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EA Gives Old Republic Pre-Orders To All Comic-Con Panel Attendees
I just got out of EA's Star Wars: The Old Republic panel at Comic-Con, and I'm slightly more in debt than when I entered. How does that work? Let me explain.
EA's panel mostly covered some basics that had been discussed about the upcoming Star Wars MMO back at E3, as well as introducing some voice actors and opening things up for a fan Q&A. About halfway through, Comic-Con officials passed out tickets to the audience, suggesting there would be a giveaway. At the very end of the panel, EA revealed that everyone in the audience was a winner in this giveaway.
All attendees of the panel are able to take the ticket they got and redeem it for a pre-order code. This pre-order code can in turn be punched into EA's Origin download service to ensure they'll be first in line to get a copy of Star Wars: The Old Republic. Note that EA did not give us free copies of the game -- anyone who chooses to redeem the code still has to pay full price for the game.
More than anything, this seems like a way to push hardcore fans into using EA's new Origin service. It was previously revealed that Origin will be the only place to digitally download Old Republic. Since pre-orders for the game just opened up today, fans in attendance were likely still deciding which retailer to go with, so EA went ahead and made the choice easy for them. That's one way to get people to use your service.
Along with this giveaway, EA once again reiterated that Old Republic will be running a beta in September with a planned release window of holiday 2011. I guess I know how I'll be getting the game later this year.
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