I started playing Dragon Age-Origins this weekend. It’s been a while since I’ve played a new game, so I was really excited about it. And it’s a lot of fun. There’s a reason why it has been receiving such rave reviews. But I’ve always been apprehensive about buying games affiliated with Electronic Arts (the game was made by Bioware and Electronic Arts, or made by Bioware and distributed by Electronic Arts). Don’t get me wrong; I used to work for Electronic Arts, but when a hegemonic company starts buying out other gaming companies, I always find that to be a scary thing.
Anyway, the game is a lot of fun, but at one point I was in a camp (a resting spot in the game), and one of the npcs (non-player characters) indicated it had a quest for me (it does this by showing an exclamation point over its head, something somewhat stolen from MMORPGs like World of Warcraft). So, all excited, I clicked that character and listened to his rant (quest information), and then right before I was about to click to accept, I realized that the option to do so requires me to purchase downloaded content, meaning that right in the middle of the game the developers are trying to get me to pay them more money.
I’m sorry, but this is really cheesy. This type of thing tends to piss me off because it’s basically saying: “Nyah, Nyah, you can’t play forward and use ALL the content in this game until you go to the EA site and buy more of our product.” That sort of thing really bugs me because part of the allure of a computer game is not having to be reminded of the real world, and someone trying to sell me shit in the middle of a game (that I buy in the real world) pretty much ruins the experience for me.
I see this as a really bad sign for the future. I was half tempted to stop playing right then and there, before realizing that would have meant $50 I threw away because I got pissed off at a gaming company (you can’t return an already opened game…well, you can but good luck trying it at most retailers).
So I’m torn. It’s a great game, but at the same time their business practices really irritate me.
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I've enjoyed Dragon Age and was irked by the same thing. However, I see this as part of the current trend to create revenue streams through micro-charges for additional in-game content (a la many Asian games such as Silk Road, and as done in Dungeons & Dragons Online). DA's approach straddles the gap between a true micro-charge scheme, and the more traditional tactic of selling separate products as add-on expansion packs (which happens in MMOs and games like Fallout 3 and Oblivion). DA's spin has been to make the add-on pack linked to by in-game encounter, which is active even if you don't have the add-on. This can make it a frustrating dead end if you are expecting another fully playable encounter. On the other hand, appropriately located and set up in story context, this kind of hook can be interesting. If I had extra $ and sufficient curiosity, I would at least consider getting the additional game content, because I do ordinarily buy expansion packs etc anyway. So – that said, I don't know that their actions are so outrageous in the big picture of things, but I think it feels jarring because it is a shift in what we are accustomed to in (supposedly) stand-alone desktop games. Now I want to replay DA with some user-created mods and expansions on it. Hurray for freebies. 🙂
I think it mainly bothered me because it came at me out of nowhere. I would have bought the addons anyway; I just don’t like cheesy ways of trying to get me to do it.
Pretty insightful post. Never thought that it was this simple after all. I had spent a good deal of my time looking for someone to explain this subject clearly and you’re the only one that ever did that. Kudos to you! Keep it up