Used game sales and piracy hurt publishers and developers, driving down their profits in a poor economy. To counteract this, publisher EA decided to release their sports titles with an online pass that was free for new games, but cost people money if they bought the game preowned – a system that other companies have considered using. It now appears that EA is now going to extend this functionality to Dragon Age II.
Mark Darrah, Executive Producer for BioWare, confirmed to Joystiq that the game will have a similar program, where new copies come with a voucher for free access to the title’s online network, but used copies will not and customers can instead pay a one-time fee to access the same system. However, according to Mr. Darrah, “it’ll definitely be something kind of in that [Mass Effect 2] Cerberus vein where there will be additional content.” So it will go beyond the sports titles’ online networks from EA which typically include online play, updates and little else included with that voucher.
Mr. Darrah also mentioned that the DLC this time around will be more robust:
“Making it larger; so it’ll be bigger teams, more unique environments, more unique creatures — so that it gets the attention it deserves to get.“
Pre-orders of the game will also be automatically be upgraded to the Signature Edition of the game. BioWare seems to be luring customers to buy new and pre-order early, it seems. Dragon Age II is slated for a March release.
