For those who may not know, Star Wars: The Old Republic became available for pre-order last week. One of the pre-order options is for a digital copy through EA's Origin digital distribution platform. Supplies of the digital version are, apparently, limited. Yes indeed, the might run out of digital copies, better get yours fast!
The official explanation is that this isn't being done to artificially inflate demand (no no, of course not!) but rather to make sure the "head start" that comes with the pre-order is playable rather than having thousands of angry customers in choked login queues and overcrowded starter zones. That's . . . plausible. Maybe. At least a little.
I have a solution for EA though. Rather than limit their pre-orders (and risk not getting those 1 million subscribers they need to avoid failure) they should just offer a head start to the head start. They can start selling pre-pre-orders that give customers a head-head-start. Heck, they can even link it to the version of the game purchased too. Collector's edition buyers get a 2 week head start. Digital CE buyers get a 1 week head start. Plebians buying the regular edition get a 3 day head start. Then stick a pre-pre-order on top of that for an extra $5, for people who want to get in even further ahead. Then they won't need to limit pre-orders in order to protect the people pre-ordering from having an unsatisfying head start.
EA, you can mail me a check, thanks.
(P.S. This post is not serious)
No comments:
Post a Comment