We don’t know what pissed us off more: the fact that BioWare’s countdown revealed nothing but a celebratory sale of existing products (and not, say, a Mass Effect coming to the PS3 type reveal) or the fact that the bonanza was limited to just US residents. Actually, considering the latter resulted in us Europeans getting absolutely nought from this reveal – scratch that – we know what pissed us off most.
Quoting “last minute legal complications” as to why us non-Yankies were excluded from the celebration, BioWare founders Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk have apologised to their global community for the hiccup while ensuring that Europe will be catered for in the future.
The public apology states:
“Hi everyone –
The BioWare Bazaar was launched this week as the start of a year-long celebration around BioWare’s 15th anniversary.
We recognize that BioWare has a global community, and the Bazaar this week was originally intended to be an international event to reflect our truly global fanbase. Unfortunately, we encountered some last-minute legal complications around how contests can be structured in different parts of the world that prevented us from including all territories in this first event, even though that was our original goal. And for that, we sincerely apologize – our goal with this sort of celebration is to show all our fans worldwide how much we appreciate your support!
BioWare definitely really values all members of our world-wide Community, no matter where you live. Accordingly, in the coming weeks, we will be announcing details about future events specifically for fans living in those territories which were excluded from participating in the first BioWare Bazaar. The future events will be a bit different from the first Bazaar in how they’re set up and structured, but our goal is to feature the same calibre of awesome prizes and great BioWare collectibles. We’ll announce more details in the coming weeks.
The reception from those fans who have been able to take part in this first event has been incredible – thank you for participating! – and we’re looking forward to future events where we can enable fans from additional territories to also join in the fun.
Thank you all for your continued and ongoing support and participation in the BioWare Community – we really appreciate all your support over the past 15 years, and the future will be even brighter!”
Fair enough. Now apologise to us using the correct spelling. The bazaar entails earning tokens through a myriad of challenges that can be then spent on PC games and various BioWare themed wares through an auction system.
Source: Eurogamer
