Just to clarify. ANY new copy of Mass Effect on PC can claim Bring Down the Sky DLC completely free from the Bioware site. Pinnacle Station is charged however it is only something for completists, it is simply a challenge mode. It adds nothing to the game whatsoever and Mass Effect can be enjoyed without it.

Understood, but it's still not bundled. IOW, you still have to authenticate in order to install it. Whereas with many GOTY retail editions that is not required (speaking from the view point of installing/playing without a net connection).

Effect 1: Game publishers going "OMG this cheap 1-day project sold seven bazillion copies, scrap all the other ones that cost more to produce!"
Effect 2: Retail store clerk going "WTF are you doing here buying that piece of crap again??"

I'd say that's "any serial key that's not registered on the bioware site", hopefully the previous owner has removed the key from his account so that I can use it to download my free DLC.

Actually there is no authentication. All you do is register your CD Key with the Bioware site. You can then download and instal at your leisure. Bring Down the Sky is a gift and should be seen as such. It is not an attempt by Bioware to screw the customer in any way. You can't really hold it against Bioware that they are giving it away free and all they ask is you have purchased a copy?

As far as I am aware there is no way to remove a CD Key from someone's account. You could get the DLC if the person is prepared to give you his Bioware account details.

You can remove games from the bioware social site, pretty sure there was a way to do that with the proper bioware site as well.
Its really rather sad that I can't remember the PC registration, not had a real gaming PC in a hell of a long time so I've only had console games to register. It is CD key based but I'm pretty sure it just checks that you have a valid key, not that you have a unique one

As long as it was a GOOD game, some sort of adventure or RPG, just to break the FPS rut that the industry is in

The whole idea of the $10 project is that codes only work with new copies and are linked to an account.
Meaning that if you buy a 2nd hand game, you have to go to EA to buy that DLC.
That's how EA wants to make money on 2nd hand purchases.
It's probably possible to create 1 account per game and when selling the game also selling the account details.
EA will probably do it's best to close that loop hole.

I really really dislike EA's system.
EA actually changed the way their accounts work THREE times over the past 8 years. First they used accounts per game (Ultima Online, for example, had its own account). THEN they used global accounts but they automatically made your game account a global account ... but not all accounts. Yes, let's keep it nice and simple, eh EA? Because, some games had the same usernames, right? Say I bought two EA games which worked with accounts and made two accounts with the same username, then one would become a global account and the other would only be accessible on that game's login screen. Sounds fun? Except that when you THINK you're logged in your global account, you're actually logged in your old game account with the same user name.
To make matters worse, you could make several user accounts with the same email address before. And a few months ago, they made it so you need to log in with your email address instead. Guess what that means? It means that the three accounts I had with the same email address are not accessible any more. You can go to the EA website and log in using your old user name but it then says you can now log in with your email address but that won't work! You'll log into your main account!
In short, I have about 5 accounts with game keys tied to all 5 and if I want to play that single game, it takes me AGES to figure out which account I need, HOW to log in and how to make it work *facepalm*. EA, you bunch of incompetent twats!
On top of that mess, Bioware has its own account system but lets your use your EA account as well. Except I already had a Bioware account with my old game keys attached. And to buy DLC you need an EA account. Jesus Christ, why did they have to make it such a mess.

Did you meant the tree ("expansion") packs you've to buy in order to have the complete game called Starcraft 2 ?

Then wait. Simple as that. Eventually there will be a pack with all (or most of) the DLC. And since it is additional content, why should it matter?
Except that you'll notice that the only DLC that can't be purchased separately is the stuff like "Another nifty dagger" or "A cool paintjob for Shepard!"
As for not liking 0Day stuff: Again, should the art and asset people not be allowed to work on a project once it enters beta testing? I am not saying that there aren't cases of chopped out content, but you also have to keep in mind that someone who is good at making capes flap in the wind isn't necessarily good at figuring out why Moira's head explodes if your health is exactly 29 points for 13 seconds in Project Purity.
Hell, the reason why DA:O had so much additional DLC on release/near release is because the PC version got delayed while the game was being ported to consoles.
Okay, that sucks for them. How does this apply to PC users, where our DLC is tied to serial numbers and accounts?, not hardware.

Given the fact that they have expansions and sequels in the works for both DA:O and Mass Effect respectively, I doubt that they simply had nothing to do. DLC is EA's latest fad. Schemes like charging second hand buyers put it all into perspective.
Hopefully it doesn't. I'm not currently aware of any problems. But then nobody was aware that the dumbasses at Microsoft tied Gears of War to a digital certificate or that they included DRM in GFWL which affected titles by publishers who categorically did not want it.

