By John Walker on July 21st, 2011 at 9:16 am.
Update: GAME are now selling the Collector’s Edition for… £130!
Yesterday’s leak of the Star Wars: The Old Republic special edition has proven, not surprisingly, to be accurate. With ComicCon starting today, EA have somewhat pre-empted their in-show announcement by going official with the various packages on their site, perhaps in response to the rumours that swirled yesterday. However, while confirming everything that was expected (including that spunky mouse), they’ve yet to add a proper price to it all, despite claiming you can pre-order now. And as for the regular versions – the prices out there are looking ridiculous.
At the time of publishing, clicking on their giant “PRE-ORDER NOW!” button takes you to a list of retailers around the world accepting pre-orders. In the UK that’s Game, Play.com and Amazon.co.uk. The problem being, none of them actually has the Collector’s Edition available to pre-order, somewhat undermining that “NOW!”
As for the regular edition, Amazon.co.uk explains that it’s “currently unavailable”. Game has it at the frankly ludicrous pre-order price of £40. And Play doesn’t have it listed at all.
GameStop in the US have a listing in their search results, pricing the standard version at $60, but when you click through the page has been removed. Meanwhile Best Buy and Walmart have never heard of it.
But what about Origin – EA’s own online store? Oh good grief.
The “Standard Edition” is priced at an extraordinarily unstandard £45, while the “Digital Deluxe” version is an eye-hurting £60! It also says there’s the pre-order fee of £5, and I can’t see anywhere that says this is deducted from the total amount. Goodness knows.
But the Collector’s Edition? I’ve finally found somewhere claiming to sell it. That’s the US Amazon.com, who price the giant box at a gob-smacking $150 (£93). You can see what’s in it at the site, or here.
We’ve contacted EA to see if these prices are for real, and when we can expect the Collector’s Edition to actually be pre-orderable in the UK.
21/07/2011 at 09:18 mondomau says:
‘Good grief’ sums it up nicely.
21/07/2011 at 22:21 Kadayi says:
Indeed. I can only assume that John Riccotello has decided that the entire TOR affair was a huge waste of money and is doing his best to kill it off ASAP.
Not only are the prices terrible (£35, £45 & £75 would be more realistic), but the ‘extras’ you get are barely worthy of the term. Where’s the Art book, and ‘Making of’ etc, etc?
Marketing dudes at EA need to look at what EIDOS/Square are doing with DXHR with the augmented and collectors editions or CDProjekt did with the The Witcher 2 and get with the program a bit if they want to ship the kind of numbers they need to.
21/07/2011 at 09:21 Icarus says:
nope.avi
21/07/2011 at 09:21 Vexing Vision says:
Well, if you really don’t want me to try your online game, just tell me so!
21/07/2011 at 16:24 Wulf says:
That’s what I was thinking.
That’s nail in the coffin stuff right there. This is a massive, eye-searing and brightly lit “EA’s greediness ruins everything!” sign.
I’m so glad I’m not interested in this one.
21/07/2011 at 09:22 Anthile says:
I guess that means Australians will need suitcases to buy it.
21/07/2011 at 10:30 SLeigher says:
we are currently deemed to dirty to buy it:
Star Wars: The Old Republic is not available in your region
To maintain a high quality of service, only certain regions worldwide will be able to pre-order Star Wars: The Old Republic.
21/07/2011 at 10:37 Heliocentric says:
That said, if you wanted to battle strange and deadly life forms in a hostile environment, unique sociological conditions and a government who hates Jedi* you could just go outside.
*ref: census forms
21/07/2011 at 10:41 SLeigher says:
i do love a good census joke
21/07/2011 at 10:47 JackShandy says:
So if the classic australian = american X2 formula holds up, we’ll be seeing the collectors edition for $300. In normal game terms, that’s roughly 1,000 hours of entertainment.
21/07/2011 at 13:11 Stormbane says:
No SWTOR for New Zealand either. We gave them Temuera Morrison goddamit.
21/07/2011 at 17:51 wcaypahwat says:
Morrison ruined starwars for me. I can’t look at a clone trooper any more, without imagining him yelling at someone to cook him some eggs :/
12/09/2011 at 17:08 Pre-order SWTOR Australia says:
It really isn’t an issue, check out this site: Pre-order SWTOR Australia It has instructions on how to pre-order and information regarding early game access etc so that us Aussies don’t have to worry about not being able to pre-order through origin! its got links direct to order pages where Aussies/New Zealanders can pre-order SWTOR, and the awesome thing is, we won’t be playing any later than official release countries (explained on the site) and it would actually work out cheaper than ordering from EB!!
P.s. they still got collector’s edition available so get ordering while they still there, i’ve ordered mine :D can’t wait to be playing with all you aussies who think we cant get the game!
21/07/2011 at 09:22 Juan Carlo says:
Wow.
That’s just greedy and stupid. I thought the whole point of MMOs was snagging people so they will pay the monthly fee.
Why charge 80 dollars for the game when you plan on making the bulk of your money on prescription fees?
21/07/2011 at 09:25 CaspianRoach says:
It’s obvious, really. They aren’t confident in the game’s lastability, it will probably nosedive after a few months or so. This way they get at least some money from developing back.
21/07/2011 at 10:36 FakeAssName says:
not to mention that they need to set it high so that they aren’t actually losing money when it comes time for that mandatory “OMGWTF?!?! we are selling pre-orders for 15% off!!!!” discount.
the sad thing is that so many dumb fucks will still pay this.
21/07/2011 at 10:53 BooleanBob says:
“Why charge 80 dollars for the game when you plan on making the bulk of your money on prescription fees?”
“It’s obvious, really. They aren’t confident in the game’s lastability”
“the sad thing is that so many dumb fucks will still pay this.”
Not having a go at anyone – I certainly won’t be biting at that price – but it’s still entirely possible that they’re actually confident the game is good enough that they will shift copies AND retain a sustainable subs base. That might well be hubris, but with the game not even out I’m not sure we can second-guess their motives at this stage.
21/07/2011 at 10:58 Lobotomist says:
I think its obvious by now that game was the largest investment in game industry – around 300 million dollars according to sources.
They are afraid subscriptions alone will not be enough to return this investment. Especially now days that subscriptions take dive even after first month , and 3 month later the servers become deserted.
I would not be surprised they charge 60$ for game + subscription + item shop (very soon after launch) + mini expansions
…
All in all , i am on the edge of giving this game a fair chance.
But everything over 50$ for a game with additional subscription is NO in my book.
And I am sure many feel the same way.
Even more users for GW2
21/07/2011 at 13:45 Mark says:
My gut feeling is the same as Caspian’s. A lot of money has been spent developing the game, they’re worried about the critical reaction and long-term sustainability, and so they’ve worked out how many sales they can make on the basis of hype. If the game is good, then people will pay. If the game is bad, then they’ll still get the lion’s share of sales from people who’ve pre-ordered. A bird in the hand…
21/07/2011 at 14:11 Nalano says:
I think it screams “we need money” with that faint whiff of desperation.
We’re talking James Cameron-comparable investment levels, except in an over-saturated market which has, sadly, something of a zero-sum player base. (Who plays more than one sub-based MMO at a time?)
