So the more I see this game, the more I am excited to get my hands on it. So in anticipation for when the demo which comes out on the 17th I was looking around the official site and found some interesting tidbits on their. I know in the past EA has done some strange cross promotion stuff involving save games with Dragon Age/ Mass Effect/ Dead Space involving armor sets and the like, but this is a little different.

The full article can be found here, but to sum up, after you complete the demos for both Kingdoms of Amalur and Mass Effect 3 (date still unannounced) you will unlock weapons and armor for each game. I was a little put off at first but when I thought about it this seems like the least egregious way of doing this cross promotion thing. It is indeed a way to get players to play your games, and hopefully buy both products even if you were only interested in one. I am still not happy about the preorder bonuses, which are ever prevalent here, but I have learned to let those things go.

So what do you guys think, yay or nay for cross promotion. This doesn't seem to bad, its not like you have to preorder the games to unlock the demos. I was most likely going to buy both of these games on release day anyway, just not from Gamespot.

Fine with Cross Promotion, if it's in demos. More annoyed with the way I have to play the Mass Effect 3 demo to get rewards in Mass Effect 3. Seems totally pointless, if I've bought the game, the demo doesn't matter. And I'd rather not play a demo of a game if I know I'm in for the whole thing.

I think it's quite smart in a sense. It gives people more incentive to download and try the demo that wouldn't have bothered otherwise if they didn't know they were getting free Mass Effect items out of it. Whether that gets more people interested in KoA though is another story.

This is the better way to handle it.

This doesn't make me want to play either game more, but I see nothing wrong with it.

totally checking out the reckoning demo so i guess i get something for me3 than i wont even end up using so thats neat i guess.

I don't like getting access to better weapons and gear in the early game. It ruins the experience for me. I want to be excited to find loot and scrap by with whatever I can find. I used the Dead Space 2 armor for a large majority of Dragon Age 2. It was kind of boring. I'd rather just play the game the way it was meant to be played.

As long as it isn't better than stuff I can get in the game, I don't really care. It annoyed me a little bit when they did it with Mass Effect 2 and Dragon Age: Origins, since you had to buy both games to get the stuff, but I was going to buy both of those games anyway. If I remember correctly, the stuff you got in Dragon Age 2 for finishing the demo was nothing special.

It is free, I see nothing wrong with it.

If they're using the demo of a much better known property to advertise a brand-new one that holds a whole ton of promise, then I fail to see any issues. In fact, I only see a huge plus for both the consumer and the business. Something new and different gets promoted, a business gets more money, the gaming community gets to see something different, a new developer gets more prominence...

Someone please explain any cons to me. I don't see them. If Valve were doing this, it would be automatically praised to heaven and back several times.

After playing Team Fortress 2 for years and seeing constant cross promotions in the form of "BUY THIS BRAND NEW GAME AND GET HATS FOR TF2" the idea of it doesn't phase me at all.

Toast is awesome

I would have played these demos regardless.  The armor they made for each game looks great too.

Gonna be hard for me to do since KA is on Steam but ME3 is not. All of those kind of items always look really out of place in the world so I never use them anyway.

Oh, what, I have to complete the Kingdoms of Amalur demo? Sheeit.

As long as it's ugly armor that I'm never going to use, I guess I'm fine with it.

I'm in the New England area and bumped in to a guy from 38 Studios the other day. They said they've been working on the armor for several months.

I don't see anything wrong with cross-promotion. It's just a simple marketing thing, it almost never has a major impact on the other game

The only reason I could be bummed about this is that I haven't finished ME2 and I was planning on getting KoA, and more likely than not the ME3 demo will have some spoilers, I don't miund them that much but I'd be better off without them, but the strategy in itself looks pretty good and I hope they do this for more games down the line, as long as it stays in free demos I'm OK with it.

Biowares promotion is possibly the worst I have ever seen.

Dragon Age 2 comes to mind. "YOU WANT THIS RING? ORDER HERE." "HEY GUYS, WE HAVE THIS BELT. ORDER HERE"

Tying out of place, usually ugly, cosmetic items in one game for owning or playing the demo of another game is distasteful, but easily ignored. I think the "signature edition" pre-order deadline they tried with Dragon Age 2 was a lot more insidious. Good thing that didn't stick and we're only left with TF2 hats and the EA equivalent.

As long as it's free, I'm down for it!

