With EA publishing Dragon Age: Origins – Awakening, a retail expansion pack to Dragon Age: Origins later in March, industry site Gamasutra caught up with online producer at Bioware, Fernando Melo, to discuss why Awakening is being published at retail rather than as a digital download.
The answer, according to Melo, is fan demand. "We already had some thinking around it," he told Gamasutra. "The team has been working on Awakening for over a year, but the idea of releasing it as an actual boxed product came from a lot of what the fans were asking for."
Melo went on to elaborate that Awakening was developed as a "content" and story expansion, meant to explore the Dragon Age lore, rather than a "features" expansion (even though it does feature re-balancing and the ability to re-spec), and that further content to continue to drive this initiative is in the works.