I'm hoping the concept of Bioware points dies, especially now that you're requiring Origin anyway, so you have a secure storefront already...you wouldn't need a separate system.
Have any devs said anything either way?
MOD Edit: Clarifying question and answer. Details here:
Dragon Age: Inquisition PC will not be using BioWare Points.
http://forum.bioware...ge-inquisition/
Modifié par Derek French, 25 août 2014 - 04:42 .
adding answer
And we've heard f-all from him since. Like I said. Don't hold your breath.
In that case, the information came from other channels via the website, blog posts, and other employees on the forums. There was nothing more for me to add, so don't take a lack of a specific reply from me to mean anything. There are many people who can share information that work here.
I cant speak on the initial decision but I found them handy in a way that, I wouldnt have to re-enter my credit card everytime I wanted to buy something new. With the advancement of remembered cards, I think its less of a factor now mind you.
To note, I dont actually know what is happening with them.
That's actually not a bad argument, for something like MS points for Xbox Live before they did away with it, where you make frequent purchases but for selling DLC for one specific company's games, is it really that inconvenient to enter the card details once every few months for the release of a new DLC?
My main beef isn't so much with the actual points but (and this was true for MS points too) that you can't buy them in amounts that make sense with how the end product is priced. So you end up with 140 points (or some other random number left), but the cheapest thing for sale is 200 points. Then you buy another batch of points, and now you're 20 points over the price you needed points for.
I am not arguing against that, but for myself I started into bioware games a year after mass effect 2. By that point there was 5 different DLCs so was convenient in that regard.
The bad thing with BioPoints is, they (and the DLC) are never on sale, ever. Now, that doesn't bother me that much, since at least for ME2+3, DA:O+2 I got the story DLC (the DLC I see value in) at day one anyway.
The same isn't true for quite a lot of DLC, say "The Missing Link" for Deus Ex. Haven't bothered with at release, but got it cheap in a sale. And it's the same with some ME apperance packs, or weapon packs for DA2... never got them, never will at full price. If you'd offer them at a discount, I might buy the just to have the complete package. If you never discount them, fine, I don't feel like I'm missing anything of much value. However, what I don't understand is - why is each and every EA DLC on sale on a regular basis, only BioWare points/DLC is not?
The short answer imo is story based DLC doesnt lose its value in the same way as a gun might (since I am from ME I am using it as an example). I mean if another gun pack comes out and has a gun you like more, you will probably shelve your old one and never look back. But a piece of story DLC you will probably never skip in a playthrough. So in that regard it has more value, regardless of the time that passes.
A game will lose its value over time since the competition increases, but a DLC will not since: once the game is back in the tray (so to speak), the dlc, is instantly valuable again.
Furthermore if you put on regular sales of DLC people may come to "expect" that your DLC will be on sale and then you wont be able to sell for full price. Because the most likely scenario is going to be someone that says oh the DLC will be on sale in a month so I wont pick it up now. Then they never return to buy it (even discounted).
I know this answer/my opinion may seem "money hungry" but I mean I am not going to lie I like people spending money on our products since, it means I end up with a job as a result.
The whole Bioware Points, Microsoft points and similar currency models remind me of the early 20th century when the Coal Mining towns paid their workers in Company Tokens which could only be redeemed at the company store, cornered the market on everything of necessity and set prices to generate artificial profit.
Is that too dramatic of an analogy?
Yes, since we already had full control over the price adding a layer of BioWare (why do people always not do the capital W) Points was likely seen as easier as I mentioned.
Plus with BioWare Points/MS points it allows you to adjust the price easier if a currency fluctates. IE lets say the Swedish Kroner (no offense to Sweden, it was just a currency I thought of when I thought "foreign" currency) was half the value tomorrow, well then it is only changing one price instead of having to go through every single thing ever released and altering that price.
I am going to re-iterate that what I said is my opinion on things, I do not have the power nor the data to provide "the real" reason. I just presented what I thought was my opinion of a scenario that can lead to what I have seen.
