Why I will no longer buy games on Origin

In July 2011 I bought a Battlefield 2 license from a popular and reliable seller on plati.ru. It was exactly the time when EA were still reworking their “Store” into Origin, migrating accounts and generally doing all sorts of unseemly things to their websites. Because of those migrations, I ended up with a confusing mess of accounts. But that is not what this post is about. I activated my BF2 license right in the game. The key got tied to my account and the game worked perfectly. The problem was that, since I had bought only the key, I had no game disc: I downloaded the distribution from the seller’s server or from torrents, I no longer remember which. Now, in March 2012, I wanted to play Battlefield 2 again and was thinking about buying Battlefield 3 on Origin. The new platform had already started to develop and had become a relative competitor to Steam, where all of my purchased games live. It is worth noting, of course, that there can be no talk of competitiveness in terms of prices and the number of games available. Steam is the absolute leader in discounts and assortment. The distribution, downloaded almost a year before, was nowhere to be found on my hard drive — apparently I deleted it by accident during one of my clean-ups. And that is when I thought: Origin is actually a good thing. Storing games in Steam is convenient, and it will be the same there. Besides, I already had Red Alert 3 and Battlefield 2142 purchased on Origin, and Battlefield 2 itself was already available there. I wrote to EA support about my situation. The main part of my request:

I would like to tie my copy of Battlefield to my current Origin account for convenience and because of the missing disc (all I have left is the key and the installed version of the game).

The answer caught up with me two weeks later, when I had already forgotten about the request and about Battlefield 2:

We apologize for such a late response to your request. Please tell us, does the problem still persist? If not, please simply ignore this letter. If the problem remains, call us back at + 7 499 999 24 07, from 11.00 to 23.00, Monday through Friday. Thank you for your understanding.

The response pleased me twice over. First, with its categorical indifference to the customer, without even an attempt to understand what I had actually written to them. Second, with the suggestion to call Moscow, which is, by the way, a paid call for me. If it had been an “8-800” toll-free line, it would not have been quite so inconvenient. I returned to the support site and wrote that the problem could not have failed to persist, because support had done nothing. This time the answer came the next day, which made me happy. Nothing foreshadowed trouble:

Thank you for contacting Electronic Arts customer support. We are truly sorry that you are having difficulties with Battlefield 2. We apologize for such a late response to your request. Please send us the following information:

• The name of the game or expansion pack.
• A copy or a screenshot of the receipt for this product.
• A screenshot of the confirmation email containing the code (product key). (For Steam users, a screenshot of their game library with the product code visible.)
• A photo of the game box showing the key itself, the manual and, if you have one, the receipt confirming the purchase.
• Please include the date the photo was taken.

I was delighted — it seemed a live human being from support had finally paid attention to me. I quickly dashed off a reply:

• The name of the game or expansion pack. Battlefield 2
• A copy or a screenshot of the receipt for this product. Attached file “shot_2012_03_27__15_41_39.png”
• A screenshot of the confirmation email containing the code (product key). Attached file “shot_2012_03_27__15_44_41.png”. The message itself does not contain the code, because the code was attached to the receipt (a screenshot of which I attached as well) as a file attachment.
• A photo of the game box showing the key itself, the manual and, if you have one, the receipt confirming the purchase. Attached file “1507148_u5348d273r4592o203i2695x1995pxxxx.jpg”
• Please include the date the photo was taken. The file information of the box photo says the photograph was taken on 28.06.2011. I purchased the game on 18.07.2011 (visible on the screenshot of the paid receipt).

I was filled with determination and was already expecting the problem to finally be solved. But it was not to be:

Thank you for contacting Electronic Arts customer support. We are truly sorry that you are having difficulties with your game from EA. Unfortunately, EA does not support secondary games or codes from third-party sources or unlicensed distributors. Your code was flagged as suspicious by our team. You should contact the supplier of your code for further investigation and support. Unfortunately, we cannot provide you with any support, because your code was not purchased from EA or our licensed distributor. In the future we strongly recommend that you purchase our products in the EA store or from our licensed partners to prevent problems like this.

In reply I asked what on earth “flagged as suspicious” was supposed to mean, and pointed out that the seller had more than fourteen thousand sales and not a single negative review, and that my key had activated without any problems (had it already been activated, I would not have been able to tie it to my account). I asked why, having paid money for a license, I was also getting a “suspicious” flag. No answer to my questions followed. All they did was try to buy me off — if reducing the amount of money I would still have to spend on them can even be called buying someone off.

Keys purchased on plati.ru have very often already been used by someone else, we do not support this seller. Buy games in the Origin digital client. We regret the inconvenience caused and, as an apology, we are offering a 15% discount on your next purchase on Origin.

Because they failed to immediately tie the game I had activated to my EA account — the account they had “converted” into an Origin account — I get a “suspicious” flag on my game key.

For a long time I had been watching how their website works: it mangles encodings, drops my personal information and keeps asking me to log in. Now, having seen how their tech support works, I understand that I have not the slightest desire to be this company’s customer.