If you preorder ME3 today you get BF3 for free

D

drakken

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Aug 19, 2004
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I was looking up ME3 on the origin site today and notice it said you get a free copy of BF3 if you preorder today. So I figured why not I was on the fence anyway.

So I ordered my copy and it said on the recipe I will get instructions on how to get my free copy when ME3 ships.

me3preorder.jpg


Cool if you don't have BF3 already and I'm still getting all the other preorder stuff.
 
According to Bioware the deal will apply to any ME3 pre-orders until it's released and will retroactively apply to any pre-orders made prior to the deal starting. So I guess I'll be getting BF3 as well.
 
I leaned not to pre-order from EA/BioWare last year with their DragonAge2 fiasco.
 
Derangel said:
Valve changing their DLC policy seems much more likely than EA and Bioware not using their annoying as all fuck DLC system.
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Too true. I still haven't played most of the ME2 DLC's. It's not that I don't want to. It's just that I can't really be bothered to go through the effort for 2 hours of gameplay. ::shrug:: If they don't want my money, hey, that's fine.
 
Bomo said:
Too true. I still haven't played most of the ME2 DLC's. It's not that I don't want to. It's just that I can't really be bothered to go through the effort for 2 hours of gameplay. ::shrug:: If they don't want my money, hey, that's fine.
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The sad thing is that they're actually pretty good. Shadow Broker especially. It could have HUGE implications on ME3.
 
Dion said:
Sadly people are.. People still pay 60$ for games too. LOL...
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Bought BF3 on release, 200+hours so far. I would not have had the many hours of good times with friends(even made some new friends) if I waited. Guess I got my money worth. Oh and I still play.
 
theNoid said:
These "people" are the ones keeping the industry alive so you can cheap out.
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Glad there are other gamers out there that understand basic economics. Less users than consoles and now apparently they only will buy games at deep discounts, yet can't figure out why everything is being designed for consoles.
 
TwistedAegis said:
Glad there are other gamers out there that understand basic economics. Less users than consoles and now apparently they only will buy games at deep discounts, yet can't figure out why everything is being designed for consoles.
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If I were a PC developer I'd be almost depressed to come on a forum like this and read comment after comment of "Its good, but I'll wait until its $5 in the bargain bin" while also reading an article about how mediocre console game X just sold a million copies in the first week alone. :p
 
I try to support games at full price if it's the kind of game I'm looking for without the draconian controls schemes and not when the story is broken up into multiple DLCs.

Money is my way of approving how things are done.
 
Does this count for any preorder, or only the special edition?
 
Derangel said:
According to Bioware the deal will apply to any ME3 pre-orders until it's released and will retroactively apply to any pre-orders made prior to the deal starting. So I guess I'll be getting BF3 as well.
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From anywhere or only on Origin?
 
theNoid said:
These "people" are the ones keeping the industry alive so you can cheap out.
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and what evidence do we have to support this? since every piece of market data released shows that majority of their profits are being made at lower price points, it would seem that the ones "cheaping out" are actually making them the most money. we could argue that the original launch price is what sets its initial value, but when each and every reduction reliably increases the number of units sold exponentially, this inflated starting point looks pretty much worthless.

if you go by results, people who buy games at launch price don't look like they're doing anything useful for themselves or anyone else, besides holding back sales and keeping prices high. publishers just refuse to let go of this slim margin, to exploit the handful of impatient gamers willing to pay anything to get what they want.

maybe someone who actually knows econ can explain this better, just doesn't seem logical to me.
 
mas said:
maybe someone who actually knows econ can explain this better, just doesn't seem logical to me.
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That just about sums up your post. You somehow think that lower margins will encourage more companies to make games for the PC? You're clearly naive about both business and econ. Those who buy at full price, and thus larger margins, are the ones who keep PC gaming alive.

A quick math problem:

1M PC Users
10M Console Users

PC Profit Margin: $2-$10
Console Profit Margin: $10-$20

So not only do you have a smaller audience, but said audience also generates less profit per sale. Why would you even bother making a game for them? It doesn't make sense.

Yes lowering the price later on, such as Steam sales, generates more revenue they wouldn't have gotten otherwise. But immediately releasing it for those prices would just mean they wouldn't release AAA titles at all.
 
Dont the publishers have to pay console makers license fees for console games (I know ms has a fee per disk or something ridiculous then a fee for patching a game), which aren't really there on the PC?

I mean they can sell the games for more, but a huge chunk of that is going to retailers (not so much for PC which aren't really sold retail). Then a chunk of that is also going to buy disk licences and a whole pile of licences from the console makers for using their format, and then stuff like LIVE integration and etc etc. So thats going to be a fair chunk of money before anything gets made. PC games and console games used to be pretty much the same cost. The last generation seemed to be when prices rocketed to silly levels.
 
