Origin’s Free Game Program “On the House” Has Been “Retired”

Megalith

Megalith

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EA has quietly terminated Origin's "On the House" program, which provided free games to everyone (including non-Access subscribers) on an intermittent, time-limited basis. While no official announcement was made, PC Gamer managed to reach a rep who could confirm the program was “retired.”

On the House debuted in 2014 with the most excellent survival-horror game Dead Space, and since then has made numerous other games, including Bejeweled, Battlefield 3, Theme Hospital, Syndicate, Peggle, and Dragon Age: Origins, free for the taking, without catches or take-backs. The games generally weren't EA's latest and greatest but free is free, and dated or not a lot of the games it offered were really quite good.
 
I managed to scoop up DAO on my origin account when it was up, never hurts to have a free backup. Seemed like a pretty good way to promote new ip with older retired titles, and a way of getting users into your platform. Don't really see any reasons why cancelling it would make sense unless they got a virtually zero repurchase rate from accounts that downloaded these titles.
 
The fact that the program had been around since 2014 and most people can name less titles that were provided over it than they have fingers, I think, says a lot about the program and EA
 
Brian_B said:
The fact that the program had been around since 2014 and most people can name less titles that were provided over it than they have fingers, I think, says a lot about the program and EA
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They were giving away marketable Ip for free. Who cares what it was... says a lot about irrational hatred in the community for being upset they were giving away games...
 
took 2 months and many many phone calls, disappointments, etc but EA finally fixed the two Mass Effect 2 DLC problems I was experiencing and posted about here at [H] (DLC would not auto-DL and once they were installed the game said "can't authorize DLC"). I know it's an older game but I play the Mass Effect series, Metro Redux and Tomb Raider series and pretty much nothing else.

If you ever use EA tech support online and open a case DO NOT open another case while the 1st one is pending or the first case opened goes to the bottom of the que
 
Brian_B said:
The fact that the program had been around since 2014 and most people can name less titles that were provided over it than they have fingers, I think, says a lot about the program and EA
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I've never even heard of it, if I had, I would have definitely cashed in on some of these. That Dragon Age looks cool as hell. Battlefield 3?!

Also, this forum collectively(not singling you out) seems to be completely out of touch with poor or lower income people. I know a few single moms who don't have money to throw around who would definitely be pleased to give their sons or daughters these games at no cost.
 
I spoken positively about access but honestly the on the house program was pretty horrid. There might've been a couple of games over 2-3 years that I grabbed but mostly they had things I wouldn't even throw on a tablet.
 
Love the image of DS for the article but honestly never saw it there in 2-3 years.
 
Weren't all the games like weird shovelware noone's ever heard of? I only recall maybe 2 short lived free titles that were any good.
 
DarkLegacy said:
They gave away quite a few good games. The service itself isn't bad at all. At least not from what I have noticed & I have been using it for awhile.
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Don't care, EA fucked me too many times for me to even consider installing their spyware for a fraction of a second.
 
And not a single dime was given on this end. EA can go ahead and retire themselves from existence.
 
EA burned me once. I bought in again, and they predictably burned me again. Took me twice, but I got it. I'll only buy EA property if it has been peer-reviewed by my friends and found excellent.

They games they gave away were of very low value. Meh. I got them all anyways.
 
DPI said:
Pretty much. We have more game choices than ever, more options for playing AAA games more cheaply than ever, yet you've never seen gamers more angry.
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It seems to get worse with each generation. You don't see it as much here but I've been part of the CAG community just as long as I've been part of this community. The level of entitlement in that community as of right now is off the charts lol. The anger is all over the place as well. A small portion of it is legitimate, like the whole Battlefront 2 debacle, but a vast majority is just mindless ranting, whining & developer bashing. I think the most I've ever been pissed about anything related to gaming was when an arcade cabinet would eat my quarter :ROFLMAO:. The 80's/90's were some good times lol.
 
tetris42 said:
Exactly, out of all the things to criticize EA over, this isn't it.
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Nah, perfectly good enough reason. It was pure marketing play to get folks to migrate from Steam to Origin. Free game was just the taste to get you to install the client. The client sucks, so did almost all of the free promotional giveaways.

There are a lot better ways to have went about it, but this was in pure typical EA fashion.
 
Brian_B said:
Nah, perfectly good enough reason. It was pure marketing play to get folks to migrate from Steam to Origin. Free game was just the taste to get you to install the client. The client sucks, so did almost all of the free promotional giveaways.

There are a lot better ways to have went about it, but this was in pure typical EA fashion.
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I don't know, I think between EA Spouse, shutting down games, buying up then destroying studios through terrible management, selling endings to games as DLC, and nickel and diming games ad nauseum, "receiving free games" just doesn't rank up there.
 
The pc game market, as opposed to the console physical media market, has always had a substantial advantage when it came to media pricing (and piracy). As more content becomes available, and easily downloadable, this chasm will start to close.
 
oldmanbal said:
yet you have microsofts, and allow them access to your microphones, cameras, and essentially everything you do on your pc :)
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Don't really have much of a choice there. The things I use my primary machine for force windows. So I make the best I can of it by staying on Win 7 and running a high end router/firewall that lets me block as much of it as possible.
 
I grabbed a few games from the OTH program. Only one I've really played was DA:O. Most of the games didn't really interest me, but I figured it was a nice token. Not too sad to see it go, but it would have been nice to keep it up.
 
Some of the free games were good, but most were not worth installing.

Now they're pushing Origin Access Premier for an insane monthly or yearly price. Good luck with that.
 
Armenius said:
But Steam is okay, I'm guessing.
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I'm still on the fence about steam. They overwhelmingly have a better track record than EA does for not fucking their customers, but that doesn't mean I'm not overly skeptical. I own exactly 8 steam games, only 2 of which I've actually bought. I only allow steam to run on my system if I specifically want to play one of those games and generally only in offline mode. So yes I technically use it, but not in the way you are clearly trying to imply.
 
I always forgot to check to see when they changed games they were giving away since it wasn't on any set time or anything


Armenius said:
But Steam is okay, I'm guessing.
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Valve uses better lube to fuck you in the ass with. The one EA uses is too gritty and low quality.
 
Yeah, Red Alert 2 + YR for free almost made Origin worth it.

I say almost because they wouldn't work with Win10 or Win8. Had to revert back to Win7, and even then, it took tinkering with a few .ini files and using some graphics patcher to get RA2 to work. Had to do some more tinkering for YR to work.

Also, I was completely turned off when I realized those actors you get to play with in the second YR mission didn't have their distinct parody voices anymore.

Flint Westwood becoming just "Cowboy" with a GI voice...:mad::mad::mad:


Apparently they'd been patched due to image rights or some bollocks.
 
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