EA May Terminate Your Origins Account After Two Years

[Internet Kraken]

Source [http://tos.ea.com/legalapp/WEBTERMS/US/en/PC/#section5]

5. Content and Entitlement Availability

Entitlements may only be held in Accounts belonging to legal residents of countries where access to and use of Content and Entitlements is permitted. Entitlements may be purchased or acquired only from EA or an authorized retailer. EA reserves the right to refuse your request(s) to acquire Entitlements, and EA reserves the right to limit or block any request to acquire Entitlements for any reason.

We do not guarantee that any Content or Entitlement will be available at all times or at any given time or that we will continue to offer particular Content or Entitlements for any particular length of time. We reserve the right to change and update Content and Entitlements without notice to you. If you have not used your Entitlements or Account for twenty four (24) months or more and your Account has associated Entitlements, your Entitlements will expire and your Account may be cancelled for non-use. Once you have redeemed your Entitlements, that content is not returnable, exchangeable, or refundable for other Entitlements or for cash, or other goods or services.

So if I am reading this right, and hopefully I am not, EA intends to shut down any accounts that have not been used for 2 years. Presumably, this will result in you having to make a new account/repurchase anything associated with the expired account. Now I really can't see what purpose this serves other than making EA seem like a bunch of assholes, so I want to think I'm missing something here. However I've tried searching for any statement from EA explaining this and found nothing.

For the sake of discussion, let's assume this is exactly how I am reading it. Does this not strike anyone else as being incredibly unfair to the consumer? People complain a lot when DRM or company policies prevent them from truly owning a game. With the way Origins is set up it will take away your games if you don't log in once every two years. Now perhaps you're not worried about this becuase two years is quite a long time. Indeed it is, but do you really touch most of the games you own every two years? I certainly don't. Since I want to keep my Origin purchases as low as possible, I could easily see myself not using it for two years. Now I have to or I risk losing those games.

If something like this is hidden in Origin it makes me wonder what other nasty surprises it has. If anyone else has any more information about this absurd policy than please share it. It is seriously making me reconsider using Origin.

EDIT: Now I'm wondering if this is actually standard policy for digital distribution services and I simply haven't heard about it before. In which case my reaction would be quite unjustified.

EDIT 2: Before you say "well an account not used for 2 years is inactive", consider that many people do play games after not touching them for 2 years. If someone only has one or two games on their Origin account what reason would they have to log into it on a regular basis?

 

[Richardplex]

Seems a tad like a dick move here, but there is likely a reason, just... well, it might seem nothing but a dick move outside EA...

 

[Racecarlock]

I see that ruining the NFS franchise wasn't enough for these idiots. The worst part is that I know someone on here is going to go "Well, they're a company and they need to make money" which is a position i'm assuming will be used until on the escapist you have to watch 5 minutes of advertisements after scrolling down 5 pixels and EA has even put burger king logos on the roads and windows in their games.

 

[AzureRaven]

I can't seem to think of a good reason as to why they'd do this. You pretty much nailed my thoughts on the matter after reading that. And honestly...I can't say I'm shocked just because it's EA. Almost everything I see involving EA these days makes me shake my head and sigh.

 

[Catchy Slogan]

I thought this was quite old news? Folks have been raging about it on Reddit for quite a while now.

Still, It's a pretty dickish move. It's almost like someone coming round to my house and taking away my Pokemon blue because I haven't played on it since I was 13.

 

[mad825]

*shrug*

So what? They don't even need a reason to delete an account and people are complaining about this!? Whos not going to access an account for 2 years anyhow?

 

[Internet Kraken]

I thought this was quite old news? Folks have been raging about it on Reddit for quite a while now.

It may be old news else where but this is the first time I've heard about it. Didn't find any threads about this specific issue here on the Escapist so I decided to make one, though admittedly I didn't do much beyond a quick search for threads with similar titles.

Seems a tad like a dick move here, but there is likely a reason, just... well, it might seem nothing but a dick move outside EA...

That's why I'm looking to see if the is some explanation, or if this is standard policy for digital distribution services. So far nothing.

