Shale's DLC pack has a place in gaming history: priced at an outrageous $15 or your regional equivalent, you'd think EA was just using BioWare to gouge people, and, well, you'd be right -- that's been the case since they bought it, in fact -- but in this case, it's not for the reason one might think.
During the PS360 era, when console digital storefronts were still in their infancy and the vast majority of people still bought their games in physical media, stores like GameStop were thriving with their trade-ins and secondhand game sales. This situation led to publishers raising this huge panic around used games claiming that, since profit from the used copy went only to the store, they represented lost sales, were the same as piracy and thus, were killing the industry.
The problem, in their eyes, was the console license management model, or the lack thereof. On the PC, they could rely on serial codes and online activation (which god knows Microsoft tried to push with the XOne) to restrict the resale of games, but console users needed only to insert the disc and play. So how do you nudge users towards buying a new copy of your game instead of a used one? These publishers realized that, while you can't have a serial code for the game, what if you had to use a code for something else?
Enter the online pass, a single-use code included with new copies that enabled your account to use a title's online mode. Bought the game secondhand? Lent your copy to a friend? Lost the voucher, or didn't have one in the first place due to a packaging error? Tough luck, time to shell out for another pass. This anti-consumer practice was widely reviled, but had immense popularity for a time among publishers, who frantically searched for ways to contrive such a voucher so to drive the used copies' value down.
And contrive they did: they looked to purely single-player games, which didn't have an online mode to cut access to. In Dragon Age's case, in a display of total unscrupulousness, EA had BioWare slice away a piece of the game to sell as a $15 DLC, which you could get for free with a code included in new copies. That piece they cut out, as one might guess, is The Stone Prisoner, and that's why this DLC pack is so hard to fully enjoy. Even though I always had it for my playthroughs, it never felt like part of Origins, but instead, like a scam, a piece of the game cut out and generously returned to me.
One can even see the gashes from where they cut Shale off from the main game: the DLC begins with some random merchant showing up and conveniently giving the Grey Warden a golem control rod for no particular reason -- not even asking for a trade, or a quest, or any sort of fair exchange. What follows from there is mostly fine: The quest in Honnleath is, unusually for a DA:O DLC, interesting, and Shale is a fun character. It's true that, in an all-star cast like Origins's, I would probably rank her near the bottom, but she's nevertheless entertaining and an interesting insight into the golems and the history of the dwarves, with extra lines during the Orzammar main quest should you choose to bring her. But then again, wouldn't it have been better had she just been part of the main game, met as part of the Orzammar quest to begin with? The thought never leaves my mind.
During the PS360 era, when console digital storefronts were still in their infancy and the vast majority of people still bought their games in physical media, stores like GameStop were thriving with their trade-ins and secondhand game sales. This situation led to publishers raising this huge panic around used games claiming that, since profit from the used copy went only to the store, they represented lost sales, were the same as piracy and thus, were killing the industry.
The problem, in their eyes, was the console license management model, or the lack thereof. On the PC, they could rely on serial codes and online activation (which god knows Microsoft tried to push with the XOne) to restrict the resale of games, but console users needed only to insert the disc and play. So how do you nudge users towards buying a new copy of your game instead of a used one? These publishers realized that, while you can't have a serial code for the game, what if you had to use a code for something else?
Enter the online pass, a single-use code included with new copies that enabled your account to use a title's online mode. Bought the game secondhand? Lent your copy to a friend? Lost the voucher, or didn't have one in the first place due to a packaging error? Tough luck, time to shell out for another pass. This anti-consumer practice was widely reviled, but had immense popularity for a time among publishers, who frantically searched for ways to contrive such a voucher so to drive the used copies' value down.
And contrive they did: they looked to purely single-player games, which didn't have an online mode to cut access to. In Dragon Age's case, in a display of total unscrupulousness, EA had BioWare slice away a piece of the game to sell as a $15 DLC, which you could get for free with a code included in new copies. That piece they cut out, as one might guess, is The Stone Prisoner, and that's why this DLC pack is so hard to fully enjoy. Even though I always had it for my playthroughs, it never felt like part of Origins, but instead, like a scam, a piece of the game cut out and generously returned to me.
One can even see the gashes from where they cut Shale off from the main game: the DLC begins with some random merchant showing up and conveniently giving the Grey Warden a golem control rod for no particular reason -- not even asking for a trade, or a quest, or any sort of fair exchange. What follows from there is mostly fine: The quest in Honnleath is, unusually for a DA:O DLC, interesting, and Shale is a fun character. It's true that, in an all-star cast like Origins's, I would probably rank her near the bottom, but she's nevertheless entertaining and an interesting insight into the golems and the history of the dwarves, with extra lines during the Orzammar main quest should you choose to bring her. But then again, wouldn't it have been better had she just been part of the main game, met as part of the Orzammar quest to begin with? The thought never leaves my mind.