel about the game, this much is certain: they rushed DA2 badly. You can see signs of it everywhere, from the recycled environments to the abridged fetch quests. And if you don't believe your own eyes, trust the soundtrack's composer; he basically outted them for rushing to market. 14 months in development when the original game took five years? C'mon. You don't save that much time reusing a mediocre engine and a few assets.

So why did they push for such an insane timetable? Why compromise the quality of your product so blatantly? Was it for us? Did we need DA2 right this goddamn second? Of course not. They did it for money. That's it. They wanted to shorten the dev time and pocket the savings. Sure, the game suffered, and yeah, some folks would hate. But brand loyalty and intense marketing would generate enough sales to bridge the gap, right?

Now here they are giving away free copies of ME2 if you buy DA2, and people are gullible enough to defend this as benevolent behavior? Isn't this the company that just knowingly rushed a game to market, with clear negative side effects, in order to make more money off the lot of us? Why in the world would they do something so contrary to the character they just demonstrated not two months ago?

If you benefit from this promotion, great. More fun to you. If you loved DA2, fine. You were somehow well-served by their short shrifting. Me? I've got a crazy idea. Instead of so generously taking a bath on a game giveaway no one asked for, how about you go ahead and save that money so you have enough to properly finish your next sequel.

TLDR version: it's a promotion aimed at counteracting the immense (and deserved) dropoff in DA2 sales.

I'd like to point out that the publishers are often the ones who get to decide when the game comes out, not the developer.

In other words, just chalk another point on the "EA Scale of Evil."

Leave BioWare alone, they're still our good buddies!!! T_T

Fallacy. While publishers have some control, the developer has a large amount of leeway, if they ask for it. This is especially true for developers like Bioware, Blizzard, and Rockstar.

Vanguard is the current classic case of this, where the game was constantly delayed and rewritten as Brad went through all of the development funds and tried the patience of three different publishers before SOE finally told him to ship or get off the pot.

A publisher will give a developer *PLENTY* of time to complete a title - that's what's in the shareholders' best interests.

Fallacy.

Kotor 2.

Your move, friendo...