God, I hope this doesn’t blow up in Bioware’s face. Not because I plan on getting into TOR (I don’t), but because I don’t want Bioware to fade away.
21/07/2011 at 14:41 Zogtee says:
I think it is a case of nerves as well. The SW brand isn’t as strong as it has been, the market isn’t as enthusiastic about the game as EA expected, and the timing couldn’t be worse. Everyone’s going free to play now and GW2 is lurking around the corner, which a large chunk of the MMOG players have set their sights on. If TOR isn’t polished to the back of beyond when it’s released, the internets will tear apart whatever flaws they find and shout about it from the rooftops. Exciting! :)
21/07/2011 at 15:51 FriendlyFire says:
It also has to fill the shoes of Galaxies, which, despite the criticisms, still sounds like a much deeper and varied game than TOR.
21/07/2011 at 16:32 Wulf says:
“Even more users for GW2″
Hooray!
If EA’s greed and stupidity manage to convince people that the WoW approach of expensive boxes and ongoing subscriptions is a bad idea, then they might also convince people that the entire WoW model has gone sour and that the Guild Wars 2 way is the way forward. That was going to happen to a huge degree anyway, but if EA’s idiocy helps to convert more people, then I’m all for it.
We need more people on the buy-to-play and anti-grind boats, for they are happy places where you can buy and enjoy a game without having your wallet or social life raped. I’m honestly expecting SW:TOR to employ all the old psychological tricks that hunt weak-willed people that WoW did (the citation of this tends to make people butt-hurt, but I dun care); In that it’ll have raids and repetitive tasks designed to be as addictive as crack cocaine without being fun, and then they’ll have people quit their jobs and their lives in favour of grinding due to being weak-willed and unable to walk away from their character if they’re not given any closure.
After some of you having experienced that in WoW, do you really want to experience that again in SW:TOR or are you burned out and smarter than that, now?
GW2 is the way forward for MMOs.
The sooner people realise that, the better.
21/07/2011 at 17:36 Stupoider says:
@Wulf Yes, well hold your horses, we haven’t even played it yet.
21/07/2011 at 18:26 Bilbo says:
Not arguing that it isn’t silly expensive or that it didn’t cost a lot to make, but I’m sick of seeing that “$300million” figure used as fact. It isn’t – one disgruntled ex-employee (got fired) of EA pulled that figure out of his arse.
Just because someone said something on the internet once doesn’t make it true. If you’re going to cite statistics, verify them. /rant
22/07/2011 at 08:39 Hmm-Hmm. says:
So.. iif you lot are correct, the game was really expensive to make and now they aren’t confident it will appeal to people sufficiently to make subscriptions last?
If that is true that speaks volumes about how good the game really is. The other possibility is that they’re just moneyhoardin’ bastards.
21/07/2011 at 09:22 MerseyMal says:
I suspect the price will have massively dropped at least on Amazon and GAME by release date.
21/07/2011 at 11:04 aircool says:
Possibly – I know with GAME, if the price drops before release, you get charged the new, lower price. If it goes up, you pay the original, lower price.
21/07/2011 at 14:13 Nalano says:
Anything else and they’d risk a lawsuit.
21/07/2011 at 09:24 Bobsy says:
This is the thing: I want the soundtrack. I want the soundtrack a lot. I love music! But I don’t love it to the tune of £100. I certainly don’t love useless statues of MMO characters that aren’t my characters. Or a paper map that will be significantly less useful than an in-game map.
21/07/2011 at 09:31 Squirrelfanatic says:
Would be sweet if you somehow could order a statue of your actual characters, directly from the char generator (or in high-end gear for your elitist needs). :) Market gap?
21/07/2011 at 09:35 Bobsy says:
Hardly a gap. You can do this in WoW. But it is very expensive.
The real trick is to do it in Champions Online. Now that would be something special.
21/07/2011 at 11:54 Teddy Leach says:
I’m going to go out on a limb, and say that the soundtrack is the same as in EVERY OTHER STAR WARS GAME EVER MADE.
21/07/2011 at 16:38 Wulf says:
@Teddy Leach
I watched a video of 90 minutes of play of SW:TOR a while ago to confirm my worst suspicions about the game (and they were so very confirmed, even to the point where I fell asleep a few times), and the music was pretty much just Star Wars but tweaked. I recognised every track. Bioware… you can’t just remix things a bit and consider it ‘original,’ either that or they kept it so ‘authentic’ that it all just sounded like the stuff from the films anyway.
21/07/2011 at 18:28 Bilbo says:
You fell asleep a few times in a 90 minute video?
Go to bed.
Seriously, there’s superbias hate and there’s inventing a stupid story
21/07/2011 at 19:24 qrter says:
Surely the soundtrack will become available seperately too, if only on iTunes.
21/07/2011 at 19:59 Teddy Leach says:
And THAT, my friends, is why I have completely gone off Star Wars games.
21/07/2011 at 20:20 Bilbo says:
What is? iTunes?
What a concept!
21/07/2011 at 09:27 zeroskill says:
Guild Wars 2 it is then!
21/07/2011 at 10:21 Gnoupi says:
Yup, can’t wait for this one either, but they sure do take their sweet time :P
21/07/2011 at 13:14 Stormbane says:
How great would it be if GW2 announced their release date close to TOR’s release date?
If they were within even a month the nature of MMO’s would ensure most players would have to choose one or the other.
It would be a humbling lesson in greed for Bioware and EA.
21/07/2011 at 16:40 Wulf says:
The funny thing is is that they could do it, and they could win, only taking minimal losses along the way. But ArenaNet aren’t petty, so they won’t do that, they’ll schedule it differently to SW:TOR. But yeah, even if they did it then it would pretty much eat SW:TOR’s userbase alive.
Unlike the TOR train, which has slowed to a near halt due to it being just WoW in space, the GW2 train is going full steam ahead for actually doing things differently. I’m terribly eager to run my charr into a bunch of dynamic events. I haven’t felt this way about an MMO since Ultima Online. Is anyone else getting that feeling? It’s like it’s going to be something completely new. What they’re doing with replacing all quests with dynamic events is Undiscovered Country shit, right there.
They can take as long as they want with it so long as they get that right.
22/07/2011 at 08:27 Lightbulb says:
I’m trying to work on the basis that hype kills games and GW2 will be an “ok” game. But in the back of my mind I can’t wait to play it! :)
21/07/2011 at 09:27 Myros says:
It’s all a PR stunt to create phoney internet rage and get people talking about the game.
And, um, … there’s no way I buy it at that price!
21/07/2011 at 09:38 stahlwerk says:
You could be on to something there. Or maybe they have listened to people saying “I’ll buy it when it’s in a steam sale”, perpetually selling it for 50% off.
21/07/2011 at 19:35 TheEggplant says:
Gears of War 3 special edition is $150 USD on Amazon, so I think this is the actual price. TOR is a best seller on Amazon.com right now. I am so very very disappointed.
21/07/2011 at 09:29 Headache says:
Well at that sort of price I won’t be buying it, shame really as I thought it looked promising and would have been the first MMORPG I’d have played since quitting WoW back in 2007.
