EA account linking to a new Xbox Account

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@EA_Jason wrote:

But that's what I said @-6thAD-Bogard:

"another Xbox Account was linked to the EA Account that you played Origin Games on. Now you can't link your Xbox Account to your active EA account and you'll have to manage 2 or 3 EA Accounts to make full use of EA Play through the Xbox Game pass on EA Desktop. From what I've seen here, you don't really think that's ideal."

With that I meant that you'd much rather have your main EA Account, that you use to play PC games, linked to your main Xbox account instead of using multiple accounts. Yes, the bottleneck is obviously that only one Xbox Account can be linked per EA Account lifetime and that's the feedback that I'll be passing on to the right teams. 

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Hey @EA_Jason.  Is there any particular reason this policy changed?  It sounds like it's not a "technical" limitation like some of your support have told us since it was possible a few years back and there are still players able to remove links to old Xbox accounts via your support staff.  From the customers' view it comes off as an arbitrary limitation that penalizes us for being long time customers and very much de-incentivizes us from making any purchases at all from these "empty accounts" we have to create just to get the functionality we are paying for via Gamepass.

Also, is this limitation just for Xbox accounts?  Or could I run into this in the future if I ever end up with say, a new Playstation account and I need to unlink my existing one for whatever reason? 

The idea that this is a new policy just makes this even more frustrating. You're telling us that this wasn't a policy 10-15 years ago, when most of these accounts were linked? But these long standing accounts are being punished for not complying with a policy that didn't exist in 2008? Incredibly frustrating. I thought this was at least partly user error, but if these are policies that changed on us over the last several years, it's not.

And if these things can change: how about changing them for affected users who are obviously not doing anything nefarious.

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@-6thAD-Bogard wrote:

The idea that this is a new policy just makes this even more frustrating. You're telling us that this wasn't a policy 10-15 years ago, when most of these accounts were linked? But these long standing accounts are being punished for not complying with a policy that didn't exist in 2008? Incredibly frustrating. I thought this was at least partly user error, but if these are policies that changed on us over the last several years, it's not.

And if these things can change: how about changing them for affected users who are obviously not doing anything nefarious.

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This.  1000x this.

I have given up and I'm getting my old account transferred to a new account. Kat from @EAHelp has been super helpful

We can thank people like the spiffing brit for this policy. IT's there to prevent people generating thousands of keys to sell on scummy sites like G2A by exploiting the linking system, for anyone that's wondering.

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@Mephiston wrote:

I have given up and I'm getting my old account transferred to a new account. Kat from @EAHelp has been super helpful

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I'm glad that works for you, but I have decades of Battlefield stats as well as a load of Apex stats and content that apparently will not transfer. That's not a solution that's going to work for many of us. This account has content on it that won't transfer that I actually care about. And I'm sure the support staff is doing their best. This isn't their fault, but I wish someone that could help us would chime in.

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@-6thAD-Bogard wrote:

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@Mephiston wrote:

I have given up and I'm getting my old account transferred to a new account. Kat from @EAHelp has been super helpful

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I'm glad that works for you, but I have decades of Battlefield stats as well as a load of Apex stats and content that apparently will not transfer. That's not a solution that's going to work for many of us. This account has content on it that won't transfer that I actually care about.

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Yeah same here.  Also... how is this less work for their support staff than just removing the link to our old Xbox accounts?  This seems absurd.  

I agree with both of you. I'm losing all the account data and friends list data I've had since battlefield 3 was released.

I'm not happy about it, but its for games that I have not played in many years so I'm happy to start fresh if I ever need to.

I meant what I said about why this is happening, and people exploiting the system. I'm sure once EA fix people exploiting the key system, they'll loosen up the rules.

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@Mephiston wrote:

I agree with both of you. I'm losing all the account data and friends list data I've had since battlefield 3 was released.

I'm not happy about it, but its for games that I have not played in many years so I'm happy to start fresh if I ever need to.

