BioWare Blog: San Diego Comic-Con Wrap-up, Part Three
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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.