21/07/2011 at 09:29 NegativeZero says:
Could be worse. You could be in Australia, where the cost of any version of the game is whatever it costs to emigrate to another country where you’re actually allowed to preorder it at all :(
21/07/2011 at 10:32 SLeigher says:
and even without exaggerating it is always cheaper to import even with shipping
21/07/2011 at 10:45 NegativeZero says:
Yeah, obviously. The issue here is that the game cannot be preordered in Australia, at all. Which given that said preorders involve early access and extra stuff is a bit of a blow – and not something you can import around, either.
21/07/2011 at 14:14 Nalano says:
Did they solve the loophole where you make friends with somebody in the States who has a Steam account and can gift it to you?
21/07/2011 at 09:30 JohnArr says:
It’s pretty visionary of EA to effectively sell ‘pre-order bonuses’ with the pre-order fee. They must have taken an early lunch when they figured that one out.
21/07/2011 at 14:29 Hallgrim says:
Yep, someone hugged themselves to sleep that night.
21/07/2011 at 09:30 BattleMage says:
GAME now lists the CE for £130 and Amazon Germany for €150 (~ £132). Madness!
21/07/2011 at 09:33 stahlwerk says:
They better pack light sabers with that. Real ones.
21/07/2011 at 09:31 iamseb says:
It used to be that betas were free, because the audience were actually performing an invaluable service for the developer in testing their software for both bugs and balance before general release.
Now it seems that publishers use them as paid demos to ramp up the day 1 sales figures. The balancing and bugs get ironed out in the first few months after release (by which time the curious casual audience has returned to WoW).
The exorbitant price-tag for the box which, for a game with monthly subscriptions is all you’re paying for, seems a reflection of EA’s uncertainty about the lifespan of the product once the beta and the first free month has passed.
21/07/2011 at 09:45 Calneon says:
Rift had a good sized free beta period, so I think it’s unfair to lump every publisher in with the scum that is EA.
21/07/2011 at 10:09 aircool says:
Rift is a pretty good MMO, albeit very traditional. However, like every MMO, it suffers from the lvl 20-30 induced apathy, where reward comes too slowly to keep many interested*.
*Ok, GW was an exception, it was always fun and challenging, plus no subs. And, for some reason, I still like playing Champions online regardless of level.
21/07/2011 at 16:50 Wulf says:
Guild Wars and Champions were always the exceptions. It’s why I keep talking them up. With Champions, you can just jump in and have some fun doing a number of silly things, and due to the way the game is, you don’t have to worry about things like raids, role in the party, the holy trinity… it’s like it’s a hint of what ArenaNet are trying to do with Guild Wars 2. Like Cryptic saw the idea but botched the execution. But even with the execution of Champions Online being so botched, it’s still more fun than almost every other online game I’ve ever played in… well, ever.
Guild Wars is awesome because it has a story and drop-in gameplay that you can revisit at any time. Sometimes I just feel like romping around Elona with Pyre (which I can do, because the game lets me!), so I go and do that. It’s a lot of fun. I have a particularly fun memory of doing a level 10 suicide run to get Pyre (since you can start that quest at level 10) and not stopping for anything. What surprised me was how quickly I managed to do it. But when I got back to Elona I had a bunch of level 20 heroes (including Pyre) and some seriously buff equipment. This made that campaign very easy but also highly entertaining.
Guild Wars just has this sense of playing it differently that other games don’t have, you don’t feel chained down. That’s part of the magic of it. You can approach Guild Wars in so many different ways. And that’s one of the most important things that I hope they’re keeping for Guild Wars 2. And the way they tell it, being able to portal between any of the cities at the very beginning, being able to take on whatever content you like, and even being able to accompany people into high-level content… it just sounds like they realise one of the things that made GW so very fun.
21/07/2011 at 09:34 guitarmy says:
So now I can finally pay additional fees for giving them money upfront? Now that’s nice!
I know it’s only a matter of wording, but… Boy, do they actually know what they’re doing?
21/07/2011 at 13:21 theflyingbuddha says:
I think the additional $5 for preorders is definitely the most ridiculous part.
22/07/2011 at 17:26 Brutal Deluxe says:
Shame on you for wanting to pre-order! A fee is too good for you. We need tougher action on this. I DEMAND JAILTIME.
21/07/2011 at 09:35 torchedEARTH says:
Sweet Zombie Stormtrooper.
I could buy A LOT of games with that sort of money that would keep me happy A LOT longer.
21/07/2011 at 09:37 Bobsy says:
Well I take (minor) issue with that. The big sell on TOR as a game I think is its longevity. Eight seperate RPG campaigns in one, yeah. Still ludicrously-expensive, but still.
21/07/2011 at 09:40 Vexing Vision says:
But don’t forget the subscription fee of 15€ a month.
Playing all eight campaigns to max will probably last 5 to 6 months for a hardcore player.
21/07/2011 at 10:13 aircool says:
I’m not convinced on the eight campaigns business. In fact, I’m quite suspicious. One of the interesting aspects of RPG’s (MMO or otherwise) is tackling the same missions in a completely different way with different character classes.
21/07/2011 at 13:06 torchedEARTH says:
Sorry – I should have said that outburst was to the £130 collectors edition. Although £45 is still a lot of money.
21/07/2011 at 16:55 Wulf says:
@aircool
“I’m not convinced on the eight campaigns business.”
I always read it as eight WoW campaigns rather than eight Knights campaigns. That they could probably pull off, because if you’re being honest then WoW is 90% padding and repetitive tasks. Whenever an MMO brags of longevity I tend to hear ‘grind,’ and my mind tends to replace one with the other. ArenaNet are saying that their game will have a lot of content but they’re not saying how long it’ll take you to complete. Now that I find much more reassuring.
I don’t want a game to be padded and grindy to keep me playing it. I’d rather move on to another game that has new mechanics and does different things. I mean, I could get Terraria, Minecraft, Cthulhu Saves teh World, Proun, Drawn – Dark Flight, BEEP, CreaVures, Nimbus, Solar 2, and a bunch of other, similar games for that price and probably have more fun and I’ll be entertained for longer.
There’s the trick: Entertained for longer.
Longevity doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ll be entertained for all the time you’ll be playing, but rather more simply hooked. I will again quote Bioware, here: “It’s stupid to break any of WoW’s rules. Any of them.”
That’s their design philosophy. Right there. And with that perhaps you’ll see why I’m saying what I’m saying.
21/07/2011 at 09:37 Makariel says:
pre-order fee? o.Oa
21/07/2011 at 09:38 Danbanan says:
750 swedish kronor = 68 £ for the digital version.
Isn’t pre-orders supposed to be like 5-10% off since you are being a nice lad/girl.
I mean “Thanks for pre-ordering please pay your 5£ EA pre-order tax on the way out”
Needless to say there wil be no pre-order from me at this price.
21/07/2011 at 10:22 Eraysor says:
The fact they want to compete with Steam is even funnier considering Steam usually knocks off 10% of the price if you preorder something. Here EA are adding 10%!
21/07/2011 at 13:53 skalpadda says:
Hell the normal version is 549SEK, (62,15€, 53,38£) and you don’t even get a box, just initial access to the game and 30 days of playtime.