I meant what I said about why this is happening, and people exploiting the system. I'm sure once EA fix people exploiting the key system, they'll loosen up the rules.

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That's just too extreme for me. Literally thousands of hours of Battlefield that I'm not giving up for a fresh account. I am sure there's a legitimate reason for their policy too, but I just don't see why they wouldn't work towards a solution for users that clearly are not doing anything nefarious. This isn't an issue that's likely to come up that often. This is only a thing because of their partnership with Microsoft.

No, it is not a policy because of Microsoft. If anything it started with their re-partnership with Steam/Valve.

The Spiffing Brit made $3000+ dollars selling grey keys of spore on G2A by exploiting EAPlay on steam, where you could generate keys constantly and then sell them.

This was, presumably, a measure employed to stop that from happening, as you had to link your account multiple times in order for the exploit to work.

IT is silly that customer service are unable to help people in these edge cases (like they used to) and I do genuinely hope they can come to an agreement with everyone.

The policy isn't because of their partnership with Microsoft, the number of users with legitimate complaints about said policy has become an issue because of their new partnership with Microsoft. If we weren't losing out on EA Play, none of us would care about linking our EA and MS accounts.

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@Mephiston wrote:

I have given up and I'm getting my old account transferred to a new account. Kat from @EAHelp has been super helpful

We can thank people like the spiffing brit for this policy. IT's there to prevent people generating thousands of keys to sell on scummy sites like G2A by exploiting the linking system, for anyone that's wondering.

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Spiffing Brit exploits badly designed systems.  If this is the case then they need to hire better architects and engineers.  "Solving" the problem this way is like doing brain surgery with a shotgun.  It is very similar to anti-piracy measures like Denuvo that while yes, limit piracy, also harm legitimate customers in the process. 

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@thekurse wrote:

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@Mephiston wrote:

I have given up and I'm getting my old account transferred to a new account. Kat from @EAHelp has been super helpful

We can thank people like the spiffing brit for this policy. IT's there to prevent people generating thousands of keys to sell on scummy sites like G2A by exploiting the linking system, for anyone that's wondering.

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Spiffing Brit exploits badly designed systems.  If this is the case then they need to hire better architects and engineers.  "Solving" the problem this way is like doing brain surgery with a shotgun.  It is very similar to anti-piracy measures like Denuvo that while yes, limit piracy, also harm legitimate customers in the process. 

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Yep, I agree with you. I'm just explaining that this is most likely why they changed it, and that they have not addressed the issue just yet (it was a recent change, as @EA_Jason has said.

I wouldn't care about that being the solution if they could manually override it when there are legitimate reasons to.

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@Mephiston wrote:

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@thekurse wrote:

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@Mephiston wrote:

I have given up and I'm getting my old account transferred to a new account. Kat from @EAHelp has been super helpful

We can thank people like the spiffing brit for this policy. IT's there to prevent people generating thousands of keys to sell on scummy sites like G2A by exploiting the linking system, for anyone that's wondering.

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Spiffing Brit exploits badly designed systems.  If this is the case then they need to hire better architects and engineers.  "Solving" the problem this way is like doing brain surgery with a shotgun.  It is very similar to anti-piracy measures like Denuvo that while yes, limit piracy, also harm legitimate customers in the process. 

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Yep, I agree with you. I'm just explaining that this is most likely why they changed it, and that they have not addressed the issue just yet (it was a recent change, as @EA_Jason has said.

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Well let's hope that if enough customers continue to bring the issue to their attention that they move the story up in their sprint backlog.  At the very least they need to enable the ability for their support staff to well... support us legitimate customers in this matter.  Seems like if they kept the policy but allowed support engineers to override it it would solve this issue.  It'd be pretty obvious if someone is gaming the system if the support staff looked at their ticket list and saw 389 cases all about linking Xbox accounts. 

