On the perimeter of the disc I notice a small dip, about the size of a rice grain, where it looks like a piece of the DVD has been depressed; there are very minor scratches on the surface of the DVD itself. I am not using an emulator to run the DVD.
So there might be a problem where the disc can't be read properly. Especially since you said it was a come-and-go-issue.
You could try get a replacement disk from EA.
You would need to contact Customer Support and see what they have to say.
They can be found here: https://help.ea.com/contact-us
You have the option to contact them by mail, phone or Live Chat. Make sure you have a game, a category and a platform selected for the options to become available.
If the Live Chat option is not active for you, choose US as your country.