21/07/2011 at 09:38 Tei says:
LOTR and other MMO’s have a version that is more expensive, but include a free lifetime subscription.
With good MMO’s and if you like to play these type of games for years, is normally a good idea to buy that version, so you don’t have to pay subscription fees. I wonder how much will cost that version, if exist….
21/07/2011 at 10:16 aircool says:
Lifetime sub for Lotro was a great purchase for me. The difficulty level is quite high, but the depth of the game is, not suprisingly, er, very deep. I don’t play it very often, but I’ve already covered my lifetime sub in months played, and even though it’s F2Pnow, I still get the benefits of a subscriber.
21/07/2011 at 17:03 Wulf says:
I have a lifetime sub for Champions Online, too, and I don’t regret that in the slightest. CO is now free to play too, but to be honest, with the amount of quality entertainment I’ve gotten from Cryptic, I was happy to give my money to them. And they tended to cater to my every whim. Let’s say I wanted to be a pink healer werewolf named Woodstock, with rainbow coloured powers and rainbow flight… I CAN DO THAT.
There’s a… a sort of ART to Champions Online. Some people will just have ‘random button’ characters, some people will have ‘copycat characters’, and some people will have clever ones. But then there are some people that have let their unbridled creativity loose with character creation, and their character, the way they play them, their visual design, powers, and their origin story, and how the whole package comes together is just this moment of brilliance. And you just want to know that person.
There are some absolutely bloody transcendent elements to CO because of that. It’s like they encourage people to be untamed. They almost say “Hey, it’s okay. We don’t mind. Feel free to do what-the-hell ever here.” and people do. And it’s amazing. It can be incredible.
And just seeing what sorts of characters I can wring out of my admittedly questionable mind to join in on that foray with is fulfilling, almost gratifying. And to a degree it reminds me of Grant Morrison’s Flex Mentallo mini-series, and how that deconstructed comic book heroes. If you haven’t read that then you really should. But anyway, I’m going to stop rambling now and leave it at that.
In finishing: I don’t regret my purchase of a CO lifetime subscription because every time I go back there I see something new and amazing. Not because of the game itself, but rather because of the people that play it. You should be jealous and envious of them for they are magnificent.
21/07/2011 at 09:39 PoulWrist says:
130£ for a game you’re gonna play 14 days! Good stuff!
21/07/2011 at 09:40 Giant says:
The pre-order fee is shown further down the page as being subtracted from the 44.99 price for the standard. It’s still extortionate but not as totally outrageous as before.
That said Amazon is offering it for ~£35 .
21/07/2011 at 14:33 Hallgrim says:
Good to know. They should definitely stop using the word “fee” though.
21/07/2011 at 09:45 Faceless says:
“Extraordinarily unstandard £45″? That’s basically the price for Steam games outside of the UK – €49. A ludicrous price tag, to be sure, but not exactly something new.
21/07/2011 at 09:48 TillEulenspiegel says:
It’s €55 in countries wot have the Euro.
The “cheap” price of the collector’s edition seems to be $150, a much better deal than €150 ($214).
21/07/2011 at 09:52 Tei says:
So for $214 you buy a installer that you can use a lifetime. And 30 days of play.
21/07/2011 at 09:59 Phinor says:
In some parts of €uro-zone no amount of € is enough to get you this game:
“Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ is not available in your region
To maintain a high quality of service, only certain regions worldwide will be able to pre-order Star Wars™: The Old Republic™.”
So it’s a question of quality of service to not allow pre-orders in Finland. That’s a first even for me. Not that I was going to pre-order or buy this one but still, wanted to see the price.
21/07/2011 at 10:14 Carra says:
Ah, we’re finally getting fair prices for all. Although I hoped that the prices would go to the UK model, not the other way around.
21/07/2011 at 10:46 Malawi Frontier Guard says:
Finland obviously has too many trolls.
21/07/2011 at 11:51 Kaira- says:
No we don- wait, yes we do. Damn.
21/07/2011 at 09:48 Zarunil says:
Wait, are they seriously charging an extra fee of £5 if you want to pre-order? What the hell, isn’t it supposed to be the other way around? Either EA made a poo-poo or their greed knows no bounds.
Also, the pricing at Origin is laughable. I wanted to get the standard edition, but no way am I forking out £45. I’ll start clearing my backlog of games, and get this a few months after release once the price has dropped.
21/07/2011 at 09:51 Kdansky says:
The fans will buy it anyway. I call this well thought out, and I think they could have upped that by at least 20% more without selling less copies.
21/07/2011 at 09:52 Vexing Vision says:
But a lot of people are on the fence about it.
It was certainly my intention to play it for a month to see what the big kid around the door is looking like, but at this price tag, I’ll stick to reading reviews.
21/07/2011 at 10:09 Juan Carlo says:
I said that about Galaxies too at the time but Galaxies failed. Maybe it made its money back, but it certainly didn’t become the insane WOW style money generator that EA seems to hope TOR will become.
Star Wars alone really isn’t as “bulletproof” as it once was. If this game sucks it will fail, regardless of having the Star Wars brand.
21/07/2011 at 09:52 Staggy says:
Well, there in goes the final nail. DLC politics, extortionate price and the games’ actual appeal ever waning.
I’m out.
21/07/2011 at 13:59 Vile Vile Vilde says:
Orly.
You’ll come crawling back.
They always do.
21/07/2011 at 14:17 Nalano says:
Put dogshit in a box and slap a pic of a Twi’lek in front, people will still buy it.
21/07/2011 at 17:26 Wulf says:
Star Wars isn’t as attractive an IP as it used to be. Hopefully all these disenfranchised SW:TOR fans will pour over to GW2, which will be entirely more sane. Pay once for the box, same price as any other single-player game, and never pay for a subscription.
21/07/2011 at 09:55 Stupoider says:
Hahahaha- oh wait, you’re serious.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA
21/07/2011 at 09:55 Telke says:
RPS: Is there any news of an Oceanic release date? Origin says “this item is not yet available in your region”, and Bioware is way too silent about whether us Aus/NZ crowd will be able to buy on release day…
21/07/2011 at 09:57 magnus says:
£45? A textbook definition of the term ‘Cutting of your nose to spite your face’
21/07/2011 at 10:02 Kirioth says:
I wasn’t all that keen on this game to begin with. Charging considerably more for it than PC games usually cost is not going to help in swaying me.
You could get a lot of bloody good games for £130.
21/07/2011 at 10:13 Juan Carlo says:
No kidding.
I spent 80 dollars in the last steam sale on got like 23 games.
For 80 dollars plus subscription fees, this game better be every game ever!
I want it to not only be an RPG, but also a FPS, a God/universe simulator, a racing game, a point and click adventure……and also let you play chess and poker in the canteens to boot.
21/07/2011 at 10:26 Ian says:
And it has to make the tea and give me back-rubs.
21/07/2011 at 10:03 aircool says:
Haha ha ha hah haaa haaaahh haaaaaaah! With such ridiculous prices for a game which is looking more and more average with every trailer released, EA have found an excellent way to promote piracy.
