EA May Terminate Your Origins Account After Two Years

[idarkphoenixi]

I havnt played on my WoW account in OVER 2 years and amazingly I was able to renew my subscription and continue playing (after recovering my password).

To put this shortly, Blizzard earned a sub for this fact. I wouldnt have made a subscription if i couldnt use that account.
EA will no doubt lose business in the long-term, but save money in the short-term and clearly thats all they care about.

 

[Bostur]

Now don't kill me if I'm too radical, but don't all EULAs have things like this? Like if your account is inactive for [x] amount of time they basically have a right to shut your stuff down. They generally won't for no reason, but they reserve the right in case their servers hit the popularity that requires it. FFXI had this in the EULA, as does EVE Online, WoW, and even Phantasy Star Universe had it. =/

But if you all want to flip the Hell out over something rather run-of-the-mill these days then by all means don't listen to me.

EDIT: I understand they'll cut your DLC or whatever, but honestly if you don't touch a game for however long then it's honestly on you if they think it's necessary to cut your stuff. I mean, why hold up a chunk of their servers for someone who doesn't even play when you could make room for people who want to but can't due to server restrictions?

You can't really compare this to MMOs which are basically a rented service. If you stop paying for the service you don't get to play the game. The fact that MMO companies actually keep your data even after your account expires is something I see as an extra free service.

In this case it seems that if stop using their service you lose access to the games you already purchased.

 

[GroundWalker]

"your Entitlements WILL expire". It says will, not they may be cancelled. Will.

Yes, you ENTITLEMENT expires...that doesn't mean that they WILL cancel the service.

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.

Worked out what an entitlement is yet?

Nope, could you enlighten me further please?
On a serious note, I was starting to suspect I'd gotten the meaning of the word wrong, but anyway my main argument stands, this is not something not allready done by other digital distributers. Valve could, if they wanted, take down your account without any reason and there wouldn't be anything you could do about it, other than being rightfully pissed.

 

[Dragunai]

Simply put?

Its EA. They are the epitome of not caring about their users, putting out half functional software full of leaks they never fix and grubbing all the money they can bleed out a person.

Steam might still charge £30 for games that came out in 2001 but at least they work and receive plenty of support from the service!

 

[Canadamus Prime]

You know that's not entirely unreasonable. Server space is a premium and it cost EA money to keep your account active in their servers even if your not using it, so it's not unreasonable, if you haven't used your account for 2 freaken' years, for them to want to clear it out and make room for more accounts. Ones that'll perhaps be more active. I mean the solution to this is obvious, you don't want to lose your account, just be sure to log-in at least every once in awhile. Jesus! If you haven't used the account if 2 fucking years, I doubt you'd really consider it all that big a loss anyway.

 

[Starke]

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.

Gamespot included the Terminus Armor (IIRC) and the black hole gun, other retailers got the inferno armor... and I think a unique heavy weapon, Steam got an auto fire sniper rifle (though that one might not have been preorder, I don't recall.)

Also Dragon Age had a shitload of retailer exclusive pre-order item DLCs kicking around, which was actually before ME2.

 

[xXCrocmonXx]

I mean, why hold up a chunk of their servers for someone who doesn't even play when you could make room for people who want to but can't due to server restrictions?

Do you honestly think that this scenario would ever occur? Also I don't know how many times we have to go over why the "you don't use the account anymore" argument is wrong. Plenty of people play games after not playing them for 2 years.

It's a clause they set up because it's their wet-dream that they get in a situation where said situation does happen. Also, each account takes up space. The more space occupied, the less you have to work with. Server space is finite, no matter what you do. You can only expand servers so much before it's no longer cost-efficient to run them. They reserve the right to cut accounts if needed. Doesn't mean they will. My point was that MMOs have been doing this forever now. If you don't access an account in x time, the company reserves the right to just cut it regardless of whether or not you suddenly want to come back.

This just says "Okay, we're giving you a chunk of our property here. If you don't even bother to log into it for two years, don't be pissy if you come back and it's no longer there."

 

[kitolz]

This seems like any other TOS from all other digital distribution companies, only worded differently. The gist is that they reserve the right to cancel your account and that they are not liable to compensate you after the fact. One of the many rights that companies keep in reserve but never use.

Now I can't say for sure if EA will exercise it in this instance, but they'll probably just keep people's accounts on the servers until the service goes down. Either way I'll withhold judgment until we've actually see accounts that pass 2 years of inactivity. It won't prevent me from using their service in the meantime.

 

[GroundWalker]

"your Entitlements WILL expire". It says will, not they may be cancelled. Will.

Yes, you ENTITLEMENT expires...that doesn't mean that they WILL cancel the service.

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.

Worked out what an entitlement is yet?

Nope, could you enlighten me further please?
On a serious note, I was starting to suspect I'd gotten the meaning of the word wrong, but anyway my main argument stands, this is not something not allready done by other digital distributers. Valve could, if they wanted, take down your account without any reason and there wouldn't be anything you could do about it, other than being rightfully pissed.

But Valve has no reason to, and probably wouldn't. EA has reason to, and by this contract has to remove all your games after 2 years.