Who not going to access an account for 2 years anyhow?

I don't touch every game in my collection every two years. Doesn't stop me from going back and playing them sometimes, but this will.

 

[Irridium]

Not surprised at all. EA has proved multiple times that they don't care about you, and they have the right and ability to lock you out of your games if you piss them off.

To me this seems like more of the same. Sad thing is people will *****, then promptly forget and keep using it. Happened with all other ridiculous crap, and will continue to happen until people finally get some damn backbone and actually stop paying to be treated like criminals.

 

[pspman45]

EA is trying to think of more ways to milk their honest customers and fans
they've been ramping up the effort over the past few months. What's next EA, are we going to have to pay by the hour to cover your bandwidth costs?

 

[hazabaza1]

And they're trying to get more customers that steam... how?

 

[Catchy Slogan]

I thought this was quite old news? Folks have been raging about it on Reddit for quite a while now.

It may be old news else where but this is the first time I've heard about it. Didn't find any threads about this specific issue here on the Escapist so I decided to make one, though admittedly I didn't do much beyond a quick search for threads with similar titles.

It's alright, I wasn't about to tell you off for making a thread, I was just a little surprised. Though the way I phrased it first off makes me seem a bit standoff-ish. Sorry about that. It's a fairly well informed thought out thread. Better than the the hundreds of mini bite-size sensationalist ones on Reddit. ^_^

 

[back pain]

This simply means that if your account is not been active for over 24 months EA will assume it is no longer in use and will delete it. Why are people so pissed off about this, to me it just sound like a company that's covering all it's bases.

 

[Internet Kraken]

Not surprised at all. EA has proved multiple times that they don't care about you, and they have the right and ability to lock you out of your games if you piss them off.

To me this seems like more of the same. Sad thing is people will *****, then promptly forget and keep using it. Happened with all other ridiculous crap, and will continue to happen until people finally get some damn backbone and actually stop paying to be treated like criminals.

I think they were the first to start this fucking pre order from to get dlc crap too. First I remember about that was mass effect 2. EA seem to look at what pises people off then find a way to enhance it. Wonder hat will happen to PC gamers if this spreads. Allthough they still have steam, but if other publishers copy, then steam wnt have much...

I don't think there was any pre-order DLC in Mass Effect 2, at least not anything substantial. There was the Cerberus Network but that is given to anyone who buys the game new as part of project 10 dollar, something I find perfectly resonable.

I don't think they started dicking people over with major segments of the game as pre-order DLC until Dragon Age 2.

This simply means that if your account is not been active for over 24 months EA will assume it is no longer in use and will delete it. Why are people so pissed off about this, to me it just sound like a company that's covering all it's bases.

Do you play every game you own every two years?

 

[mad825]

Who not going to access an account for 2 years anyhow?

I don't touch every game in my collection every two years. Doesn't stop me from going back and playing them sometimes, but this will.

Just create a task which will execute Origin and login...or you could at least login once a year? IS that too much to ask?

 

[Internet Kraken]

Who not going to access an account for 2 years anyhow?

I don't touch every game in my collection every two years. Doesn't stop me from going back and playing them sometimes, but this will.

Just create a task which will execute Origin and login...or you could at least login once a year? IS that too much to ask?

Yes, because I shouldn't have to bother with that just to keep my games from being destroyed. Besides, there's no guarantee most people will even remember that especially if they haven't touched their account recently. I didn't even know about this until today.

Like I said, if there was a reasonable explanation for this I could tolerate it. However, from what I've found there is no explanation and EA's Origin is the only major digilital distribution system that does this. I don't see any excuse.

 

[ImprovizoR]

I'm never installing that malware on my PC.

 

[Stall]

Do you play every game you own every two years?

Yeah, but it's not like you are just going to not play any other EA games for the span of two years that use Origin, or you are not going to want to reply another game you have on Origin in a two year period. It's not like a game is going to disappear if you don't play it for two years... its if you never, ever log into Origins for two years.

I know its cool and hip to hate on EA, but cut them a break. They're just covering their bases.