Sadly though, I think they’ll still make a mint because it’s Star Wars. However, I’m sure all the online retailers selling physical copies will be selling them for about £20 soon after launch.
Meanwhile, many indie developers are giving us the ‘early 90′s’ vibe and producing cheap games that are fun to play… exactly what PC gaming is all about.
21/07/2011 at 10:13 Carra says:
Mmorpgs are pretty much immune to piracy.
21/07/2011 at 10:19 aircool says:
Not for long…
21/07/2011 at 10:47 Tei says:
Not totally inmune. If you googles the words “private servers”, you can find somehow some people has managed to write emulators for some popular games, or get his hands on a stolen working server instance. So there are *cough* a lot of private servers.
21/07/2011 at 17:29 Wulf says:
MMORPGs definitely aren’t immune to piracy. It all depends on how simple it is to create a server for. And if most of the content in the game is single-player, we’re looking at ‘very simple’ here as a probable answer.
And really, I don’t think this’ll sell so well. Star Wars really stopped being interesting a few years back. Some bad Star Wars films and LucasArts milking it with bad games helped finish it off. Even the most ardent Star Wars fan will likely think twice about this.
21/07/2011 at 17:32 HothMonster says:
Yeah private servers exist for alot of MMO’s but they devs usually break them with every content upgrade. Playing on one is usually more hassle than the 15$ a month is worth, unless you are ok with playing a 4 year old version of WOW
21/07/2011 at 10:09 Carra says:
[url=http://www.play.com/Games/PC/4-/21619247/Star-Wars-The-Old-Republic-Early-Access-Pack/Product.html]Play[/url] does seem to have it listed at £40/€40.
In any case, I preordered it over a year ago on play.com @ €37. Figured that price wouldn’t go down.
21/07/2011 at 17:28 Acorino says:
Well, it’s now 50€.
21/07/2011 at 10:10 Squeeby says:
A “pre order fee”?! What?
21/07/2011 at 10:12 jacobvandy says:
Wow. And the pre-order fee for the CE is $20!
21/07/2011 at 10:13 CMaster says:
A “pre order fee”.
So in exchange for giving you money months in advance of it being necessary (bad economics for you), taking a chance on a game that nobody has even had a chance to play yet and might not ever even be launched, you have to pay them extra? This is insanity – pre-ordering is already not a sensible or rational thing for players to do. Now it’s even less so!
21/07/2011 at 10:48 Milky1985 says:
Actually its good in one way, as you have paid specifically for the pre-order if the date slips and they do somethign stupid like refuse to cancel your pre-order i think you have a bigger legal stick to beat them with.
Although knowing EA they have put somethign in the T and C to say you can’t claim it back if you cancel your pre-order.
21/07/2011 at 17:34 HothMonster says:
woot just what i always wanted a chance to spend thousands on legal fees to recoup 5$ from a EA.
21/07/2011 at 10:13 DazedByTheHaze says:
I will try it when it’s f2p in a few months AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH. Stupid fucks…
21/07/2011 at 10:13 kutkh says:
On Origin it’s £39.99 + £5, if you get as far as the checkout. So the pre-order fee’s included in that £45. Which is generous of them.
21/07/2011 at 17:30 Acorino says:
£45 doesn’t sound very generous…
21/07/2011 at 10:14 Deano2099 says:
Just a thought, but if you’re launching a huge new MMO, and you’ve never done an MMO before, and you have a property that could easily do millions… you probably don’t want to have that many day-one sales as you’ll end up with server queues, instability and all that lot.
What you’d rather do is sell a steadily increasing number of boxes over the first year and build it up slowly. What I’m saying is, if the price puts people off, and so they decide to wait a few months until it drops to ‘normal’ prices, then I doubt Bioware/EA will be that unhappy. Unlike every other type of videogame, the success of an MMO isn’t down to how many boxes it shifts in the first month.
21/07/2011 at 10:23 aircool says:
Nah – I’d say that it’s a great way to recoup costs and make a profit before people realise the game isn’t worth s**t, yet still shelled out for a 6 month sub.
All indicators point to the game being utter trash, or absolutely brilliant. Going on past experience, I’d put money on the former.
21/07/2011 at 11:25 Nathan says:
I can’t imagine them doing this just to recoup costs upfront. Attempting to recoup an estimated $300 million upfront is not something that’s going to happen at any pricepoint.
I bet EA have run all the numbers on this. They *do* know what they’re doing.
21/07/2011 at 15:40 Nick says:
damage limitation maybe?
21/07/2011 at 10:17 Longrat says:
It’s blatantly obvious that these insane prices are here because EA is certain that this game won’t succeed. They’re panicking and they want to get a return on their INSANE 300$ million investment into this shitpile as fast as possible before it crashes and burns.
Oh bioware, what has become of you?
21/07/2011 at 17:32 Acorino says:
Problem is, how many people will buy it at these insane prices?
I mean, you can hike the price all you want, but it’s of no help when nobody buys it then…
21/07/2011 at 10:19 StuffedCabbage says:
Not only am I not paying those ridiculous prices, but I’m now in the process of removing that piece of shite that is origin from my PC. Go fuck yourselves EA!!!
21/07/2011 at 10:19 Jockie says:
Having seen this I’ve gone from a possible pre-order/probably day one purchaser, to a ‘Fuck off you money grabbing gits’.
21/07/2011 at 10:25 tewi says:
That sounds great, I hope they’ll start peddling lifetime subs too. There’s no better sign of a successful MMO than that.
21/07/2011 at 10:49 MiniMatt says:
Yeah – with the exception of LOTRO (which was some time ago) I don’t think I’ve seen a lifetime sub yet which hasn’t been the mark of a disaster in waiting.
Though I doubt we’ll see lifetime subs with SWTOR. I get the impression that the publishers and devs very much believe their own hype on this one, ie. that it truly is fantastic, that it truly will have people subscribed for years and they truly will pay bonkers box prices. Fingers crossed this is the case (though won’t be paying anything like that to find out thank you very much) but fear it might turn out a bit poo.
21/07/2011 at 17:46 Wulf says:
Actually, since going free-to-play, Champions Online has been seeing exponentially increasing revenue too. And that has a lifetime sub.
21/07/2011 at 10:33 Milky1985 says:
“It also says there’s the pre-order fee of £5,”
So THATS the point of falling out between EA and steam then! They want to start charging pre-order fees and valve laughed them out the door as its a STUPID RETARDED IDEA.
Shurly they want us to pre-order as it looks good for there books and gives them a good idea of something selling well, why put us off by charging us for saying “yes we like your game and intend to get it asap”?
21/07/2011 at 10:41 Tei says:
Don’t really make much sense.
But I suppose EA has find that people are willing to pay more to access a open beta. And thats the extra $5.
21/07/2011 at 10:38 noom says:
This has now become one of the only games to be released in quite a while that I’m absolutely certain I don’t want. That’s quite some achievement…
If this sells well I think I’m just going to give away my PC and become a monk or something.
21/07/2011 at 10:39 Jajusha says:
First that horrible horrible PVE trailer
Now this price? No thank you.