That said, I don't like that clause anyway, on both Steam and Origin. I hate the idea of you not actually owning what you buy - the latest Diablo 3 news has me pretty worried...

In conclusion, all DRM sucks.

Agreed, which is why I've barely ever bought anything online only.
(...and usually don't buy games that requires Steam, GFWL, or anything like that. >_>')

 

[Starke]

"your Entitlements WILL expire". It says will, not they may be cancelled. Will.

Yes, you ENTITLEMENT expires...that doesn't mean that they WILL cancel the service.

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.

Worked out what an entitlement is yet?

It is any content you've unlocked on the service, regardless of the source, this includes retail games that require origin to run (I don't know if any of these exist yet, off hand, but Battlefield 3 will) DLCs for Origin installed games (either as parts of larger purchases, such as CEs, purchased DLCs, or promotional DLCs).

Also, and I may be reading this incorrectly, but it looks like, if your country passes a law that interferes with EA policy in any way shape or form, you could potentially be locked out of your games instantly.

It is possible Content refers to purchased titles, but I kind of doubt this.

 

[Dogstile]

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?

Course not. But if this was on steam, I wouldn't bat an eyelid. I log in on steam to play various games at least once a month.

Its not saying you have to use EVERY game every two years, just log in to your account.

I'm actually surprised more companies aren't doing this, storage isn't cheap.

 

[w00tage]

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.

Because you have PAID for games. you've Bought games from a company. They become yours. Just because you haven't logged in doesn't mean you don't still own them.

Sadly, the instant the industry was let off the leash of "selling a product" with all its inconvenient consumer protection laws, and allowed to "license the use" where they could write any terms they wanted into the EULA, they became able to do anything that doesn't trigger a class action lawsuit.

Just wait - they're heading towards a model where you'll have to RENEW the license yearly or quit playing. As soon as they figure out how to sell it to you, that's exactly what they'll do.

 

[Starke]

"your Entitlements WILL expire". It says will, not they may be cancelled. Will.

Yes, you ENTITLEMENT expires...that doesn't mean that they WILL cancel the service.

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.

Worked out what an entitlement is yet?

It is any content you've unlocked on the service, regardless of the source, this includes retail games that require origin to run (I don't know if any of these exist yet, off hand, but Battlefield 3 will) DLCs for Origin installed games (either as parts of larger purchases, such as CEs, purchased DLCs, or promotional DLCs).

My question was rhetorical

D'oh!

Still, it's pretty fucking obtuse from the language in that section of the ToS. You defined what EA does with them, but not what they actually are.

 

[FoolKiller]

The people saying that it doesn't seem so bad are probably thinking about how often they log into Steam. If you own lots of EA games, this wouldn't be effortless, but if you only buy one game ever from them then it would be annoying.

For example, I bought Mass Effect 2 when it came out (I like shiny cases with fun extras). Now if that was a digital copy I would be nearing trouble zone as I still haven't played it yet.

 

[scar_47]

Its the same with any account that doesn't charge monthly fees, it costs money to maintain an account if your not using the service its a waste of money for the company so why would they maintain it. Its likely you'll still have acess to the game and any purchased dlc so I don't see the issue you'll also likely to be able to reactivate your account if you wish to use it again. No company is going to spend money maintaining your inactivate account indefinitely and a 2 year period between log ins is an acceptable period. If you'd be unable to play the game or acess purchased dlc that would be different but that situation seems unlikely since that data is stored on disk and console not on servers,

 

[The Lawn]

This is the last nail in the coffin for Origin in my books.
I already won't be using it, and I'll even forgo getting any of the pre-order stuff for BF3 just because I don't want to support Origin.

But, I doubt they will actually delete accounts the second it rolls over to 2 years.
I remember Sega said they would delete inactive accounts for Phantasy Star Universe (Still don't know why I played, or even bought that horrid, horrid game.) after just 6 months. Logged back in for the last month it was up for PC/PS2 while it was free for everyone who had an account years later, and my dudes were all still there.

 

[FalloutJack]

No, you're right. They're a bunch of assholes and pricks like always. Myth confirmed. (Hah, as if it were ever in doubt.)

 

[Snotnarok]

Funny I didn't use my Steam account for about 3 years and when I logged in (remembered my password) I still had my games there. Strange how they let you keep your games.

 

[Aprilgold]

The situation that jumped to my mind was a computer fix, lets say I finish a game on origin, then stop playing for half a year, now, if I have a flood or whatever tropical disaster, and my computer gets BROKEN, it will be out for about a year and a half while I rebuild my life, when I come BACK to origin, remembering I have a game on my account to find it was shut down, how pissed would YOU be in this situation, with Valve, none of this happens, so, now origin has another retard strike on its board.

 

[Burst6]

I wonder how much server space it takes to keep an online gaming account active.

The only information i think would be on there is your account (username and password) ,the games you own listed down so the server knows what games you bought, your saved info (credit card numbers and such), and encryption. Most of origin is probably on your computer.

I'm not really a coder so if anyone is correct me , but it sounds like the whole of your account would only need like 2 MB of info, maybe less.

Besides look at steam. They don't kick you off for being inactive and they seem to be doing just fine.