Are EA allowed to do this

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Final8ty

Gawd
Joined
Jun 13, 2006
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Im having serious troubles with EA at the moment, my crysis warhead i paid for on steam has run out of licences, ive contacted EA who at first said just send us ur cd key which i did, now they have replied directing me to pogo to make an account there, and then to download crysis warhead over origin which i dont have at the moment and dont want, i just want the game to work on steam again, but now they seem to be forcing me to do 2 things to make a game ive paid for work again!!! help!!!
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Recently, EA hasn't been allowing additional licenses if you're using Steam client.
Instead, they will give you a copy of the game on Origin.
I don't know if they are allowed to do this, but they are anyways.
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Similar thing happened to me last week, well first time it happened was about three months ago.
I was to install my retail version of Crysis Warhead which I never ever registered on either Origin nor Steam.
Second time ever i install it. I get a msg that the license key is invalid. :/

After quite a few messy turns with EA customer service where they forced me to send them photos of my retailbox, manual, disc and license key they finally sent me a new key via email.

Everything was fine and I was able to install and play the game again. Then last week when I was to start up Crysis Warhead again I'm met but the same msg, license key invalid.

This time I get a bit more jarateed then the first time so I write to EA customer service yet again asking them what the heck is going on.

I also suggested that they activate the game the Origin account from where I contacted customer service. Maybe a bad move since it renders my retail version worthless.
But anyway, I suggested it as a measure to avoid future keys from going invalid.

A few hours later I get a reply where they say that they activated it in Origin.

I logon to Origin but there is no Crysis Warhead, so I contact them again. Eventually it turns out that they activated it for the wrong account (screen name). I told them that I want the game on my main Origin account from where I have had all my contact with them.
They said it was not possible to do this since they can't deactivate the game on the other account (screen name).
This all plays out in quite a few turns back and forth where they also tried to make me go register some pogo ♥♥♥♥ to make a new account.

I refused to do this and finally after about 13 hours of msgs and wait time all of a sudden Crysis Warhead popped up on my main Origin account.

I send them a final msg where I yet again ask why all this happened in the first place. Why my license keys goes invalid over and over again.

They never replied.
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http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2637121
 
Sounds like they can't get enough customers on Origin so they decided to make Steam customers come to Origin. Waiting for Valve to say something back.
 
Its lame but whatever.

Install Origin and play it. Its not like Origin is going to steal your girlfriend or anything.
 
Yes, that's right. Never stand up for your consumer rights. Because we all know that as long as no one complains and everyone keeps buying products/services no matter what, eventually big corporation will decide to be "nice" to their cooperative customers, reduce their own profit, and do more things that their customers want. It's not like things can get any worse with that attitude...
 
If I purchased a game on Steam then it damn sure had better work on Steam.
 
HardwareSearcher said:
Yes, that's right. Never stand up for your consumer rights. Because we all know that as long as no one complains and everyone keeps buying products/services no matter what, eventually big corporation will decide to be "nice" to their cooperative customers, reduce their own profit, and do more things that their customers want. It's not like things can get any worse with that attitude...
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Yes because complaining always works and doesn't end up frustrating the end user as well :rolleyes:

Go a head and spearhead your "crusade" , like EA doesn't piss off someone on a weekly basis.
 
lol the only surprising thing about this is that it didn't happen sooner. Once steam became a success i fully expected activision, ea and loads of other publishers to make crappy DRM clients and then start doing this sort of nonsense. Basically you have bought "crysis warhead" and EA can make you run it on a client of there choosing as its there game. You have no choice but to bend over and take it or stop playing the game.
 
HardwareSearcher said:
Yes, that's right. Never stand up for your consumer rights. Because we all know that as long as no one complains and everyone keeps buying products/services no matter what, eventually big corporation will decide to be "nice" to their cooperative customers, reduce their own profit, and do more things that their customers want. It's not like things can get any worse with that attitude...
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blah blah blah blah blah blah blah

same old tired shit
 
HardwareSearcher said:
Yes, that's right. Never stand up for your consumer rights. Because we all know that as long as no one complains and everyone keeps buying products/services no matter what, eventually big corporation will decide to be "nice" to their cooperative customers, reduce their own profit, and do more things that their customers want. It's not like things can get any worse with that attitude...
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What consumer rights are being violated, exactly? Someone trying to add a retail, physical copy of Crysis to Steam being told that EA have changed their policy to stop third party DDL DRM clients registering their software, and that if they wish to do so they should use EA's own client? And what?

More alarmist kneejerking bullshit.
 
Godmachine said:
Its lame but whatever.

Install Origin and play it. Its not like Origin is going to steal your girlfriend or anything.
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I agree. Besides, buying digital copies of games runs the risk of this sort of thing. At any time a company that owns an IP can cease any agreements with how their content is delivered I would think.
 
