BioWare Blog

Part 3 of 3, by Evil Chris Priestly

When last we left our heroes…

In my first blog entry I explained that how during a trip to the San Diego Comic Con in 2008 I thought BioWare should show off our games at the 2009 convention. And in my last blog entry I explained that BioWare did indeed plan to show off Dragon Age: Origins and had a great idea for a Gaming Lounge at this year’s convention. Instead of being a small part of the huge convention itself we would have our own space at a nearby hotel to give our games the best exposure to as many fans as we could attract. The only problem was the hotel could not rent us space to do so without permission for the Comic Con organizers.

I would love to now write about the incredible battle where little tiny me goes up against the face of huge Comic Con and how they tried to beat me down but through dogged preservation and a never-say-die attitude I managed to win out and was carried through the streets to great acclaim from fans. This would be turned into a movie possibly starring Seth Rogan as me, Christopher Walken as the bad guy and Yvonne Strahovski as my wife (hey, I can dream can’t I?). The problem would be that it just wouldn’t be true. Sure, the Convention organizers are very careful about what they allow to occur during the convention, but they listened to what we asked, took a day to think about it, and approved it with no hassle at all.

So we were all set. We now had permission to hold our EA Gamer Lounge. Dragon Age: Origins along with Battlefield 1943, Left 4 Dead 2 and Battlefield Bad Company 2 set up to design a space where our fans could come in after a hard day at the Con, get to play our great games, have a relaxing beverage and get their hands on some cool free schwag. A quick comment about our free schwag, ours was awesome. Not to put down the other three games, but they just did t-shirts (which were cool and all, but still, just t-shirts) WE did inflatable swords. We took the Grey Warden sword from inside the game and made them so they could be blown up by fans and swung at each other with only the smallest of chances to do any harm. These went over super well. No matter where you went around San Diego you would see people young and old with a sword tucked in a belt or sticking out of a backpack. These were definitely a hot item at the con and we ended up giving away 30,000 in the 4 days we were there.

Our Dragon Age: Origins room in the gamer lounge came out great. We set up 6 PC stations and 8 Xbox 360 stations for hands on gameplay. Players were able to experience some of the Human Noble origin story as well as combat inside the Tower of Ishal against an Ogre. We also set up a stage where Lead Designer Mike Laidlaw gave presentations on the game and a photo-op wall where people could have their picture taken as a Grey Warden. To help out at the booth along with me and Mike were Matt Goldman (Lead Artist), David Silverman (Brand Manager), Jay Watamaniuk (Community Manager), Fernando Melo (Producer), Ross Gardner (Lead Programmer), Mike Avery & Bruce Venne (both skilled QA and demo experts). Everyone pitched in whether it was coaching people play the game at the stations or helping out the Street Team attract attention.

Didn’t I mention the street team? Well, because we knew that the main draw at Comic Con will always be the Con itself we knew we would need to attract folks across the street to our gaming lounge. To help us attract traffic we hired the street team which was made up of Mike, Mo, Q and some fine ladies from a local sorority (David Silverman’s GF went to University in San Diego and asked her Sisters to help us out. They were all lovely and very keen to help our Dragon Age: Origins once they played it for themselves). It was their job to stand down on the street in the blazing sun, passing out window clings, t-shirts and inflatable swords and driving folks over to our lounge. They did an incredible job as we had a line out the door each day and all 4 games had full stations all day long.

So, was our Gaming Lounge at Comic Con a success? Absolutely. Fans had a great time. We had a great time. Everyone who experienced Dragon Age: Origins walked away happy and even though those of us who worked the room were tired, at the end of it all, we knew we had done well and that it was a hit. What was my favorite thing about the room this year? Well, there was lots of good stuff, but I think my highlight was having actor Steve Valentine stop by the booth. Many people know Steve from his work on the Crossing Jordan TV show. Not everyone knows that he is also the voice of Alistair in Dragon Age: Origins. He brought his wife to the booth to show her who he was in the game and was super nice. He shook hands, asked questions and took pictures with us all. I’ve heard many actors at Cons can be kind of aloof, but Steve was friendly and a great guy which makes him my Con highlight.

Will BioWare be back to the San Diego Comic Con in 2010? I’m not sure. By next summer we will have shipped both Dragon Age: Origins and Mass Effect 2, so you would think we wouldn’t have anything to show off. However I know we have a few surprises in store. So in the nature of any good comic book, don’t be surprised if BioWare makes an unexpected appearance when you least expect us. Or, as I like to say, Stay Tuned till next year.

Part 2 of 3, by Evil Chris Priestly

In my previous blog entry, I said that despite having a great time at the famed San Diego Comic Con in 2008, I didn’t think we were going to be able to attend in 2009. Y’see, the SDCC is THE premiere Comic Con event in the world. Oh sure, there are other up and comers, but due to the fact it has been around 40 years, always brings in the top companies, artists, writers, etc in the industry and, due to San Diego’s proximity to Hollywood, they get to bring in some big name movie and television stars to the show (See picture of Fernando, Hiro & Mike). Due to its massive popularity, any space inside the convention center is booked years in advance, so it did not look like we would be a part of the Con this year.

Then, earlier this year, the main force behind the EA booth invited Dragon Age: Origins to be part of the booth along with some other great EA titles (like Dante’s Inferno and Brutal Legend). Naturally, I jumped at the chance and began to plan our presence in the EA booth. Due to the fact that space was limited and that EA has many great games coming out this year, we were only going to be able to have 2 kiosks available for fans to play the game at. While this was a little disappointing, it did mean our fans would get to play Dragon Age: Origins and, I would get to return to Comic Con this year.

When word of our booth space got back to David Silverman (he is the brand manager for Dragon Age, so it is his job to make DA as well known as possible) he said that this just wasn’t good enough. David wanted to get a much larger impact for our game to the hordes of fans at Comic Con, so he came up with a great idea. Instead of being a small piece of a large cool booth, we would be a large piece of a small cool booth. David set out to partner with a few other cool games (Left 4 Dead 2, Battlefield 1943 and Battlefield Bad Company 2) to form our own “gaming lounge” where our fans could come and play our games in a more relaxed atmosphere.

Now, the only problem with trying to hold some event in San Diego during Comic Con is that the Comic Con is pretty darned powerful. There is a lot of money brought into the local economy what with hotels, bars, restaurants, stores, etc all benefitting from the influx of fans attending the Con. As such, the city of San Diego does what it can to keep the Con in San Diego each year. We learned this as we began to call around to try to find somewhere we could host our lounge. We were lucky that the Hilton Gaslamp hotel had some room available and we were all ready to book it and make plans when the nice woman on the other end of the phone said “We’d be happy to book you the space, as soon as we get permission from Comic Con to do so.”

Since San Diego wants to keep the Con in town, many of the local hotels, bars and restaurants work closely with the convention organizers to make sure that for the days the San Diego Comic Con take place, the Con is THE most important thing taking place in downtown San Diego. While this is a great idea for the Con, we did not know how this would affect our plans for a Dragon Age: Origins room and the EA Games Lounge idea.

What happens to BioWare? Will they get their space in the hotel? Will we be able to show our fans Dragon Age: Origins? What will we do with 30,000 inflatable swords if we can’t? Stay tuned for the third and final installment of my San Diego Comic Con wrap up and find out!