BioWare: Cerberus meant to build a "good relationship" with consumers

BioWare bosses Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk has said that the DLC network for Mass Effect 2, the Cerberus Network, is meant to be seen as trying to build a "good relationship" with consumers, and not damage second-hand sales.

Speaking to UGO at GDC last week, asked if the plan had worked either way, Muzyka said: "I think that from our perspective, it's mostly around providing content, however someone got the game. As long as we are providing a great content stream for them to partake in, then I think that's great. We all win in that concept.

"For us, we want to have a really good relationship with the customer: Mass Effect 1, Mass Effect 2, DLC stuff, Mass Effect 3, future things. What we are most concerned with is having that customer relationship. I think something like Cerberus is a great way to cement that because part of the game comes up in beginning messages from Cerberus, and it's part of the community."

"It's part of our philosophy of building a service orientation for our customers to continue to bring more stuff, so they could continue to depend on us to deliver that," added Zeschuk.

BioWare's dropped a fair bit of free DLC for Mass Effect 2, with the latest to be a set of missions related to a new vehicle in the game, known as the Hammerhead, due this month.

The firm also plans to release its first premium DLC for the RPG, Kasumi's Stolen Memory, in April, with the BioWare docs telling Steph at GDC last week more DLC is in development.