MS are "dumbasses" because the publishers didn't read the details of GfWL? :p
As for the former: I guess we'll have to agree to disagree on that. I for one love DLC, if only because it allows far more flexibility than expansion packs. Don't believe me?
Look at Fallout 3. Operation Anchorage gave a drastically different environment, and even a bunch of new assets. Now, because it was a short DLC, Bethesda wasn't obligated to make an entire world or even to make more than the bare minimum of assets. If that were an expansion, they would have to justify spending at least 10 hours in pre-war Alaska, and it would either have taken MUCH longer to make or (more likely) been skipped entirely. Same with a lot of the F3 DLC.
And maybe the devs for ME2 and DA:O DID have other stuff they could do. But you also run into questions of how intertwined the various departments are on there ("Hey Fred, can we have a jetpack and grappling hook?" "Only if you are going to learn how to code and make your own damned physics for those things...") But that still doesn't change the fact that the principle itself (0-Day DLC) is not always an evil scheme. Sure it might be USED in "evil" schemes, but it isn't like everyone always goes out of their way.

It wasn't supposed to be there. It was a part of the client that was abandoned but clearly not removed. So it never was in any details.
I've already cited that as a damn good example of how DLC should be. So, in fact, you're agreeing to agree.
Precisely. If EA weren't so keen to spell it out - that it's an attack on the second hand market - then, while we might think that they should bundle all the DLC into one special edition of the game and leave it at that, we'd otherwise not have a problem with it.

Read the rest of that para. :p
My point is, even if devs can go work on expansions and the like, there are advantages to them working on DLC instead.
Then do yourself a favor and stop reading any news whatsoever :p
Seriously, do you think that GoG gave us all Tex Murphy for free because they are kind-hearted souls who like us? Hell no. They gave us Tex Murphy for free so that people would sign up, and buy more games during their holiday sale. Are you going to scream and rant against GoG too?
Like people have mentioned in this thread: EA is a company. A company's goal is to make money. And I think we can all agree that the second-hand market is really unfair to publishers and devs, since even when they lower prices, Gamestop can lower prices too. So obviously they are going to try to find an incentive (provide better service). So what if their goal is to make money? At least we are benefiting to some degree.

Which wasn't anything I was disagreeing with. You see, the difference is that the Fallout 3 DLC was available at a reasonable price to anyone, regardless of which edition of the game they bought. It would even be possible to use with second hand copies of the game. It's a really bad comparison to make with EA's DLC for which none of that is true.
What you and a lot of other people seem to be failing to grasp in this thread is that while a company does indeed need to focus on making money, the way they go about doing so does actually matter.
There are companies that successfully listen to and foster a relationship with their customers. These companies can thrive because people actually want to buy from them and support them. You see plenty of that here.
Then there are companies that think they can take a shit on their customers and they'll keep on buying from them. These companies sometimes wonder why they lose money despite releasing exactly what their analysts told them people want to buy.
Of course, consumer awareness is still pretty poor. It's getting better. But unless Kotick takes to torturing people to get realistic sound effects out of them, Modern Warfare 3 is going to sell just as well. As consumer awareness increases so will the need for companies to actually listen to their customers.

Because you are young and foolish, lieutenant, I will pardon that insult...
But seriously - they told us all @ Blizzcon: "We want to make three epic campaigns, guys. There are three way we can go about this:
1* We can do all of them and release the product afterwards"
The people were thinking: "No effing way ! That would take ages D: !"
"2* We can make 3 different but a lot shorter campaigns and release the game faster..."
The crowd: "We've waited YEARS for this game - it should be worth it !"
"3* We can split it into three pieces."
And the crowd sighed in relief.
The basic idea was that the only additional thing the two later games ("Heart of the Swarm" and "Legacy of the Void") would give us are two massive campaigns. They may as well give us new features, but that's undecided as of yet. I guess they'd be tempted to add something to make the game even better... and you can't blame them.
Also - if you're calling these "free (?!) expansion packs"... you clearly have no idea WTF you're talking about. Wings of Liberty gives you more missions than all three campaigns in the original StarCraft combined, not-entirely-linear gameplay, mindblowing cutscenes, adventure-game-alike walking around the Hyperion/Mar Sara bar/whatever, talking to all the residents/guests, changing the music in the jukebox, watching TV flicks, an armory where you choose upgrades for the upcoming missions, star map for making strategic choices, the game itself, a few bonus Protoss missions, offline single player for broadband-impaired, multiplayer mode (with pseudo-LAN for those who need it), free BattleNet with all the voice-chat, replay-recording, news feeds, advanced matchmaking, lots of leagues, training maps, achievements, challenge maps and the unsurpassed pleasure to be Jim Raynor himself.
And you know what ? The other two games will not just be played with different races. Every_damn_thing will be different. It's not about making a crapload of new maps - as hard as it is - it's about showing us the story form a different perspective, a lot of new renders, clickables, characters, objects... Hell knows what !
While I'm around - be sure to have a ton of evidence and most of all - a deep understanding of the subject at hand if you ever wish to insult either Google, Blizzard or GOG...
I do. We like them back, so it's not really a problem of a one-sided feeling ^^'...