I just hope it doesn't get swept under the rug because hey it's only affecting a small number of legacy accounts, and they're only long time customers. Why bother helping us? I don't think we're trying to change EA policy so much as trying to get them to make an acception. These dumb rules apparently didn't even exist when I linked my derelict Xbox account. The number of people who have given up and made a second account probably outnumber the number of people still hoping for a result.

They have to see how inconvenient that is. I don't even have a secondary email so I'd need that too. And then I'd need to swap accounts with 2FA everytime I wanted to play a different game. I mean.... COME ON.

For me, the only reason why this "system" is in place is to avoid people to have unlimited 1$ Gamepass to their EA account ( link GP with first month 1$ to EA, unlink at the end and link another one etc ... ) but this does not excuse their lack of support and tool to help us.

This problem should obviously be fixed in chat or call, I mean we're not pirate or trying to exploit their system, we're just legit users blocked by a nearly decade old account linking to a fresh new system...

So it seems the 'technical limitation' was not one inherent in EA's account management system and needs to be overcome, but rather one that they have deliberately thrown up. I'm damned if I am making a second account, that kind of thing really grates me. I've said before that a bunch of duplicate accounts would serve to inflate EA's platform user numbers, maybe in this case in an insignificant way, but I am sure it looks better for EA to have an inflated number of users.

My experience with EA products goes back to LHX Attack Chopper in 1991, I've played every Battlefield Game since BF:1942, including BF:Vietnam, except BF Bad Company 1 (ironically because it was a console only launch and back then I didn't own one). I was one of the people that bought Hardline for goodness sake! The godawful state that BF4 launched in back in 2013 (https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2014-06-19-ea-addresses-unacceptable-battlefield-4-launch)  was probably the reason I decided I tried an EA product on console in the first place and had this bloody linking business come up in the first place. (If I recall it was terrible on console too - I glitched through the deck of that sinking aircraft carrier on single player one too many times and gave up in disgust)

My Origin library only tells part of the story of my relationship with EA's products. I am not making a second account to workaround some arbitrary restriction that they have placed in the system.

They could look at the age of the accounts in question, everyone here has mature accounts with lots of content on both sides and apply some judgement. I'm not trying to game the system, and I am sure that they could implement a process to weed out people who are.

The support ticket history seems obvious @thekurse , an annual or 6 monthly restriction on linking another Xbox account to your EA account, similar to unlinking is another, making the process only possible through a support agent who can verify the account activity. Nothing about this is insurmountable.

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@Zirocks wrote:

For me, the only reason why this "system" is in place is to avoid people to have unlimited 1$ Gamepass to their EA account ( link GP with first month 1$ to EA, unlink at the end and link another one etc ... ) but this does not excuse their lack of support and tool to help us.

This problem should obviously be fixed in chat or call, I mean we're not pirate or trying to exploit their system, we're just legit users blocked by a nearly decade old account linking to a fresh new system...

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That is an assumption born from frustration of a system that is not working as intended, in an unforseen circumstance. It is really unfortunate, yes, and this whole thing could be better explained as being a "beta" system, rather than a full working live system.

There is a limit to what CSRs can do when the system is engineered poorly and not able to adapt to current requirements, which is the case here.

Remember, this single account lockdown was a recent change for the reasons outlined earlier. I'm not excusing it in the slightest, as like I said before, I had to migrate to an entirely new account to get both working, thereby losing access to well over a decade's worth of saved games, online history, and the like, but hopefully like others have said this issue gains enough traction so that they can change the system.

System changes are slow, and usually need a body of evidence to back them up before they are implemented. The evidence is growing with everyone that complains here, but it won't be done overnight.

Hopefully soon though.

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@Mephiston wrote:

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@Zirocks wrote:

For me, the only reason why this "system" is in place is to avoid people to have unlimited 1$ Gamepass to their EA account ( link GP with first month 1$ to EA, unlink at the end and link another one etc ... ) but this does not excuse their lack of support and tool to help us.

This problem should obviously be fixed in chat or call, I mean we're not pirate or trying to exploit their system, we're just legit users blocked by a nearly decade old account linking to a fresh new system...

