Well, if you think that calling it a "US Giveaway" would have led to people not being angry, you have MUCH more faith in the world than I do :p
As for the other: it is called "hype". Nothing (except for Dragon Age...) ever lives up to the hype. I am pretty disappointed by the contest too, but whatever.

So ridiculing other people's viewpoints, or calling a complaint you don't personally share a 'whine', is you 'trying to see the other side'. I agree that a devil's advocate can be a beneficial addition to an argument, but not when it ridicules versus suggesting an alternate point of view.
As I stated earlier in this thread, this is the kind of underwhelming announcement I was expecting from EA/Bioware. I cannot say that I share some of the more impassioned disappointment that others show, but that is because I am rather jaded and apathetic towards any sort of PR hype or community interaction surrounding games. I play the games, and that is as far as my investment goes.
On a side note, Gundato, I really do recommend giving Jade Empire a chance sometime. Once you get past the console-biased initial feel, the story and setting really are quite unique.

Why limit such DLC to only international customers? It could easily be given to everyone. They could have quite happily done that with a note along the lines of, "We're sorry that most of you will be unable to enter the competition due to legal reasons (our lawyers are mean, we wanted everyone to have a chance but they out right refused), but here's some DLC so that everyone can celebrate without going away empty handed".
See. Dead easy. Would also make the currently excluded part of the community feel that at least something was done so that they weren't excluded.

Which puts us back at the exact same point we are currently at. Bioware "doesn't care about non-US members. I mean, EVERYONE got the DLC, but only Bioware's preferred fanbase got the chance to win a hat!"
Because then, they still have the competition that can only be participated in by a portion, and you still have everyone feeling the need to pretend they are discriminated against.
If you give a mouse a cookie, he is going to whine and ask why the other mouse's cookie had more chocolate chips. Then they will both die horrible deaths because animals shouldn't eat chocolate :p

Not at all, the majority of people would be happy that something was done. Those who want to bitch for the sake of bitching, who go looking for a reason to bitch regardless, will of course still bitch. But most would be content that something was done. As I'm sure you already know.

Then you have much more faith in humanity than I do.

That has absolutely nothing to do with it. You are defending Bioware while not understanding why people are upset with them. This was billed as a community event. In case you haven't noticed Bioware have a very large and international community. The countdown was shown worldwide Bioware got all their community excited about this intentionally. They then flipped the finger to that very same community. American fans are just as outraged as those that are excluded. It was a careless and thoughtless promotion. Look at the wording of the competition, it was designed to reward members of the community.
If this had been a simple US only promotion people would have the huff but there would not be the amount of RAGE there is. It was promoted as a worldwide community event and that was a flat out lie to get people refreshing that countdown page. What could Bioware have done differently? Oh I don't know... how about not using that stupid worldwide countdown for starters!

All Ive got to say is its not like any of you pissed off non Americans would have won anyway. Its just a stupid event that was hyped way to much. I think your making a big deal over nothing.

Yeah, because it takes a lot to get the internet angry :p
Again, if they had used a localized counter, the same garbage would occur, just for longer.
If they hadn't done a countdown, it wouldn't have been what Bioware/EA wanted to do..
And I wasn't aware that the entire community had to get rewarded. I mean, I probably won't win the N7 hat that I want, so I am not part of the community? I mean, I am not getting rewarded, so obviously Bioware hates me.
Don't get me wrong, there IS reason to be annoyed. But this has rapidly become a place for people to vent about regional restriction and complain that they feel they are entitled to a prize for suffering through KOTOR 1 (because we all know that was so painfully fun :p).
Maybe another bit of DLC would do something to make some people feel better. But since all the free DLC that we have had shoved down our throats over the past few months seemed to be forgotten (and there will still be a US-only contest), you'll understand if I am skeptical.
Point of reference: Lots of websites and companies do promos. RockPaperShotgun occasionally has promos that exclude their US fanbase. Hell, they have dedicated servers that (effectively) exclude us. We don't freak out and scream that Kieron and Alec hate us. It is just the way some things work.
Could Bioware have handled this better? Yup. But it would still have pissed off countless people who are just looking for any excuse to whine.
Hell, if it HAD been the entire world, we would instead be listening to people "rage" about how you only get points for ME2. How DARE they not reward me for having a copy of Baldurs Gate 2 :p

The potential for material gain, much like the actual restrictions on the contest itself

IS
NOT
THE
POINT.
The point is that Bioware has disrespected what now seems to be a majority of their user base and cost themselves a LOT of good will.
Imagine if GOG did this, had a countdown clock for a week, hyping it as an "OMGWTFBBQ!!!!1 community event" to celebrate their anniversary whilst tactfully avoiding the mention that the entire contest is restricted to people from iceland and going so far as to bury that little nugget in the rules and conditions rather than state it upfront when the counter ran out. Would it matter if the contest was a copy of their entire catalogue or a single game? Would it matter if you had a statistically negligible change of winning? Wouldn't you feel ever so slightly disrespected and come to think that they only viewed you as having value when you're handing over money unless of course you happen to be one of their icelandic friends?
Its exactly that level of disrespect that the Bioware Non-Community are pissed off about

Granted there's no way to truly shut up whining twats but the 3 major announcement/complaints threads are now somewhere around 200 PAGES long, that implies its not just a few disgruntled wankers but a major (mayhapeven Epic) slice of their community is rather unsatisfied

Noboby is asking you to blindly agree with everything, debate is healthy and we do enjoy it around here. However, you don't have to be a superior dick about it, especially with childish outbursts like that one.

Apologies. Next time people start discrediting my arguments because I am "pro-establishment" or whatever is convenient at the time, I'll just be quiet and take it. I won't make any more outbursts oh person who likes Freakazoid :p

Gundato, you're absolutely right that there would be bitching and whining in any event. Happens with everything. But think you're too quick to brush aside the reason many (if not most) people are upset.
Basically BioWare walked into a room full of fans and said "Hey, in 5 days we're going to announce something epic for all you guys to enjoy." Five days later, they said "Here it is, but only you guys with size 12 feet can participate".
It's not so much the fact that people are excluded: it's the fact that for days, people were given the impression that this 'epic' event was going to be for everyone. BioWare should have been up front about it from the get go. Would they still have received flak for it? Yes, they would. But at least people wouldn't have been able to say they were deceived.
I don't think BioWare's handling of this is particularly defensible. It was clumsy, misleading, and they deserve whatever flak they're getting over it.

Honestly, I think that pretty much any other dev team could have gotten away with this. Bioware is just kind of screwed because they, like Blizzard and Valve, are essentially "universal goods".
Again, don't get me wrong. Bioware buggered up on the PR. But I still feel that everyone is taking this WAY too personally and are letting their innate sense of entitlement mingle with their hatred of regional restrictions.
Bioware/EA aren't evil and they aren't actively discriminating against the community. And that is something people keep forgetting.

You are probably correct, most other developers would probably have been able to get away with this without the massive backlash (there still would have been backlash, but probably not this universal "internet rage") and they certainly aren't "evil" for doing this, but they definitely are actively discriminating against their international community when they globally announce a massive "community event" that does not include the majority of their community. Frankly, they have done things like this before, i.e. community giveaways and the like, but they did not hype them to the world like they did this one, since most of the time they were much more local giveaways, such as US and Canada only events. If they had simply done that this time, we wouldn't even be discussing this right now.