I can't believe the comments 'EA are a business, not a charity... etc, etc'. ABSOLUTELY NO EXCUSE!!!
I run my own business, a small one with 5 employees and whilst running a corporation is very different, the principles are exactly the same i.e. Reasonable fee, good to excellent quality, treat customer with respect, etc, etc - all of which EA are seriously failing at.
After finding out about the Day1 ME3 DLC, I cancelled my order - didn't treat me (or their customers generally) with respect, overpriced their product compared to the quality they released and when I say quality, there are many issues here, not least the 'dumbing' down (IMO) compared to ME1. Therefore they lost a sale and a customer for life (unless they seriously change), all in the hope of squeezing a few extra quid out of me.
If I acted like them with my customers, I would have been quickly given my marching orders.
Basic Economics at uni say that elasticity will ensure that those that can come up with a better quality product (in every sense, including community involvement, etc) for the right price, then company with the poorer quality product, large overheads and large profit margins will lose ground.
As it has already been said, Crowd Sourcing & Kickstarter are creating a new market for gamers to get what they really want, just look at Star Citizen. Not necessarily cheaper, but people see what they are getting up front with feedback into the development and are not taken for a ride with DLC that should have been in the game in the first place.
If Bioware had stayed independent and had used this way of funding, I can only dream of the awesome ME2 & ME3 we would have had.
