BioWare bosses apologise for Bazaar

BioWare bosses Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk have apologised for restricting the BioWare Bazaar competition to North American residents only (but not those in Florida or New York).

"We recognize that BioWare has a global community, and the Bazaar this week was originally intended to be an international event to reflect our truly global fanbase. Unfortunately, we encountered some last-minute legal complications around how contests can be structured in different parts of the world that prevented us from including all territories in this first event, even though that was our original goal," wrote Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk on the official forum.

"And for that, we sincerely apologise - our goal with this sort of celebration is to show all our fans worldwide how much we appreciate your support! BioWare definitely really values all members of our worldwide community, no matter where you live."

To prove this, BioWare will hold future events "specifically" for territories "excluded" from the first BioWare Bazaar.

"The future events will be a bit different from the first Bazaar in how they're set up and structured, but our goal is to feature the same caliber of awesome prizes and great BioWare collectibles," the post added.

Muzyka and Zeschuk went on to thank the "incredible" reception from North Americans who can take part in the first BioWare Bazaar.

The BioWare Bazaar, revealed yesterday, has PCs and merchandise up for grabs. To 'buy' them, fans will need to earn tokens through various challenges. They can then bid on items every 15 minutes during a week-long auction marathon. This starts on 6th April.

BioWare community bod Chris Priestly also apologised for stirring global excitement about the Bazaar.

"Time for an apology from me as well. The BioWare Bazaar is a cool event and, if we had been able to get it working as we intended, potentially Epic. Yes, not nearly enough people are able to be part of it, but the event is cool," he posted on the BioWare forum.

"Where I went wrong is in how we marketed it to you and for that I apologise. We used the word 'Epic' before we had proven that it was. Sorry. We also used the Countdown timer to generate interest. In hindsight, this allowed rampant speculation which caused disappointment.

"Again, sorry," he added. "While I won't promise we will never use a timer like it again, I can promise we will make sure that such a timer is worthy of the interest it will attract."