[Nemesis6]

I'm planning to send my copy of BF3 to their Redmond offices, along with an inclosed piece of paper containing various profanities, along with my origin username. I can't get a refund, but I'll settle for being banned. I feel like ****, having given them money, even though I saw all that stuff on Reddit about how they treat their customers. "Hey, it's BF3. You NEED to have it." won out for some reason, though.

[MP-Ryan]

Oh, BioWare, why did you have to cut a deal with EA?  You're the only reason I end up giving them money.

[Grizzly]

Oh, BioWare, why did you have to cut a deal with EA?  You're the only reason I end up giving them money.

Apperently because EA got themselves a new CEO at that time, who was also responsible for the "Bioware-Pandemic" merge. So they apperently rather liked the guy and wanted acces to EAs massive amount of resources.

[Starman01]

...and wanted acces to EAs massive amount of resources.

This. I guess, sorta like the "deal with the devil" thing 

[ssmit132]

Stuff like this is sad, because not only does it shy people away from buying games they might like (unless they're the type that "roll over and take it"), but it also harms the developers too. I mean, some of you have talked about MW3 and supporting Bioware, who would otherwise miss out because of these EA shenanigans.

I mean, this has made me reconsider buying Battlefield 3, despite being blown away by QuantumDelta's video of the flight stuff on his YouTube channel (I wasn't sure whether I was going to buy it anyway, but I looked at this "Origin" thing on my computer to see what it was - I have NFS Shift, Hot Pursuit 2k10 and Shift 2 so that's probably how it found itself there - and saw on the update screen "REQUIRED FOR BATTLEFIELD 3). And I'm seriously considering getting a Wii so was thinking of having a look at the Wii version of NFS Nitro.

Also, in regards to why people still buy EA stuff, I would assume that some people simply don't know about stuff like this. Heck I wouldn't have known if I hadn't decided to look in this thread.

[karajorma]

Steam has so far been rather non-jackass-ish regarding DRM.

I often see this defence of Steam but I never seem to see anyone considering what happens if another company, let's say EA, bought Valve.

[Fury]

If it happens, then it happens. Steam wouldn't disappear anywhere overnight and Valve or whoever buys Valve out is as far as I know, required to ensure that the games stay available to customers with same end-user and license agreements they were bought with. EA or another company should not be able to **** it up in a way where customers would be unable to play their games.

Likewise you're free to consider what happens if you get run over by a truck three months from now or the plane you're on drops somewhere over Atlantic six months from now. All three are equally stupid to worry about, if it happens then it happens and **** does happen. But if you have insurance, it should cover your family's ass to get through the worst like you have time to see and prepare if such a buyout is announced.

[bigchunk1]

I've been using origin for Bf3 and I personally have not had a single problem with it thus far.

I would like to think that these sort of ban related issues are more oversights than intentional. EA is a large company and Origin is relatively new therefore, dubious mistakes are not unlikely. I'm sure these sort of mistakes will be cleared up as the Origin team gets more experienced. It would be utterly stupid of them to intentionally drive away customers for no good reason.

[Klaustrophobia]

a lot of things that are utterly stupid happen anyway in the gaming industry.  and if it IS unintentional and the fault of origin, then i still put it on their heads for forcing origin's use. 

[Davros]

E.A is famous for shutting down servers when they cease being profitable

[BlueFlames]

If it happens, then it happens. Steam wouldn't disappear anywhere overnight and Valve or whoever buys Valve out is as far as I know, required to ensure that the games stay available to customers with same end-user and license agreements they were bought with. EA or another company should not be able to **** it up in a way where customers would be unable to play their games.

That's really, really naive and makes you sound like a person who doesn't read his license agreements before accepting them.  In fact, Section 9 C of the Steam user agreement:

NO GUARANTEES.

VALVE DOES NOT GUARANTEE CONTINUOUS, ERROR-FREE, VIRUS-FREE OR SECURE OPERATION AND ACCESS TO STEAM, THE SOFTWARE, YOUR ACCOUNT AND/OR YOUR SUBSCRIPTIONS(S).

In other words, Valve (or anybody who buys them) is not liable for outages and can cut off access to Steam or any of "your" games without having to worry about breach of contract.  You do not buy games through Steam; you do not buy a license to play games through Steam; you rent a license to play them for as long as Valve is both willing and able to provide the service.

I'll bookend this post by saying that what Steam does for wide distribution of less-well-funded games is awesome, but it's still a scummy service that can be further (and maliciously) exploited by people scummier than the current operators of the service.

[Unknown Target]

That and other reasons is why I've started to look to other options for buying games. Unfortunately a lot of games these days won't let you play them without Steam if they're Steam enabled, whether or not you buy the hard copy.

[Dragon]

I guess that if I'll ever want to play Crysis 2, I'll pirate it. EA is really getting ridiculous. Crysis 2 was taken off Steam, because EA didn't wanted to comply with Steam policy.
Steam is good, because you can run it (and most of the games on it) in offline mode. Nobody could lock you out of SP if they can't connect with the game in question and tell it to stop working. Even if something bad happens to Steam, I could just switch it to offline mode and keep playing (and don't let it update). I don't think that Steam is capable of deleting a game from your HD if you won't tell it to do so, and even if it could do that, programs like COMODO will ask you if you want allow that.

Another nice thing about it is that it doesn't seem likely that Valve will be bought out, as Steam is generating tremendous profits for them. Last thing they would want to do it to ruin it's reputation. I think that compared to other such services, it's quite safe. Of course, having a hard copy is the best (and it looks good on the shelf), but normal stores don't usually give you 75% discounts anytime they can find an excuse to do so.

[karajorma]

Cause companies that are making money never get bought out.

[Fury]

you sound like a person who doesn't read his license agreements before accepting them

Correct, I hardly ever do. Most people don't.

In addition, even if Steam closes down a year from now and no way to access the games after that, I probably will be slightly annoyed but it wouldn't really matter. The games I've bought I usually finish once and after that I'm not touching them. So unless Steam closes down while I have yet to finish a game, it wouldn't really affect me in any significant way.

Don't forget that the same thing applies to consoles too. All consoles rely on the service provided by the respective owner companies. If they decide to pull the plug, most of your shiny hard-copy console games are nothing more than glorified frisbees. Sooner or later Sony and Microsoft are going to decide that it is no longer profitable to maintain PSN and Xbox Live for current generation of consoles. I doubt that is going to happen for the next decade, but it eventually does. Unless of course Sony goes bankrupt. Not even going to mention MS in the same sentence as bankrupt.

[deathfun]

The comment above me prompted me to look into how much it costs for the companies to run those services
Haven't found anything regarding that yet

As for things shutting down and you losing everything, not entirely true. Valve will more than likely come out with a fashion for the essence of Steam to remain intact, but no longer have to deal with it. As I see it, Steam is simply a glorified game launcher. It has the addition of a store and a community, but in essence, it launches your games

In regards to consoles, you lose the online aspect but not the ability to play the games. Sure, online only games (example being Warhawk) become dead weight, but you still have lan capabilities and singleplayer

[TrashMan]

This is why it's becoming less surprising every day that more people are buying single player games and then removing the DRM. Not that I would directly admit or advocate that kind of activity, of course.

I would. EA can suck my c****.

[Dark RevenantX]

There must be some kind of contest going on between certain game companies, wherein a huge cash prize is given to the most evil company by a particular date.

[QuantumDelta]

I really hate EA, but I'll never give up the BF franchise, DICE are just too amazing.

[Kszyhu]

That's the biggest problem with EA, they would be easier to boycott if they weren't controlling Mass Effect and Battlefield franchises.