So, I preordered Mass Effect 3 aaaaaages ago, with GAME. As many of you know, just shy of a week before it’s release, GAME suddenly announced they wouldn’t be stocking the game now, so I had to look elsewhere. That was my first annoyance.

It actually worked out in my favor, as I preordered via Amazon.co.uk and now could bet an N7 Collector’s Edition of the game, which comes with a few extra physical extras (a postcard, comic, patch and art book), along with a wealth of bonus DLC. Only annoyance there was I was spending full price rather than getting my GAME points off it.

Anyway, game came yesterday, and when I finally had the chance to play it, I hit a snag: of all the DLC, I only had a code for one…and this one is unusable, as I haven’t been given a code for Online Play access.

In other words, half the extras I paid all that extra money for are unavailable to me. Furthermore, I cannot use multiplayer without the Online Play code, so a whole important chunk of the gaming experience is not accessible to me. (Unless I buy the code anew, which I refuse o do as I spend more than enough on the damn game already).

I contacted EA for help: it took 40 minutes before I spoke to someone online on Origin Live Chat. I explained the problem and was promptly told to ‘Contact retailer’. When I pointed out I didn’t understand how this was a retailer issue, as the DLC codes should be inside the polythene wrapped game case (as the one DLC code I did have was, unusable as it was) and as such would not have been added by the retailer, the response I received again was ‘Contact retailer’.

Annoyed, I sent an email as well, and went to email Amazon.co.uk. Today, I woke to the response, which was that the codes were not added by Amazon.co.uk, and while they were more than happy for me to return the game, they could not provide a replacement N7 Edition with requisite codes, as they had no more copies. They instead offered me a refund, or to seek the publisher’s help as they are responsible for the codes. The same publishers who told me to contact the retailers.

All the while I was tweeting about this pain in the ass ordeal online, and the twitter account @masseffect was answering directly and promptly, and told me to let them knows what happens as they can help me. When I told them the outcome today, they took a ton of details from me, but I haven’t heard anything since…I hope they can still help me, but all I want are the codes I need, nothing more.

I’ve been trying to hold off on playing the game until I get all the codes needed to start properly (in my mind), but that leaves me right now with a £60 paperweight and being really damn annoyed. 

:(

So, obviously, I used IndieGoGo to raise funds for The Pride. We did well, beating target, but that money is pretty much all used now. It went to pay the artists involved in the first issue only, two-three print runs to take to conventions and send to the funders. And also posting said goods out (which in the current economy took a lot more than I was counting on).

It was also a really great preordering system for spreading the word, and getting comic into the hands of people far and wide, not just in the UK.

Since then, the series has had to go bi-monthly, and this presents me with an interesting opportunity.

I was thinking of starting IndieGoGo projects to fund individual issues as a way of preordering them.

Obviously, the people who funded the original campaign need not take part in these ones (they’ve preordered all the comics etc), but it would be a way of getting the comic out to more people, especially people who want to read but aren’t based in the UK. 

Obviously a much lower target for each one, really it’s more for letting people preorder things than anything else.

So, what does everyone think? This a good plan?