Re: EA account linking to a new Xbox Account

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@tmase83 wrote:

 

DAN: You're very welcome for the help & I appreciate the feedback. And yes if you think my response would be useful to those you've seen on the forum threads, you can share it with them. And yes the multiple Xbox Gamertags on one EA account scenario is an easier one to fix as you can just remove one & then keep going with your main one. We can do that from the Support side if everything works as intended. Regarding you appealing to anyone else that could help, there isn't really anyone or any avenue I would suggest other than the forums. We're aware of this issue & it's a technical limitation for now more than anything else. As far as I'm aware. There are so many scenarios that you have to factor in & we've tried to accommodate as many as possible for now. -Dan

 

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Dan seems like a nice guy but the whole technical limitation schtick doesn't fly with me for one reason:  There are reports of users with multiple XBox accounts attached to one EA account, and people are saying that the reps are able to quickly and easily unlink the old account for them.  Now, if this is actually a technical limitation it means that there should only be a one-to-one relationship between Xbox and EA accounts and those people experiencing the multiple accounts issue have found a major bug in the system that is allowing a many-to-one relationship of XBox-EA accounts.  So this makes me super curious... when EA unlinks the original account for them and their new account is linked, what happens if they happen to unlink their new account and attempt to re-link it?  Will the error with their original email pop up and say "You can only link this original account?" since the support staff says they are physically unable to unlink the original account and they are just running some sort of work around?  Or are they actually physically able to unlink old accounts, they just are absolutely adhering to their policy no matter what and giving us a line of bull about these technical limitations? 

Next question on my mind is this: if there is a major bug that allows people to link multiple accounts... what are the repro steps?  This seems to be the only route for us to actually get our accounts linked without going through hours and hours of chat, forum posts, and social media posts haha. 

It's all totally believable, but still an inconvenience that I hope they can work around. As for reproducing that issue, it could be something as obscure as linking an account with some old Xbox 360 game, or maybe even a long defunct form. It's a fringe case and probably not easy to reproduce.

Well my xbox game pass is going to expire next week, i think im not going to renew because this issue. There is a lot of other games that i can play in the meanwhile.

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@WacheMowe wrote:

Well my xbox game pass is going to expire next week, i think im not going to renew because this issue. There is a lot of other games that i can play in the meanwhile.

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Be sure to let Microsoft know that this is the reason you aren't re-upping.  EA more than likely already has a big chunk of cash MS gave them for this deal, so they couldn't care less that people are dropping off of the service Microsoft is providing.  But if MS gets enough reports that EA is treating Microsoft's customers like trash and they are dumping Microsoft's service, EA will hear about it from the people they care about: their investors.

I want to give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that fixing this requires development, and that support lines really are helpless at this point. That doesn't mean I'm going to accept that result though, and hope that people keep pushing them on the issue, because it's the only hope we have for a positive outcome. If we stop complaining, they're just going to assume their two account solution is something we're happy with.

Another chat with EAHelp on Twitter.

"If you unlinked your Xbox Gamertag from your EA Account, then you won't be able to relink a Gamertag to your EA Account ever again, which isn't something we had in play in 2010, but as all things do, process and programs change. Now that you have unlinked a Gamertag from your EA Account you aren't going to be able to re-link it to that same EA Account again. What I would suggest is creating a new EA Account and linking your Gamertag to the new EA Account.

Same thing again. They want a surplus of empty accounts rather than change the policy.

The vague answer of "process and programs change" still makes no sense. We need a solution ASAP.

That's such a poor response. Process and programs change? Okay that means you CAN change this. And if this policy didn't exist in 2010 why am I subject to it for a dead account that I linked in 2008? It makes no sense.

Hi everyone,

This thread got quite some traction during my weekend and I've been reading through all your posts. 

First off, Dan seems like an absolute legend and got it spot on!

The main theme of this thread is that players like yourself linked an Xbox account to an EA account ages ago, but never really used it. You then created a new EA Account to play EA games on Origin, without knowing that you owned another EA account or that 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. 

It's true that unlinking account is a recent feature. In the past you weren't able to unlink accounts. There was the possibility to go through support to remove the link, but that was only done in some of more extreme edge cases. With the new feature in place, you'll be able to remove the link between you Xbox and EA Account, but you can only the Xbox Account to a new EA account once every 6 months and only to an EA account that hasn't been linked to an Xbox account previously. 

You've also mentioned that some players have multiple Xbox Accounts linked to a single EA Account. That's also something that was possible in the distant past, but it hasn't been possible for quite some time now. This isn't a bug, but just an older functionality that's no longer possible. 

That being said, I've gathered all your feedback and I'll be sure to pass on your concerns and desire to link your active EA Account to your Xbox Account. I cannot make any promises that this will be changed, but I can promise that your feedback will be passed on to the relevant teams. 

That's... not the problem most of us are having at all. Most of us have our original EA accounts, but have a dead Xbox account linked to it. The six month limitation is not the issue, the issue is that you will only allow us to link one Xbox account to our EA account per lifetime of that account. That is a poor interpretation of the problem most of the people in this thread, and most of the people contacting support have. We KNOW there is a policy preventing you from fixing it, we're asking you why you can't make an exception to that policy for old customers that linked derelict Xbox accounts in 2008.

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. 

Same problem here, old xbox account linked to my actual EA account.

Unlinked but still can't link a new one, and the EA chat isn't helping.

I'm not bringing help sorry, just another voice to help this thread not passing away.

I ,honnestly, really don't understand how can "this" be a problem in 2021 ...

( Added information: I'm french and it was pretty hard to find THIS topic, I came from reddit and can't find any other information about the problem elswhere )

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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.