Virtual Goods News

EA CFO Eric Brown, while speaking at a conference earlier this week, stated that DLC for Dragon Age: Origins (which include virtual goods) had already generated $1 million in revenue. At the time of Brown's statement, the game had been out for only 10 days in North America and roughly a week in Australia and Europe. Dragon Age: Origins is a game available for PC, Xbox 360, and PS3, although the PS3 version of the title will not ship in Europe until November 20. 

Dragon Age shipped with three DLC options available for players. The Blood Dragon Armor virtual good is a complimentary item available to all buyers of the game during its debut period, so sales from it probably aren't counting toward the $1M total. The same is true of The Stone Prisoner, a pack that contains virtual items, a new quest, and a new character named Shale. The pack will cost $15 but for now all purchasers of the game receive a complimentary download code for it. 

The DLC pack that is probably driving Dragon Age's $1 million sales is Warden's Keep, a $7 package of DLC that includes extra game content, new virtual items, and a particular valuable "base of operations" virtual item that gives players extra storage slots for any in-game virtual items they've hoarded. For this DLC pack to drive $1 million in revenue, it needs to have been purchased roughly 150,000 times. 

Sales data to date for Dragon Age: Origins has not yet been announced, so it is currently unclear how many people are playing the game. The game is expected to be a multi-million seller across its three release platforms, however, owing both to an extensive marketing campaign and developer BioWare's reputation for making high-quality RPGs. This would likely mean DLC conversion ra