You know the scientific method where you make a hypothesis based on observation, and then see if that hypothesis holds up to future experiments.
There are some things in this world that nearly never go on sale and they hold up remarkably well despite what you would think is the logical approach. The two that comes to mind is the auto industry and Apple.
While you will see these two sell things at a slight sale, they will never truly go on sale at insane costs. They would rather destroy their equipment than put it out for ridiculously cheap (look up some new car vehicle parking lots).
Being able to buy our game for 3 dollars, while still is money earned, is generally not that profitable.
Also to the one who called me Greedy, I would like to hear your argument for why you think I am greedy. Please PM me.
Oh come on, you know full well the games aren't always on sale, and those 3 bucks are still 3 bucks you might've managed to take from someone who wouldn't have given it to you otherwise; 30 sales at 3€ gives better profit than 5 sales at 15€; there's a reason for the succes of Steam sales.
No it doesnt, while you might think 90 is better than 75 there is other costs to consider.
In the case of steam you might lose 30% which makes it 63 (for 30) vs 52.5 (for 5).
Lets say for the average use the cost of running the server to support then is $1.00. So now we have 33 vs 47.5.
30% for what ?
Steam takes 30% cut of all sales
I feel like this is going to turn into a Steam versus Origin thing, which isn't even a question.
If it does, I will instant lock the thread, so this is the warning on that
We will be using cash for PC DLC for Dragon Age: Inquisition. You can read the announcement here:
http://forum.bioware...ge-inquisition/
Please continue any BioWare Points discussion with regards to Dragon Age: Inquisition PC in this thread, thanks.
Can we cash BioWare Points into cash when buying DAI DLC somehow? Left-over points that just lay there forever are kinda... lame. I know Microsoft converted Microsoft Points into pure cash when XBL went cash.
We cannot do any type of points to cash conversion, unfortunately. We do have some plans to deal with this situation in the near future, but it is still in the planning stages right now.
You can't? Or you won't? Cause those are 2 different things.
Can't. It has to do how we financially and legally set up BioWare Points back in the day. Because of that decision we cannot turn them into cash. It was not a consequence that we foresaw.
As a side note, I hope it doesn't take years after this official announcement for the Bio points to be finally phased out. It would be bad/confusing business to keep that annoying thorn much longer. If the Origin store would have a wallet system, BP could be recycled to this new (more flexible) format.
BioWare Points will continue on for a long time as we still sell DLC for ME2, ME3, DA1, and DA2. This needs to continue.
Is it possible to turn the Bioware points into that platinum money used for DA multiplayer?
That would be spending BioWare Points on Dragon Age: Inquisition PC and this is what we have announced that we are not supporting.
Is there a way for people who have bw points to transfer their points ?
I have like 1200 points in my account but dont really wanna spend them on the old games...
As was stated earlier, we are looking into some solutions for this situation. More details later.
Have I understood correctly that DLC for these games can still only be bought with Bioware Points in the future and not with normal currency too?
(((((
Correct, existing DLC for past BioWare PC games will only be available for BioWare Points. DLC for DAI and future PC games will be for real money.
I hope there are still DLC codes that you can buy, Origin won't let me buy anything on it for some reason so unless i create a new Origin account i won't be able to buy any DLC, and it's already bad enough that i have to buy every EA game from a store instead of buying it digitally.
Please send me a private message with your Origin support incident number and I can try and see if I can help you and figure out what has gone wrong. Otherwise, this really doesn't have anything to do with the discussion of BioWare points as the issue you are describing seems more basic.
There's also the fact that Origin only has EA titles.
https://www.origin.c...ownload/ubisoft
https://www.origin.c...pc-download/thq
As I said before, we are looking into some solutions for people that still have a balance. We don't have anything to announce at this time, though, but hopefully more info in the coming months.
... even if EA hadnt removed the game from the store.
Valve removed the game from their store. Not BioWare or EA.
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