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That is an assumption born from frustration of a system that is not working as intended, in an unforseen circumstance. It is really unfortunate, yes, and this whole thing could be better explained as being a "beta" system, rather than a full working live system.

There is a limit to what CSRs can do when the system is engineered poorly and not able to adapt to current requirements, which is the case here.

Remember, this single account lockdown was a recent change for the reasons outlined earlier. I'm not excusing it in the slightest, as like I said before, I had to migrate to an entirely new account to get both working, thereby losing access to well over a decade's worth of saved games, online history, and the like, but hopefully like others have said this issue gains enough traction so that they can change the system.

System changes are slow, and usually need a body of evidence to back them up before they are implemented. The evidence is growing with everyone that complains here, but it won't be done overnight.

Hopefully soon though.

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Having developed CSR facing solutions in the past, my assumption here is that some developer got the business requirement of "hide this UI element so CSR's do not have this ability" and either commented out the HTML or did something like a display: none / <[hidden]="true">.  I highly doubt this was heavily thought through so I'm hoping that it was this reactionary and will be a quick fix when it comes to development time (that does not account for testing time and production build time though).  That's if they decide to fix it.

All of the EAHelp people have been cool. This definitely isn't their fault, and I've been happy with how they've handled it thus far. I'm also happy that they're transferring licenses for people who that solution works for. I just hope it gets far enough to get into the hands of people who can actually fix it.

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@Mephiston wrote:
@thekurseWell, for anyone that doesn't particularly care about their gaming history, there is a solution. The wonderful representative I dealt with (Kat, if anyone is reading this with the option to give them a commendation) transferred all the games possible over to a new account, while keeping my old account open with all the old games that could not transfer over (like crusader no remorse, simcity 2000, the original syndicate, etc).

Just go through @EAHelp on twitter, as email support is completely useless and I just wish I had the capacity to make a complaint about them, and they'll sort out anyone that is happy to lose their account history in order to gain access to EA Play.

For everyone else, hopefully they are able to engineer a fix that allows CSR access to clear the account link flags and let people re-link their accounts.

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Good luck to you and I wish you well. I am pleased you found someone to help you do that. The twitter people at EA seem to be the most helpful and forthcoming, probably they aren't outsourced. But that isn't something I am prepared to do. The longer you've had an account and the more content and progression you have associated with that account, the more skin you have in the game. The more longstanding a customer you are, the more severely this problem effects you.

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@-6thAD-Bogard wrote:

All of the EAHelp people have been cool. This definitely isn't their fault, and I've been happy with how they've handled it thus far. I'm also happy that they're transferring licenses for people who that solution works for. I just hope it gets far enough to get into the hands of people who can actually fix it.

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Agreed.  So far most of the EA people have been fine, though there has definitely been some "copy pasting" solutions without actually reading the issue which can be irritating (though understandable with the sheer amount of cases they see a day I'm sure).

I did get sent a survey today about my EA chat experience.  I made sure to let them know what I think of their "single tier" CSR system and how dissatisfied I was with my "solution", but I did give kudos to my agent for being friendly and professional. 

I do think they may want to get on the same page when it comes to telling consumers that this is a recent change and on this forum at least, no longer send people with this issue to chat/phone agents since they have no way of helping us either.  A clear, concise statement of "This is a new policy, it is a technical limitation that our CSR's cannot overcome, please bear with us" (which to be fair is what was finally said by EA_Jason today).

I stand by that this is an awful policy and I will not be creating a new account to use my EA Play benefits.  I can wait to play FIFA, Madden, BF V (the only Battlefield I haven't bought since 1942), and the rest until this is sorted out.  

Bumping this so it doesn't fall off the first page. This isn't a resolved issue.

Hey @-6thAD-Bogard there is no need to bump the thread. As noted above, we have taken all the feedback shared on this board and escalated it to the team.

Beyond this, there is currently nothing more that we can do.

If something should change or we have an update of any kind then we will be sure to share that with you all.

Darko