@Apollo87 said:

The only reason I could be bummed about this is that I haven't finished ME2 and I was planning on getting KoA, and more likely than not the ME3 demo will have some spoilers, I don't miund them that much but I'd be better off without them, but the strategy in itself looks pretty good and I hope they do this for more games down the line, as long as it stays in free demos I'm OK with it.

If the Mass Effect 3 demo functions the way the Reckoning demo did, you boot the demo and log in with your EA/Origin ID. After the log in completes, the Mass Effect items unlock. You don't even need to play the demo. That said, the ME3 demo comes out a week after the KoA:R full release, so it may be a moot point. Those promo items usually aren't useful after the early levels are complete.

I don't use cross promotion equipment if it sticks out like the proverbial sore thumb, not a fan of things that are not part of the game's universe and they're usually surpassed in stats by normal equipment so I doubly free as if I'm not missing out on anything.

Free content for playing free games. Sounds like a win to me.

@WebScud said:

@Apollo87 said:

The only reason I could be bummed about this is that I haven't finished ME2 and I was planning on getting KoA, and more likely than not the ME3 demo will have some spoilers, I don't miund them that much but I'd be better off without them, but the strategy in itself looks pretty good and I hope they do this for more games down the line, as long as it stays in free demos I'm OK with it.

If the Mass Effect 3 demo functions the way the Reckoning demo did, you boot the demo and log in with your EA/Origin ID. After the log in completes, the Mass Effect items unlock. You don't even need to play the demo. That said, the ME3 demo comes out a week after the KoA:R full release, so it may be a moot point. Those promo items usually aren't useful after the early levels are complete.

You unlock items by getting to the end of the dungeon in the Reckoning demo, and probably more by finishing it (I didn't, mine crashed). So you gotta finish the demos to get everything.

@Mcfart said:

@WebScud said:

@Apollo87 said:

The only reason I could be bummed about this is that I haven't finished ME2 and I was planning on getting KoA, and more likely than not the ME3 demo will have some spoilers, I don't miund them that much but I'd be better off without them, but the strategy in itself looks pretty good and I hope they do this for more games down the line, as long as it stays in free demos I'm OK with it.

If the Mass Effect 3 demo functions the way the Reckoning demo did, you boot the demo and log in with your EA/Origin ID. After the log in completes, the Mass Effect items unlock. You don't even need to play the demo. That said, the ME3 demo comes out a week after the KoA:R full release, so it may be a moot point. Those promo items usually aren't useful after the early levels are complete.

You unlock items by getting to the end of the dungeon in the Reckoning demo, and probably more by finishing it (I didn't, mine crashed). So you gotta finish the demos to get everything.

As soon as I entered my EA ID, the Mass Effect stuff unlocked. KoA:R stuff unlocked as I progressed through the demo. I'm on the PC for what that's worth.

@WebScud said:

@Mcfart said:

@WebScud said:

@Apollo87 said:

The only reason I could be bummed about this is that I haven't finished ME2 and I was planning on getting KoA, and more likely than not the ME3 demo will have some spoilers, I don't miund them that much but I'd be better off without them, but the strategy in itself looks pretty good and I hope they do this for more games down the line, as long as it stays in free demos I'm OK with it.

If the Mass Effect 3 demo functions the way the Reckoning demo did, you boot the demo and log in with your EA/Origin ID. After the log in completes, the Mass Effect items unlock. You don't even need to play the demo. That said, the ME3 demo comes out a week after the KoA:R full release, so it may be a moot point. Those promo items usually aren't useful after the early levels are complete.

You unlock items by getting to the end of the dungeon in the Reckoning demo, and probably more by finishing it (I didn't, mine crashed). So you gotta finish the demos to get everything.

As soon as I entered my EA ID, the Mass Effect stuff unlocked. KoA:R stuff unlocked as I progressed through the demo. I'm on the PC for what that's worth.

I don't recall if it unlocked everything, I saw more unlocks while playing the demo but didn't pay much attention, I did see that some things were for KoA:R might give the demo a go on another account to confirm.

I am rapidly losing interest in both games, but this has nothing to with it.

There are two unlockables for Mass Effect 3:  The Reckoner Knight Armor and the Chakram Launcher weapon.
You unlock the Reckoner Knight Armor just for booting up the demo.
To unlock the Chakram Launcher, you have to play the demo until the 45 minute timer expires.