Step back and look at the potential cost to EA/BW for them giving the free 30 days

It's easy: they don't need your money to keep the servers running for a month. They want your monthly sub fee....to develop and work on new content for the game as well as bug fixes faster.

Well they could do something nefarious by forcing us to be signed up to a 1 year subscription plan before they give us a free game and a nice shiny mount.

Here Bioware just gave us free game time, no strings attached, just that you gotta be level 50 and legacy level 6. And in case you haven't heard, 1 day after the uproar on the forums by people who didn't have a level 50 and thus weren't eligible for free 30 days, the devs discussed it and decided to give anyone with a legacy level 6 free 30 days as well.

And if that's not good enough, other people have a chance to get the free 30 days if they can get to 50 or legacy level 6 by 22nd April.

So yeah, obviously listening to feedback, caring about other people who feel left out and implementing a change just 1 day, are just shady devious methods by Bioware to keep people playing.

Ensuring that people keep playing by giving them good service, creating a quality game, showing appreciation, listening to feedback and free 30 days? Yes how evil can a company get?

To put it into context, take note, people are complaining about being given free 30 days in this thread.

I give it Feb 2013. That is the F2P date. With the subs falling off, they won't make their year-end Plan. There will be a discussion about how much revenue they could make with F2P cash shop, and "play your way" subscription options.

I feel the same. The free month and baby tauntaun is a plea for subs to stick around. Its pathetic, and if they were doing so well, as Ohlen stated, they wouldn't need to do this.

It's complete fail. There's enough mmos coming out in the coming months that this truly won't matter for much longer.

EA's made their money. Now they have BF3 expansions to concentrate on.

It should be noted that blizzard also gave out free time in vanilla wow. We both know how that turned out.

How did that turn out? I stopped playing after Cataclysm came out...

I hear in some parts it's a really popular game now.

not a stock holder

honestly do not care what it costs any company to do something right and correct!

and thats not just Bioware

I hold all companies I pay for their service to the same HIGH standards.

After all, I cant just with hold payments until they do what I like can I (well continue playing well with holding payments).

So when they screw up, they pay and they can argue with stock holders and investors about what it costs.

And unless you are a stock holder, you also shouldnt care what it costs Bioware/EA

They are not going to send you dividends at the end of the quarter as you tried to play investment agent for them on message forums.

OMG this is terrible..

Bioware you need to make an option so that people can cancel there 30 free days you gave them lest they be brain washed into subbing for swtor.

Again, typical fanboi propaganda. I never said they were nefarious. I said they are a for-profit enterprise, and the things they do are motivated in increase their bottom line. If you think they are offering game time because they are just nice guys, you need to cut back on the Bioware Kool-Aid. If it were really just about the players, they could give the free month to everyone with a sub, with no level cap.

If they only care about being nice, why do they charge money at all? In fact, Bioware and EA are big companies. They should pay me to play. Wouldn't it be nicer if Bioware paid us to play?

Let's get real here. They believe they will ultimately make more money from converting cancellees into retainees. I like that confidence. It means they believe their new features are enticing and polished enough to lure people to stay, and that is good for the game.

I appreciate the free month. But I am also under no illusions as to why they did it. You shouldn't be either. Or, if you are, I have a lovely ocean front property in Kansas for you.