You can't (couldn't) add a second copy of the same game to a steam account. If they are giving you a new key you'd have to make a new steam account just for that game. You can launch origin copies without opening origin... With a steam copy you have to have steam running. If you want steam stuff at the same time just launch the exe through steam with the steam overlay.
 
DeathPrincess said:
You can't (couldn't) add a second copy of the same game to a steam account. If they are giving you a new key you'd have to make a new steam account just for that game. You can launch origin copies without opening origin... With a steam copy you have to have steam running. If you want steam stuff at the same time just launch the exe through steam with the steam overlay.
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They shouldn't need to give new keys. SecuROM allows them to infinitely reset or raise activation limits.
 
Whats wrong with giving new keys?
They had to give me new BF2 keys to work with origin cause my copy was too old.
 
Thats why you shouldn't buy "licenses". Why pay full price for essentially a rental? I know they deceive you by selling you a product then making you give an implicit agreement to their EULA when installing the game (a complete scam) that says you actually didn't buy a product, just a license.

Simple solution is consider it a lesson and don't buy anything from EA in the future.
 
Dethred said:
Thats why you shouldn't buy "licenses". Why pay full price for essentially a rental? I know they deceive you by selling you a product then making you give an implicit agreement to their EULA when installing the game (a complete scam) that says you actually didn't buy a product, just a license.

Simple solution is consider it a lesson and don't buy anything from EA in the future.
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Enlighten me on how its a scam? Plz elaborate......
 
Stayfr0sty said:
Whats wrong with giving new keys?
They had to give me new BF2 keys to work with origin cause my copy was too old.
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Because people want to use the version they bought and not be forced to use another service if they do not want to. It's easy to reset or add more activations to SecuROM games. A couple months ago I needed the activations on ME1 revoked and it took the rep all of two minutes to do it.
 
Derangel said:
Because people want to use the version they bought and not be forced to use another service if they do not want to. It's easy to reset or add more activations to SecuROM games. A couple months ago I needed the activations on ME1 revoked and it took the rep all of two minutes to do it.
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Yep I did it with Dead Space when I reinstalled my OS after a mobo upgrade. Put in my key and it was invalid. Contacted EA thru their chat and within 5 minutes I was up and running.

This is just what they do. That's what EA stands for - Evil Assholes. Remember when Origin first came out and it was "oh don't worry. You just buy the games off Origin and you don't have to open after that." Well now my copy of ME3 has to open and sign into Origin just to play. Little by little by little. I'm sure they'll blame Steam for this somehow just like they did when they yanked their first game off Steam.
 
MacLeod said:
Yep I did it with Dead Space when I reinstalled my OS after a mobo upgrade. Put in my key and it was invalid. Contacted EA thru their chat and within 5 minutes I was up and running.

This is just what they do. That's what EA stands for - Evil Assholes. Remember when Origin first came out and it was "oh don't worry. You just buy the games off Origin and you don't have to open after that." Well now my copy of ME3 has to open and sign into Origin just to play. Little by little by little. I'm sure they'll blame Steam for this somehow just like they did when they yanked their first game off Steam.
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Oh I completely believe them for why DA2 and Crysis 2 vanished from Steam because their reason is factual. Even Notch talked about it and said that Valve's DRM policy means Minecraft will never appear on it. Also look at when they were pulled, right after DLC released. Look at every game on Steam that sells DRM, it is sold through Steam and usually only DRM bought on Steam will work for Steam versions of games. That said based on other things EA is doing right now I'm willing to admit my not really faith per-say but kindness towards Origin has been vastly misplaced.
 
Well that would piss me off. I don't want to install origin or any other client, I have enough shit to keep up with, without having to remember the 10 different places I have games purchased from. I use steam or amazon, and that's it. Even if it's a good deal, I won't buy my games anywhere else.
 
Just stop buying and playing EA games...

That's the only way they will learn.
 
Dethred said:
Thats why you shouldn't buy "licenses". Why pay full price for essentially a rental? I know they deceive you by selling you a product then making you give an implicit agreement to their EULA when installing the game (a complete scam) that says you actually didn't buy a product, just a license.

Simple solution is consider it a lesson and don't buy anything from EA in the future.
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More like never buy from anyone since what you are purchasing is a license. It's not unique to EA.
 
This seems like an anti-competitive practice to me: this is somewhat akin to Microsoft exchanging your copy of Office for Mac for a copy of Office for Windows. More than that, there probably must be some wording in the license agreement you agreed to which allows for them to exchange one product (Crysis on Steam) with another (Crysis on Origin) at their discretion. I would suspect that there isn't such a clause.

Take a look at the license agreement. See whether what they're doing is outlined there. If not, there may be grounds for a suit.
 
Until you lazy asses start growing brains, and taking them to Small Claims over and over again, it will never stop.

Sorry.
 
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