Massive 90% EA Sale Discounts WC to $0.49 (May 20, 2023)

ChrisReid

Super Soaker Collector / Administrator
Electronic Arts' Origin store may finally be no more, but EA is still selling a select sampling of Wing Commander games directly through their website. There are a few differences between these and the digital copies available from GOG.com, however. For starters, only Wing Commanders 1-4 and Privateer are available, and WC1/2 are split up into two separate packages. Each game is $4.99 rather than $5.99, but they go on sale much less often (and WC1/2 is $10 rather than $6). These are also designed to run via the EA launcher for Windows, whereas WC1-3/P1 for GOG are designed to load on Mac as well. But if you happen to have an EA library on your PC, this new sale can't be beat. It's very rare for the frequent GOG sales to exceed 75% off, and this 90% discount is from the lower $4.99 retail price. That means Wing Commander games for LESS THAN FIFTY CENTS GUYS! It looks like you might have until May 28, but don't delay - grab your super cheap WC here! Thanks to Whistler for the tip!




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Original update published on May 20, 2023
 
I noticed this only a few days ago, but I didn't see any 'sale' price on my web page (browsing from Australia). I thought this was the 'new' EA price. Otherwise I would have thought to mention it here.

It's a pity the EA application is such a poor experience compared even with Origin. Since the forced removal of Origin, I haven't seen any noticeable change to the EA application experience, good or bad.
 
Even after Whistler sent me screenshots of the sale, it took me a while to actually find it at the site. Do they not even have a search function for game titles?
 
Soooo.... This 90 percent discount apparently stacks with your gamepass/EA play discount as well. So it's actually only 44 cents per game with the extra 10 percent EA Play discount applied.

Also, I guess EA doesn't expect you to try and buy this stuff from their website. You can at least do a search and purchase from within the EA app (which is were it tells me the EA Play discount is being applied... the EA app recognizes my gamepass subscription) though the sale page isn't very prominent from the home screen
 
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Is the 30th anniversary of Privateer's release really coming up this year!?!? 😲

Release date: October 9, 1993

or maybe the correct release date is September 23, 1993?
 
I am having trouble digging up a source immediately but I believe September 23 is correct and can clearly establish that October 9 is wrong.

Google's Usenet archive is unfortunately very painful to dig through but even a quick search finds people playing Privateer as early as September 27 (and complaining about a cheat they'd downloaded that gave them a virus! So 9/27 was after enough time for people to have completed the game and for distribution of a trainer to happen...).
 
Even after Whistler sent me screenshots of the sale, it took me a while to actually find it at the site. Do they not even have a search function for game titles?
Apparently not. I think I found links to the games on the EA site via the PC Gaming Wiki.

As for the sale generally, I mainly noticed because EA games on Steam were being advertised as a 'publisher sale', 'up to 90% off'.
 
I am having trouble digging up a source immediately but I believe September 23 is correct and can clearly establish that October 9 is wrong.

Google's Usenet archive is unfortunately very painful to dig through but even a quick search finds people playing Privateer as early as September 27 (and complaining about a cheat they'd downloaded that gave them a virus! So 9/27 was after enough time for people to have completed the game and for distribution of a trainer to happen...).
It looks like GOG has the release date as September 22, 1993 (a Wednesday). Maybe that date was a planned/tentative release date at one point and there was a one day delay?

The most recent files on the floppy disks are dated September 13, 1993 (a Monday, it probably wasn't a fun weekend), making a release date of June 27, 1993 unlikely. Maybe the plan was to allow for 10 days to ship to stores.

Thanks for searching the Usenet archive. No need to dig further on my account.
 
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"One day delays" seem unlikely. When we see dates that are one day apart, they seem more likely to be either errors or confusion between a ship date and the in-store date the next day. We can't automatically assume that to be the case here though, in case someone assumed a release date was an in-store date that was actually a ship date though.
 
It looks like GOG has the release date as September 22, 1993 (a Wednesday). Maybe that date was a planned/tentative release date at one point and there was a one day delay?

The most recent files on the floppy disks are dated September 13, 1993 (a Monday, it probably wasn't a fun weekend), making a release date of June 27, 1993 unlikely. Maybe the plan was to allow for 10 days to ship to stores.

Thanks for searching the Usenet archive. No need to dig further on my account.


It's no trouble at all, in fact I have been chugging away at exactly this project when I can focus my brain on it. I've been putting together a properly cited list of release dates but I'm not past the base games yet.

It's a bit of a challenge because of how games were released back then... you didn't have a set street date like you do today, games were finished and shipped off and they got to stores and went on shelves as quickly as shippers could manage. Which means you end up with a bunch of possible things that constitute a release date:

- when the game 'went gold' and was signed off at the development studio
- when disk duplication actually began (usually a couple days later)
- when copies started shipping out (~1-2 weeks after going gold)
- when users were first able to play the game (as few as a day after shipping starts)

There are some added vagaries for companies like Origin which had their own direct sales department... in many cases, users who bought directly from Origin could get their game a litle quickly (sometimes as much as a week) before retail users. (This is MUCH more common with Lucasarts.)

And of course records are spotty about any of that because you're talking about a bunch of guys who just got done working ten weeks of eighteen hour days and who are now crossing their fingers to see if they still have jobs!
 
It's no trouble at all, in fact I have been chugging away at exactly this project when I can focus my brain on it. I've been putting together a properly cited list of release dates but I'm not past the base games yet.

It's a bit of a challenge because of how games were released back then... you didn't have a set street date like you do today, games were finished and shipped off and they got to stores and went on shelves as quickly as shippers could manage. Which means you end up with a bunch of possible things that constitute a release date:

- when the game 'went gold' and was signed off at the development studio
- when disk duplication actually began (usually a couple days later)
- when copies started shipping out (~1-2 weeks after going gold)
- when users were first able to play the game (as few as a day after shipping starts)

There are some added vagaries for companies like Origin which had their own direct sales department... in many cases, users who bought directly from Origin could get their game a litle quickly (sometimes as much as a week) before retail users. (This is MUCH more common with Lucasarts.)

And of course records are spotty about any of that because you're talking about a bunch of guys who just got done working ten weeks of eighteen hour days and who are now crossing their fingers to see if they still have jobs!
Good points about what counts as a release date.
 
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