21/07/2011 at 10:43 Joe Duck says:
I wonder if the reason why so many MMOs fail is because they are marketed like the rest of games, with a “first week” mentality. They are sold as the next big shiny thing. Marketing wise, I see no big difference between TOR and CODBLOPS or any other AAA monster.
They design their strategy in order to get a lot of first week buys. And in fact they do achieve that goal, it happened with Warhammer, Star Trek or even Hellgate. The frenzy is built up pumping up the publicity, media coverage, the info trickle, the viral and social marketings and of course, the trailers.
So what happens? That when they come out in the market, these game’s sales figures behave like normal games because they are sold exactly the same way. And exactly as normal games do, they fizzle out after one or two months and people moves on to the next big shiny thing.
21/07/2011 at 10:56 jdobrowski says:
I’m not entirely sure what all the rage is about – if you want it just don’t buy it from Origin. It’s £34 on Amazon, which while a little expensive for a PC game isn’t ludicrously expensive for a AAA title. And if you don’t want it, why do you even care?
21/07/2011 at 11:03 aircool says:
In the back of people’s minds, they’re worrying about what will happen to future EA games that are going to be Origin only… like BF3 for example.
Thank f**k you can still get physical copies of games.
21/07/2011 at 15:43 JKjoker says:
you say it as if physical copies of games nowadays would actually install or run without EA’s/Ubisoft/Steam/whatever DRM servers up (hope the pirates got you covered)
21/07/2011 at 11:01 jezcentral says:
I don’t see the problem. EA will have done their homework, and worked out what they can charge. If you don’t want to pay this, wait until the price goes down.
I’m sure there are plenty of people prepared to pay the extra fiver to get early access to the game, and given the amount some spend on TF2 hats, I’m sure there are others who want a “spunky mouse”.
It’s not ideal, but I spent over the “standard price” for StarCraft 2, because I wanted the game immediately. The same will probably happen here.
That said, I hope the price comes down quickly for those who can’t afford it yet.
21/07/2011 at 11:08 aircool says:
Sadly, the result of EA’s homework tends to be..
4/10 See me!
21/07/2011 at 17:50 Wulf says:
Because “preorder fee” screams “You would have to be stupid to buy this!”
EA isn’t very good at its economics class, is it?
21/07/2011 at 11:01 Sicram says:
GW2 it is then! Although I was curious about this game I no longer am after reading a lot of “reskinned WOW” comments. Also, I’m sortakinda allergic to monthly subs, hate ‘em.
21/07/2011 at 17:52 Wulf says:
Those comments are actually Bioware’s fault, entertainingly. They said themselves that they’re staying as closely to WoW’s design lessons as possible, and they outright said that it would be stupid to do anything else.
So apparently ArenaNet are being stupid whilst this approach we see here is supposedly intelligent. This amuses me greatly. I love you, Bioware, for the quality entertainment you provide me with in every press release.
21/07/2011 at 11:02 Kem0sabe says:
Just wait for the inevitable price drop in a couple of months, when subscriptions bomb like it was September 18, 2008 :)
21/07/2011 at 11:14 JoNike says:
On Origin it seems to be 54,99$ + 5$ for pre-order fees. Who the f is charging pre-order fees for a numeric pre-order, really? Aren’t they suppose to give a discount for pre-ordering the game?
21/07/2011 at 11:15 Spaldy says:
As an NZ gamer, I’m getting pretty fed up with this regional BS.
I was reasonably optimistic about Origin – that it could just be another platform and perhaps a worthwhile competitor to Steam (which maybe, just maybe, would keep prices down) – but to click on a link that I’ve been e-mailed to be told that I can’t pre-order because I live outside Europe or the US and that this is a game that looks to be one of the first big pushes for Origin just fills me with despair to be honest.
This is more or less the same kind of story that we went through for the first run of APB down here. The game is pushed through global media, we join communities to keep track of the news, get all excited about the game in question, only to be told when it gets to pre-order (and occasionally initial release!) “Oh, but, not you.”
Out of the two big IPs in which I’ve taken in interest being developed into an MMO, there was Star Trek and SWTOR. From where I’m sitting, this latest move from EA pretty much sours me on SWTOR, and makes me more than a little nervous about my digital access to other Bioware titles (such as, I don’t know, Mass Effect 3?).
For the time being, I see no reason to even think about trying out SWTOR given that I suscribe to Cryptic’s Stark Trek Online (which has greatly improved with Season Four in my opinion) unless there’s a free trial (which I can’t see happening given this model).
All in all, I know this could just be Australia and New Zealand being locked out of the pre-order (which, when put like that just gets me going) and that the release could be global. But I’m not holding my breath.
21/07/2011 at 11:16 Duke of Chutney says:
any guesses on the monthly sub price. Through my skills of divination i predict £13.91.
21/07/2011 at 14:39 Chris D says:
Through my skills at divination I predict… 2 feet of entrails and a small piece of goats liver.
Hold on, I’m not sure I got that quite right. Let me check the manual..
21/07/2011 at 17:54 Wulf says:
Likely £8-10 since they’re trying to ape early WoW. I don’t think even they’d be insane enough to charge £13 per month…
Oh, wait… this is EA. Nevermind.
21/07/2011 at 11:24 Drake Sigar says:
Scoff! Gameplay.uk has the regular edition for £35, although I refuse to buy anything over £30.
21/07/2011 at 11:29 CerberuX says:
Wow, thats a lot of money.. I’ve sworn off MMO’s due to being fed up of paying monthly but also hating the free to play models around (I know I guess my MMO needs can’t be satisfied). HOWEVER I was going to get this game, but now I don’t think I will be unless the price drops cause man is that expensive for a damn game. Makes me think its just a pure money maker with no love – like some form of CoD *bleh*
21/07/2011 at 17:55 Wulf says:
You realise that Guild Wars 2 is going to be a fully fledged MMORPG with no monthly subscription, right?
21/07/2011 at 11:35 berjalan says:
Dammit. I’ve been looking forward to this game for ages. Now my lack of faith is disturbing me.
21/07/2011 at 11:48 Khann says:
*slow clap*
21/07/2011 at 11:54 berjalan says:
I deserved that.
21/07/2011 at 11:36 Craazhy says:
This is absolutely ridiculous. There’s no justifiable reason why these games should be gouging us the way they are. *closes collectors edition pre-order confirmation email* I will not stand for this!
21/07/2011 at 11:46 MonkeyMonster says:
It’s almost as if they asked Valve to set their prices and manage the go-live…
21/07/2011 at 11:51 Ganj says:
These price points seem to be a bit too steep for a company confident in the long term success of their project.
21/07/2011 at 11:52 The Sentinel says:
How else are they going to recoup that £300 million development cost?
Sorry, but this just ain’t my Star Wars anymore. Time to let the whole thing go, I reckon. No sale.
21/07/2011 at 11:53 Teddy Leach says:
(Still silently mocking.)
