EA Origin's apology for not handing out the Early Access Keys to BF3

Some of you (like me) did not receive the promised early access to Battlefield 3 when we pre-ordered, well EA Origin made up for that with this:

I put a game on my cart, applied the code and bam free game! Got Darkspore for free!! Really happy with EA Origin's move on this. Just a heads up for those people who don't know if they received the email yet.

 

so you could use that to buy BF3 once it's released. not bad. i was wondering what they were going to do.

 

Would be cool to see this pop up in my email too but im not expecting much. :3

 

Most likely so, after 30 days. Would have loved for this to not have a deadline of Dec 31,2011, if it didn't, Kingdoms of Amalur or Mass Effect 3 would have been the choices. Well we can't have everything! ;D

 

it's still a pretty awesome deal.

"we promised you early beta access for game B when you bought game A. we weren't able to deliver, so you can just have game B".

 

I'm kinda glad I didn't get the early access, with this, I got an even better deal!

 

Like that, it sounds like they're stupid. It's pretty funny though.

But that is very generous of them and it does make up for the anger they have caused.

Look at the PSN month downtime and what they did. Just know, if a big company fails to deliver, they better deliver double+ what they didn't deliver in the first place otherwise hellfire will reign down on their faces.

 

It's called damage control.
They offered a free game, it's cheap for them and it will avoid a class action lawsuit that would cost much much more.

 

agree. 10char.

 

Don't know how you can class action on something that has no value. It's a nice gesture, really.

 

Its a REALLY nice gesture, though ive had my fare share of problems with origin support, you can ask phistachio or Deagleson, they were on the line with me when i spoke to the most incompetent support guy i have every spoken too D:

 

It actually does have a value. It's an entertainment service that they promised to provide, and didn't. People paid money for that service.

 

Well, you did contact support after standard working hours. xD

When i needed support because of a missing key for ME2 Cerberus Network, i got a reply in danish and a reply back on it and the problem was fixed.

 

Two days advance of a beta that you can cancel your pre-order for after getting the "perk" of early access, and get all your money back? It'd be a hard case to make. What value can you put on it? A buck or two at best? You can't get back more than you paid for the game. And in reality, it would be worth what? Two days of a $60 game that can be played several years from now? Let's say BF4 comes out in three years, and BF3 is no longer supported: ($60/(365*3))*2days = $0.11. Let's use a little common sense.

 

11 cents is about all anyone gets out of a class action anyways...

 

Damn that's an awesome move. Didn't expect something like this from EA But any game? Like ANY game on origin right now? Lol I should have pre-ordered

 

So true. Although I just got a check for $178 for a class action against my previous mortgage company.

Well it doesn't affect everyone that pre-ordered, only some that didn't get early access.

 

Yep, any game. All I had to do was add the game to my cart, apply the promo code and bam, 0.00$. Tried the code on almost all the games, Dragon Age ultimate edition, Da2, Mass Effect 1 & 2, Dead Space 2, Medal of Honor, etc.

 

I would imagine that the exclusivity and privilege of early beta access may result in wildly different value calculations for different people. 11 cents really wouldn't be sufficient. Think about whether or not your 11 cents calculation is really the result of common sense.

I agree that $50-60 coupon is generous. I don't think $0.11 is quite enough to cover the mistake.

 

True dat And actually when in working hours EA support is really good! Though outside working hours its worse than the american social system...

 

Lol I bet those who got early access are now jealous of those who didn't.

 

Also, they're not getting any money back. There's a huge difference between "free" and "buy 1 at full price, get one free". Second, I still think your assessment of value is arbitrary, and you (or anyone) could invest more thought into this issue to come up with a proper estimate of value, if you so desired. 11 cents makes no sense, I don't accept that your 11 cents figure is the result of common sense.

 

All I'm saying is users don't pay a dime on the pre-order until the game is shipped, or if they are charged they can cancel for a full refund before the game is released. Hard to take that one to court if you're given 100% money back.

 

I think we're talking about something different. I agree with you there. They could have given a smaller bonus to BF3 preorders who didn't get early access, since they still have the chance to cancel their order if they aren't happy about the situation. They could have given some small BF microcontent, like dog tags or the specact nonsense, rather than a full price game. That would have been plenty.

But, we're talking about different things. I'm talking about people who preordered Medal of Honor in 2010. Those people were promised early access to the BF3 beta. That was a major part of the sales pitch for preordering the game, which wasn't very good but still cost $50 or $60 to preorder. Of course, they didn't say how long the early access would be (48 hours, not very long), or if there would be other ways to get it that made more sense in the future at less cost (preorder BF3, genius). Nevertheless, what do you do for one of those people, who is probably not very happy with MoH anyway, was promised early access to the beta of BF3, and then didn't get it, but paid full price for MoH?

 

I dunno. Lesson learned that early beta access isn't worth squat? Anyone with any sense knows that. Any open beta is usually not much fun because of constant downtime due to patches, etc. Granted this time it was different, there was ONE patch, but all based on old code and lacking features.

Heck I got two beta keys and never even intended to. One from buying MoH for $10 on a Steam sale, and another from pre-ordering BF3 from Origin, and even cancelled it to get it from Newegg. Sorry about those that bought MoH for early beta access to BF3, but it's not like they missed out on anything. Heck the first 12-16 hours was impossible to join without getting bumped, dropped, or if you could connect at all. They offered the same features for the open beta, only early access were just to ramp up to open access.