EA Origin cock-up gives thousands of gamers free games
A wayward download code has seen Electronic Arts give away thousands of free games by mistake over the weekend.
EA had initially intended to distribute a few games for free to gamers who had taken part in a survey, letting them download titles through EA’s Origin download store for PCs.
However, users quickly discovered that the code could be used repeatedly, allowing them to download tens of games each. The codes were then distributed across forums and websites (including the massively popular Reddit), before being pulled. It’s quite possible that hundreds of thousands of free games were downloaded before the mistake was spotted by EA’s team.
The code seemed limited to US and Canadian Origin users, meaning those from other nation would not have been able to redeem it.
EA, seen by many as “The Man” or gaming’s corporate side, in massively-generous shocker? If I were their PR head, I’d be pushing to make this seem as deliberate an act as possible!
Did you manage to get a free game through the Origin error? Or maybe multiple games? Let us know about your experience in the comments section below.
4 comments
Got multiple games from this. There’s a couple posts on the EA Support forums with damage control, talking about how they’re going to “honor all weekend sales” but a lot of people are mad the promotion was cut short and people who “gamed the system” got to keep their games, rather than the code being fixed.
That’s a point I never thought of – sure, it’s gonna raise a smile if you manage to get a free game, but if you’ve completed the survey in order to legitimately claim a game, and then had that offer removed because others have taken advantage, that’s going to be a real kick in the teeth. Have many “honest” gamers been caught up in the problem?
Got multiple games from this. There's a couple posts on the EA Support forums with damage control, talking about how they're going to “honor all weekend sales” but a lot of people are mad the promotion was cut short and people who “gamed the system” got to keep their games, rather than the code being fixed.
That's a point I never thought of – sure, it's gonna raise a smile if you manage to get a free game, but if you've completed the survey in order to legitimately claim a game, and then had that offer removed because others have taken advantage, that's going to be a real kick in the teeth. Have many “honest” gamers been caught up in the problem?
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