*Gives two-fingered salute.*
21/07/2011 at 11:55 Wolf0x says:
Seriously how do EA think this is a good idea, you have to pay £40/45 for the game then pay a monthly fee on top of that it’s ridiculous as it cost more than a console game straight up then you have to pay each month. There goes my hope that EA’s new store Origins would actually sell there games at a price comparable to retail instead they charge £5 + pre-order cost
21/07/2011 at 12:04 Wolf0x says:
When I first say this story I really thought it was a joke you know a bit of mocking of EA and it’s crazy pricing £35 for a pc game is ridiculous I will happily pay £25 or if it’s an amazing game £30 put other than those prices or lower I will not buy the game I will wait for it to come down in price
21/07/2011 at 14:20 Nalano says:
Console games?
At this rate, the CE will cost more than most consoles.
21/07/2011 at 18:04 Wulf says:
^^^
Hahahaha, wow. Good point, N. At this rate this is going to go down as one of the poorest business decisions in the history of gaming. And that’s a long history. The biggest cock-up ever. After the collapse of civilisation bards will sing of this.
21/07/2011 at 18:46 Nalano says:
And if this epic cock-up were the doings of Bethesda, I’d be gleefully roasting marshmellows on the smoldering wreckage when they crash and burn, but since it’s Bioware it’s a tragedy.
22/07/2011 at 08:44 Hmm-Hmm. says:
Whoa there. That, we will have to see (got your popcorn yet?). There’s no saying how many fans they’ll be able to reel in. This may all seem ludicrous to us, but who knows how many people will fall for it. And for that matter, stick with the game.
21/07/2011 at 11:58 Ertard says:
I will never buy this game. It seems to be very old and quite bad, and that’s what I think EA knows as well. The ultra inflated boxed price (weird for an MMO), massive lack of trailers with real in-game content and all the delays tell me this will probably not be that great. Not £68 great at least (that’s three day one AAA games on D2D.co.uk).
21/07/2011 at 12:26 johnpeat says:
If they announced Guild Wars 2 today with a price of £40 they’d be SHOWERED in money
Hint Hint
21/07/2011 at 12:35 johnpeat says:
Furthermore, I’d like to thank EA for removing any possible fence-sitting I might have had about this game.
I tend to perk interest in most MMOs but my policy is to see if I can wangle and demo/BETA to find-out if it’s worth the money/subs/time and that’s clearly not on the cards – instead I’m being asked for a sack of money for a game I strongly suspect is going to be KOTOR with a lot more grind and a lot less ‘Star Wars’ (and let’s be honest, KOTOR was a bit low on Star Wars anyway!!)
I’ll hold for GW2 and in the meanwhile enjoy GW (I really must complete my Level 20 superquests one day) and perhaps the other 8 million ‘free’ titles including AOC and LOTRO and CO and …
21/07/2011 at 12:37 Shakermaker says:
I pre-ordered the Digital Deluxe edition. Now send me a beta invite plox, Bioware.
21/07/2011 at 18:16 Wulf says:
A “beta invite plox”? Is that like some sort of lego? Are they sending beta invites out on lego blocks now?
21/07/2011 at 12:38 Haradan says:
I really don’t see how they expect this to work. What they need right now is not to maximise day one sales in £, but to get as many people into the game as possible. By turning people away with extortionate pricing, they cripple their long term profitability. What will make this game a success or failure is long-term subs, not day one sales.
21/07/2011 at 13:00 Conor says:
Fucking Nora.
21/07/2011 at 13:04 hotcod says:
I don’t think this means EA think the game will bomb… but the investment has been huge and it they are likely confident that most people who where going to buy the game will buy it at this price anyway so they get a instant cash injection and then all the subs. It’s likely a very stupid think to do and the UK pricing for the CE is idiotic and I don’t even want to start on the DD deluxe pricing… you’d think EA would be using this as a chance to get people to adopt origins some what, which a very cheap deluxe edition could have worked to do. Hell if you’d offered it as just a “origins” editions where you got all the cool stuff then it might have even over come my misgivings about the platform.
21/07/2011 at 13:27 zergrush says:
I think they’re charging the additional fee for people who pre-order, get on the beta and then cancel their pre-orders. I think a lot of people did that with Medal of Honor, no?
It’s still retarded anyways.
21/07/2011 at 13:39 jezcentral says:
Meh, I paid £39.99 for Frontier: Elite 2, and that was back in 1993. Yup, 20 years ago.
I’m damn old, me.
21/07/2011 at 13:45 skinlo says:
That was before you knew better though right?? :)
21/07/2011 at 13:50 jezcentral says:
Nah, I’d still do it, although maybe buying it AFTER my exams would have been a better idea. :(
In fact, it worked out as even more expensive, as I also had to buy some diskettes, to make a boot disk with. :)
21/07/2011 at 13:46 Freud says:
So this is like WoW in space or smth?
21/07/2011 at 15:42 Nalano says:
I thought Burning Crusade was WoW in space.
21/07/2011 at 14:11 cyrenic says:
For something that’s invariably going to become free to play, this is pretty funny.
21/07/2011 at 14:26 nayon says:
Origin says:
“Due to high demand and limited quantities of Star Wars™: The Old Republic™”
limited quantity when buying a digital download? lol EA
22/07/2011 at 21:59 Big Daddy Dugger says:
LOL!
21/07/2011 at 14:27 aircool says:
RE CE’s, I guess I’ve pre ordered the CE of Space Marine, but that’s only because I like anything Warhammer, especially the gizzits you get with some CE’s. So I can see how some people might get the CE, but the gizzits look crap.
21/07/2011 at 14:27 Giant says:
I think this probably sums up the experience of ordering it through origin.
21/07/2011 at 14:43 B0GiE-uk- says:
No way am I going to pay that much. Only an average looking mmo anyways.
21/07/2011 at 14:45 ramonkahn says:
They must have gotten the conversion wrong; The game costs 199 Swiss francs = 242 US$ (CE) and 96 US$ (59£) for the normal version. I was not sure if I should buy this game before, but I guess this settles it.
21/07/2011 at 15:16 ChromeBallz says:
I was going to criticize this, but then i remembered that i paid 180 euros for the GT5 Signature Edition.
21/07/2011 at 15:31 JKjoker says:
they obviously know there is no way they are going to make their money back on subscriptions so they are going to grab as much as they can before anyone knows what happened, it might seem ridiculous now but it will seem very smart when that thing puts a whole new chapter in Videogame Fail history
man, APB, DA2, Duke and so many other, less impressive, failures, that thing is growing waaaaay too fast these past few months
21/07/2011 at 15:54 Spider Jerusalem says:
Why are supplies limited for pre-orders of Star Wars: The Old Republic?
BioWare has always had a history of delivering high quality experiences for our customers and we are dedicated to making sure that track record continues with Star Wars: The Old Republic. Our focus is on not only delivering a high quality game, but also in developing a thriving online environment. In order to ensure a great user experience we have decided to limit initial launch supply. Further supplies will be released post-launch.
lol
21/07/2011 at 17:30 Commisar says:
I guess they just don’t have a 10 meg pipe yet :P
21/07/2011 at 17:52 Acorino says:
So I guess they DON’T want to get their investment back asap.
22/07/2011 at 08:49 Hmm-Hmm. says:
It’s all in the name of ‘great user experience’! Their ‘great users’ will buy the game expensively at pre-order prices.. but since they are not that numerous, they’ve decided to give the rest of us a break.
But their great users will give EA a hell of an experience.
