In the EA sub-forum, Zoomba has already indicated they still have plenty of keys available.

As for what will happen after those keys are spent... it seems you'd have to start paying for that supposedly integral part of the DDE (according to BioWare). 

If you're wondering why the need for this, remember it's EA we're talking about.

Wee another money grab from EA. Please sir can I have some more?

EA can money grub all they want, I'm still getting the Wardens Keep DLC for 7$. Do they suck donkey balls? Yeap....Am I still gonna get it so I have all things Dragon Age? ....Yeap.

...Those bastards....

Betcha Legal or someone threw it on there as a 'just-in-case-something-breaks'. Not a money-grabbing scheme.

 

"While supplies last" is a standard scheme designed to coerce potential buyers into actually buying, even if they're unsure. It adds an element of psychological pressure... you know, "get it while you still can!" type of thing.

Not a money-grabbing scheme. Just a marketing one.

I don't like this trend. Not at all.

Just in case they can't give out more digital copies of something they can just make more copies of on the fly. Nonsense. I am not buying it. If it's a marketing scheme, it's still a money grab. Marketing is meant to drive sales which brings in... money.

OR, despite the bitterness here, it could be like some of the stardock people mentioned in that they only got a certain number of keys for that DLC, and as such, if they run out of keys, they might not be able to give you access to it.  Whether or not EA will give them more keys, it would be irresponsible on the part of stardock to guarantee access to something that they have a limited quantity of when they're not the source.

And what good reason would EA have to deny a legal distributor copies to more keys?

Stardock employ their own legal team, so I can assure you that they wouldn't be telling their customers that this is a limited offer if it was in fact not limited. The repercussions wouldn't be to their liking should someone enquire. Regardless of how you spin this, it's a cash grab. This is the same as the "First 100 people get this free product" type of marketing, which is a great way to either promote the free product or entice people to purchase the other product. Now, this normally makes sense when you only actually have 100 of that free product. If it's entirely reproduceable at no additional expesne, like Digital Content, the only reason to offer it to a small percentage of Deluxe, or whatever, Edition customers is revenue generation - and it's unethical because they've already paid more than the other customers and proven that they're fans of your game before it's even been released. Then again, the only reason to have pay-to-play launch day DLC is additional profit, so restricting access to that content to only a select few helps make it more enticing, regardless of how unethical the practice behind it is.

The launch day DLC was actually an attempt to either curb purchasing of used games, for which the company generates no revenue, or to make some money off of used games, since, across all platforms (although not applicable to digital distribution), the Stone Prisoner DLC is only available to the first purchaser (Tied to your XBLA or PSN account, probably), requiring someone who purchases it secondhand or via gamestop used games to buy it separately. 

The warden's keep is part of the collector's, but I applaud them making it available to someone who might not want the collectors, or perhaps doesn't have the money for it now, but can grab that later. *shrug* They're simply making the collector's bonus available to others, for a fee.  That's pretty logical.

What they've done is break up the content to ensure maximum sales; you purchase the pieces you want. Nothing wrong with that in my opinion. However, what they appear doing is limiting the availability of the bonus even to people who purchase the collector's edition - you pay the additional money for the collector's edition and you still have to pay for that particular piece of the bonus content for no reason - it's digital content, it costs nothing to re-produce.

True enough, and if it becomes an issue, it would suck.  Hopefully EA supplies them with new keys if/when needed.  If not, well, stardock is pretty good about refunds from what I understand (never returned a product myself).

Yep.  And EA did this to all distributors.  GameStop ran out a while ago.

 

 

i personally dislike the lottery aspect... "pay 15$ extra for the collector's and you may or may not get a 7$ item with it..."