DeathPrincess said:
Dont the publishers have to pay console makers license fees for console games (I know ms has a fee per disk or something ridiculous then a fee for patching a game), which aren't really there on the PC?

I mean they can sell the games for more, but a huge chunk of that is going to retailers (not so much for PC which aren't really sold retail). Then a chunk of that is also going to buy disk licences and a whole pile of licences from the console makers for using their format, and then stuff like LIVE integration and etc etc. So thats going to be a fair chunk of money before anything gets made. PC games and console games used to be pretty much the same cost. The last generation seemed to be when prices rocketed to silly levels.
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Yes publisher probably drop $10 to the console maker, This is why it used to be that console games were always $10 more than PC games. Now days it seems big titles have figured out PC gamers will pay the extra $10 for no reason at all.
 
rudy said:
Yes publisher probably drop $10 to the console maker, This is why it used to be that console games were always $10 more than PC games. Now days it seems big titles have figured out PC gamers will pay the extra $10 for no reason at all.
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Yes because I'm sure game development cost hasn't risen at all since 2005. Nope not one cent.
 
mas said:
and what evidence do we have to support this? since every piece of market data released shows that majority of their profits are being made at lower price points, it would seem that the ones "cheaping out" are actually making them the most money.
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Really? And what evidence do you have to support that? :p If you have some I'd love to see it. It doesn't take much to realise if a game sells 1 million copies at $60, it needs to sell 3 million copies at $20 to generate the same revenue.

There is no good data for PC gaming, that I'm aware of at least. Take a random Xbox360 game, Dead Space 2...

http://www.vgchartz.com/game/36809/dead-space-2/Global/

66% of its sales were in the first month, around 80% of its sales in the first 2 months. That's when the price is at its highest. To say the people "cheaping out" were making significant money, 80-90% of the sales would have to be AFTER the price has dropped, but the opposite is true. I know VGChartz is not a terribly accurate measure of sales for PC, but I think its accurate enough for consoles to show that the bulk of money made will typically be when the price is high. If you have some evidence to show the contrary, I'd love to see it.
 
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rudy said:
Yes publisher probably drop $10 to the console maker, This is why it used to be that console games were always $10 more than PC games. Now days it seems big titles have figured out PC gamers will pay the extra $10 for no reason at all.
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Derangel said:
Yes because I'm sure game development cost hasn't risen at all since 2005. Nope not one cent.
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TwistedAegis said:
Not to mention inflation.
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Well its a difficult thing to actually figure out. Development costs go up, wages increase, but on the flip side the consumer base for video games has skyrocketed as well (otherwise you would have companies spending more on marketing than they do on development).

As for PC gamers paying $10 extra for "no reason at all", well, there can be a few reasons. For one the actual buyers of PC games is far smaller, they could feel that charging PC gamers the same price despite the lack of a license fee means they make more money per sale on PC gamers to counter the fact they make comparatively few sales on PC. Not saying I agree with that reasoning, I don't, but it could be a reason none the less.
 
Tudz said:
Well its a difficult thing to actually figure out. Development costs go up, wages increase, but on the flip side the consumer base for video games has skyrocketed as well (otherwise you would have companies spending more on marketing than they do on development).

As for PC gamers paying $10 extra for "no reason at all", well, there can be a few reasons. For one the actual buyers of PC games is far smaller, they could feel that charging PC gamers the same price despite the lack of a license fee means they make more money per sale on PC gamers to counter the fact they make comparatively few sales on PC. Not saying I agree with that reasoning, I don't, but it could be a reason none the less.
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You're right, it is hard to figure out. And I think we agree here, I was making the point that games should naturally rise in cost just to keep up with inflation. The fact they were $50 for what, decades, shows that just due to inflation alone they were making less profit from the same $50.

I think we can all agree that development costs for AAA games has increased. And this is where margin - that "no reason at all" $10 makes a difference. If you spend $50M to make a game, you're going to need to make a decent profit off of each sale in order to break even, not to mention make money.
 
Yeah, no doubt they're making less per-copy-sold now than they did previously, but I think inflation only comes into the equation indirectly. Games being a non-essential luxury item, the final price comes down to what people are willing to pay and in turn the development costs come down to how much they think they can make. The reason development costs have gone up is not because the same game is more expensive to make now than it was before (I'm sure it is, but I don't think that's the main driving factor) its because the consumer base has expanded so much that it can support increased development costs.

I personally think games went to $60 not directly because of inflation, but because publishers felt their target market was just as happy to pay $60 instead of $50, which of course may be indirectly from inflation :p

But I won't pretend to be an expert, that's just my random ramblings, I never studied economics and the one commerce unit I was forced to do in my engineering degree got me the worst mark I'd ever gotten at University (due mainly to lack of interest in the subject :p).
 
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