21/07/2011 at 15:59 bleeters says:
That sound you may hear is the sound of my interest plummeting like a stone.
And, presumably, the sound of Bioware being ‘re-evaluated to a more congruous budget’ a few months after release.
21/07/2011 at 16:12 Generic Monk says:
lol
They’re relying on people being stupid enough to think this is a good game and a continuation of a good series anyway, why not see if they can push their luck a little further? I was never gonna buy this anyway, it’s a fucking shitstain an an amazing series.
21/07/2011 at 16:20 killerkerara says:
Oh this isn’t too bad, just wait until they announce their great ideas for micro-transactions! I predict $25 for a new lightsaber, $20 for a better blaster, and maybe $75 for a massive ship. If we get lucky, they might even offer a monocle!
21/07/2011 at 17:17 bit_crusherrr says:
GameStation have fancy sealed pre-order boxes for the collectors edition in stores. No idea when deposits etc will be able to be put down.
21/07/2011 at 19:44 Cyndre says:
wow that is alot of money for a pre order….I’d expect a significant in game advantage over regular subscribers to justify that cost
21/07/2011 at 19:53 gusone says:
No BF3 on Steam. No Origin. Join the boycott. Be one of the early adopters.
http://steamcommunity.com/groups/EAoriginboycott
This is genuine attempt at creating a Steam EA Origin Boycott Group. Please join if you, like me, feel incredibly aggrieved by EA’s Battlefield 3 boycott on Valve’s Steam platform. Personally I find the bully boy EA tactics appalling especially after Steam saved PC gaming. This is about a massive corporation muscling in, stealing market share and leveraging off the millions of dollars Valve has invested in Steam over the last five years.
It is not so much the fact that Origin is yet another gaming platform it is the fact that we are being forced to use it to play Battlefield 3 if you want a digital version. This is a big deal but PC Gamers do have a large voice especially since Battlefield games sell more on PCs than consoles – so we should use it. Steam is the premier platform but it’s not a monopoly. You can buy digital games from a number of places. However, we all have 10’s or even 100’s of games on Steam and thanks to Steam we as a PC gaming community have been conditioned to accept digital downloads not to mention the friends social network is second to none. These are just two of the many reasons why we all love Steam.
Do you really think EA has PC Gamers interests at heart? … really? They’ve spent over $1.5bn on casual social games chasing the latest trend destroying massive shareholder value. They would ditch PC gaming in a minute as soon as it started making a loss while they continue to cosy up to Facebook – Bejeweled vs Zombiesville 9 is the future of PC Gaming right? Crysis 2 was pulled from Steam due to an exclusivity agreement with Direct2Drive breaching Steam’s T&C’s and then EA had the affront to sell it for even more on its own Origin platform. Furthermore the recently announced SWTOR Origin version has unique content (Star Wars: The Old Republic Digital Deluxe Edition) and cost $79.99 versus the packaged retail standard edition of $59.99… is this a joke? I’m not laughing and I’m not seeing the PC Gamer love and nor should you.
That’s not the way to do it. This is not the way PC Gamers work … when did less become more? You all have an opportunity to tell EA “No. That’s not how it works. I don’t like what you are doing”. To be blunt if Steam is good enough for Activison’s Call of Duty franchise (whether you love it or hate it) then it’s good enough for Battlefield. And that’s the reality. The mighty Activision is still using Steam. Say’s a hell of a lot doesn’t it? The problem we have here is if other publishers start to do the same we’re going to have 5+ platforms running – imagine having to log into 5 different social networks every day. Not to mention the stress on PCs running all these platforms in the background as they hoover up client usage data/stats and send it back to the marketing departments so that we get hammered with ads and spam. It’s a real possibility. Even today there is an article on a gaming website claiming that Steam EA game codes can be redeemed via Origin and that Origin loads the Steam overlay when you start the game (Dragon Age 2). This is just ridiculous. We just want Battlefield 3 on Steam. We have to say now… “Stop”.
Sadly, I fully expect Origin to be integrated into Battlefield 3 even in the packaged product so we cannot escape it even if you buy the disc – it’s all about them capturing CRM data in their Nucleus database . All I can suggest is that you sign up to this boycott group (link below) and you pre-order the packaged version. At least don’t let EA have the extra profits and fatter margins that they would generate from a digital copy sold on Origin. .. $79.99 for a digital product really?
I’ll see you all on the Battlefield but this whole episode has left me deflated and not as excited as I should be to the forthcoming release of Battlefield 3. Bizarrely Modern Warfare 3 now has me more excited and that’s coming from a PC Gamer who has played every Battlefield game religiously since Battlefield 1942 came out a decade or so ago. And with Red Orchestra 2 out a month or two earlier Battlefield 3 already had its work cut out. The decision is being made easier by the day.
Me, I’m just a 40 year old PC gamer who is rather annoyed by all of this, yeah call me Victor Meldrew. But I really “don’t believe it”. DICE we love you… but EA… “Just stop” . Please tell your friends (friends of friends etc) and get them to join the group. It’s time for some organised protest old school style . Everything starts off small but hopefully it will snowball into a PC Gamer movement that wants to speak up for PC Gamers. To make this happen please post the Steam Group link in any articles, blogs, Youtubes, twitters, Facebook etc about Battlefield 3. If you’ve the time then why not do it to other EA games. Let’s remind people we don’t have to accept this.
Remember it will not end here. Mass Effect 3 will be next. It’s time to act… The PC Gamer community needs you all now.
The Steam EA Origin Boycott Group
22/07/2011 at 00:46 Kaira- says:
Boycotting Origin on Steam? How… wait for it… original.
Thank you, I’ll be here all week.
22/07/2011 at 02:12 jezcentral says:
Whilst I wil only buy BF3 once it becomes available on Steam, I don’t see the problem with EA doing this. It’s no different to what Valve do with their own games.
Boycott Origin for being rubbish, by all means, (I have no idea whether it is or not) but I don’t get why they can’t sell their own games.
22/07/2011 at 08:50 Hmm-Hmm. says:
Heh. No.
22/07/2011 at 22:05 Big Daddy Dugger says:
If you REALLY have to play the generic FPS Battlefield 3 just pirate it, it’s not like you should encourage EA with money anyways.
21/07/2011 at 20:00 PaulMorel says:
Bwahaha.
1. Install Origin …. No.
2. Pay $75 plus $15/mo …. lol. No.
I was looking forward to this game, but I am loving the schadenfreude of watching EA prove that “they are who we thought they were.”
Is that 5 year old (American) football reference
appropriate here?
Let me know when there is a free trial.
21/07/2011 at 23:54 Wulf says:
You mean paid trial, right? That’ll be £5 for the privilege of trying their game out for a week.
21/07/2011 at 20:45 thehollowman says:
And this, as always with EA, is why their online store: a) exists in the first place and b) will fail horribly. Gouging people with your prices just pisses them off.
22/07/2011 at 05:46 BirdsUseStars says:
I wrote this game off the minute I learned you wouldn’t be able to play as a wookiee. I can see that it’s all downhill from there.
22/07/2011 at 08:55 Hmm-Hmm. says:
And the ewoks, man. Won’t someone think of the ewoks!