Slightly spammy, if you ask me, and quite a touchy subject here on the forums, considering a large number, if not the majority. of the forum participants are not US residents.

The anger subsided thanks to Bioware's apology. You may continue to spam each other for freh.

The only way to 'compete' in these auctions is to have at least 10,000 tokens - sadly, the only way to have so many tokens is to spam your referral link. *sigh*

I'd rather not. The wind gets taken out of my sales when an attempt to actually create a community support system is met with automatic negativity.
Especially when the real complaint stems from the fact that some weren't included due to factors outside of the developer's hands.
Bioware has always been a stand up, fan friendly company. They've had missteps (such as the PS3 support of Dragon Age) and the honest stumble with the Bazaar, but the vitriol that came from that is similar to the automatic negative reaction to my post.
The instinct shouldn't be, "how can I undercut this person or open up controversy," but it often seems to be. It makes me sigh very deeply.
I should have known better before posting it and that was my mistake.
Yeah, that's why I figured a strong community like this one could dominate by helping one another out. I miscalculated.

Yeah, people threw a hissy fit because they didn't get to participate in the event. There was a good reason for them to be offended, and then they took a minor slight and pretended it was the end of the world. Sort of like you did :p
Seriously though. Where was the "automatic negativity"? Nobody seemed outright rude (except for me, and that is to give you something to actually complain about :p), they just told you what was going on.
cogadh gave you a heads up that a lot of people here are going to get annoyed by this. He was doing you a favor, because it seems unlikely that you noticed the other thread. It is the same reason why people tend to crack jokes and the like when threads pop up to request System Shock.
delixe basically just clarified cogadh's statement.
carlos said the same thing that all of us who didn't react with "Oh mah gawdz! I CAN GET A FREE HAT" or "BIoware are bastards who hate everyone who isn't American!" thought of: There is no chance in hell to win.
So yeah. If you were just looking for a thread to whine (which is likely, since you "gave up" within 34 minutes" then good job. Otherwise, how about you don't overreact over nothing (ESPECIALLY when you are complaining that others overreacted :p)?
Carry on.

zzzzz
(I also wasn't talking about Delixe--I read his post as, "It's ok to spam as long as everyone is happy with it, but if we're left out spamming is bad." I like that sort of sarcasm.)
I also think that you just spent a lot of time doing exactly what I was talking about--you used a whole lot of words just to undercut and be negative about my post. I wasn't just talking about this thread--but you certainly helped validate my stance. Thanks for the irony!

Actually I was being sincere. I was one of the people who was sharpening their pitchforks and oiling up the torch for a march on Bioware HQ because initially they didn't seem to care they had managed to upset more than 50% of their own fans. Turns out they do care and this was all just a PR/Law cock up they didn't see happening until hours before the launch. In the words of Evil Chris "Do you really think we wanted to exclude Canada? Really?".
We took it as an intentional middle finger from Bioware which it clearly wasn't. Therefore while I am excluded I don't hold it against anyone who is not especially as there are some truly awesome prizes to be won. I had to hold back the drool when I saw the gaming PC with the Mass Effect 2 artwork.

Speaking of the Bioware fuck up of Dragon Age on the PS3..how about that almost 3 month wait for Return to Ostragar DLC the 360 got and the PC got even earlier...WOOHOO RtO RELEASED...the same week as Awakening....wooo...hooo.
Meh, don't worry about him he likes to hide his trolling behind little ":P" type posts.