Yesterday, I decided I wanted to play The Sims 3. I've bought this game twice before. Once on a physical disc, and then later as a digital purchase. I liked the game a lot, and never had a problem paying for it. I still have the digital version archived away on an old drive, and so I just pulled it out, copied it to my laptop, and installed it. My key worked for the install, and I was all ready to play. However, Origin has been released since the Sims Came out, and it would not accept my key. Here is where my problems started. For those of you out there in the digital world I don't need to explain, however for those who aren't familiar allow me to explain.
Origin:
Origin is a digital games distribution service managed by EA (Electronic Arts) to compete with Steam and other digital retailers. That's all well and good, but it is an embodiment of everything wrong with digital services. They have had problems since day one with horrible customer service (EA has been voted the worst company in America 2 years in a row for this reason), poor implementation of digital securty, and overall just a poor environment to use games through.
What does that mean for me? It means that despite the fact that I can, and did, prove that I legally purchased this game and have maintained it all this time, they refuse to help me. They won't issue me a new key for free, or even sell me a key at a discounted price. They basically said either buy a new game, or don't play.
Obviously, I was quite mad at this. They didn't handle the situation at all, and in doing so they caused me to do two things.
1. I downloaded a crack for my game so it will work despite the restrictions they have placed on me. They would say that this basically makes this "pirated" software. It isn't, and what I did was completely legal. I purchased a copy and have proof of purchase. They are denying me the ability to play the game under their new rules. Which is legal, but under the Digital Millennial Copyright Act what I did was legal as well. I'm paraphrasing this, but basically because I have proof that I purchased it once, It is legal for me to download as many "pirate" copies as I want because no physical good is being stolen. So they lost a sale here, because If they would have given me a free key, I probably would have bought an expansion. There are a couple that that I'm interested in.
2. They lost a customer in me. I have been buying EA products for years, and some of the best games I've ever played have been published by EA. This was the last straw though. Their last few years of bad customer service, DRM issues, and broken games has been pushing me to my breaking point. Their direct indifference and inaction to me however was it. Unless they have a massive change in their public relations for the better I will never buy another EA published game again. At least not directly from a store. At best I'd buy one second hand so that EA does not get any more of my money.
I realize that this will mean good developers won't be getting my money as well, and that makes me a little sad. However, if we keep supporting EA and their horrible business practices then they will never change. I as a consumer am choosing to spend my money with better services and providers, and you should too. EA has been doing this for years, and I finally hit my breaking point. If I convince one more person to do the same thing then that's one more voice telling them they are wrong.
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