TIME FOR LEGAL ACTIONS
Time to report EA to the US Federal Trade Commission, your Senators and seeking a class action law suit in all 50 states. Regardless of what Origins was intended for, anti-piracy, they have made our...
Forum Discussion
@BorisBadenov1520 I bought The sims 3 game when it was released in 2009. On the back of the jewel case the game came in there is a statement that says INTERNET CONNECTION REQUIRED. Origin (which in many ways is similar to Valve's Steam) was created when Microsoft and Apple announced their operating systems would no longer support the DRM of SecruROM (remember the 3 install limit) and SafeDisc (remember having the correct disc in the optical drive) which is what the Sims 3 game was released with. Origin does not use or support the DRM of SecuROM and SafeDisc (I think this is an improvement as many considered SecuROM a rootkit). When the game was released players were ASKED to register the game and SecuROM would cover the anti-piracy. EA DRM of the game was very loose (for lack of a better word). Many players would lose their codes and as EA didn't track a user to their code EA had no way to recover the code for the player. Enter Origin - Origin now tracks the base game code for you and tracks all your expansion and stuff packs for reinstall (I think this is another improvement). As the game no longer has any restricting DRM you can install the game as many time as you like and you don't need a disc in the optical drive that your new laptop does not have. In 2012 the game was updated to run under Origin. Current games at that time would continue to work unless you reinstalled the game or tried to expand the game with an expansion pack and/or store content. Steam was released in 2003 which makes Steam older then Origin. Steam was well received by players and continues to grow. There is many users that don't update their computers (as a computer tech I thank you very much). Today's computers are like automobiles - they need maintenance. What you are describing is what Microsoft's Windows activation that has been going on for a long time. Will Wright (the creator of the sims franchise) left Maxis in 2009 (the year Sims 3 was released). Maxis was acquired by EA in 1997. Despite the game being on the market since 2009 there is a very strong following despite there has been little development for a long time. I personally have had few problems with this game. Yes I have encountered a few bugs but nothing I can say was a game breaker. I have not had any problems with Origin. And as many people have smart phones (I have a Samsung Galaxy S5 that I can tether to or create a hot spot) and there are so many hot spots today I'm surprised I don't get brain cancer with my Big Mac. Always on internet access (my phone has an unlimited data plan - yea it's 4G and it's slow but it works) is not that expensive today. You don't post what the issue is so it is hard to help you.
How many times must we post the problem, if you read the threads at all on this and 5 other related sites? By the way as a engineering professional, please drop the DRM and minor technical BS, as the game was out long before those Internet-dependencies were established. There was not even a Galaxy phone out then. For us PC users and those who bought the game as a stand-alone game, the migration to Origin cost many their original rights, and had to be bought again, as I did with no problems. The the changes in the Origin software caused further problems such as game play delays or no playing at all, as I have had to experience. The troubleshooting they provide is as amateurish and insensitive as one gets from cable provider script readers. Time those who buy games and movies have their rights protected ... in legal terms, when one makes a purchase and the T&Cs are contained therein the game packaging, the company cannot legally later change the T&Cs without compensation or specifically calling out those changes and having the purchaser acknowledge each and every change.
If you ever really worked with contracts, Government or otherwise, you would have had known this before acting as if you were an EA employee - are you?
One should have no need to spend loads of hours troubleshooting a product that Windows has not incapacitated from play or some fictitious driver has purportedly done.
Consumers have rights and time we extend those rights to the gaming industry for they have gone rogue of federal laws for far too long.
It would be different if EA had really spent time fixing their "code", but they have not as that takes resources form other games under development that are not legacy either.
I have the cases for my Sims 3 games and not one says internet is required. They played long before EA and Maxim put internet hooks into the "code". In fact, the updates were a part of the "Code", if one took it apart to see what one was talking about.
All this bantering is useless and a waste of my time - that is why we have Congressional and legal agencies to delve into such matters for the people.
If my teams exercised such poor customer relationships and poor versioning control and lack of integration testing, our hundreds of millions of dollar Government contracts would end then and there.
AN end to this line of discourse, as it is a clock ticking until EA starts providing relief to the others impacted by this Origin portal, or others paid to deal with these issues will ... 45 days is a fair and legal time to serve said notices before taking actions.
My time is too expensive and patience now worn out to further waste time with amateurish talk and business ethics. Time for EA to start meeting commercial and federal standards for software let alone data rights.
@BorisBadenov1520 I am not an employee of EA. I enjoy being an independent contractor. This forum is provided by the distributor for the purpose of users helping users. What this forum is not is tech support. This game is not a stand alone platform in the fact there are expansion packs dependent on the base game to play, My game migrated to Origin without issues. Movie and music rights are no way similar to software licensing. If you buy a VHS movie should entitle you to subsequent version but movies and music are copyrighted while software is licensed. I agree that customer support is lacking for lack of a better word. As a consultant I frequently have to deal with tech support that has personal that really don't understand the English language. I have worked with government contracts and in recent years local government specifically schools. The Windows operating system has caused me more grief then I care to recount. Case in point - the recent patch that causes computers to constantly reboot. My field laptop is infected by this unwanted feature. How much money has this cost me because Microsoft failed to test their update (and this is far from the first time). The US economy has been in a slump (more like a depression) for many years (decades?) and quality control and product support suffers because companies with declining profits can't afford proper facilities. How many times have you asked to speak to a supervisor and told there isn't one. You and I know there is some kind of supervision as I'm sure I'm not talking to the CEO. Recent events have again raised issues that the government can't or won't confront serious issues. Take gun control - the government can't seem to understand you can't control guns, you have to control people. Guns do not kill people - people kill people. If you want to reduce deaths control cars (oh we do but the laws are poorly administered and applied). You would have to change the US Constitution and once you start rewriting the Constitution that would open a can of worms you can never close. If you read the law the federal income tax is a voluntary tax but the government has a department that can act to impose this tax without regard to the laws. Taxation without representation. I can go on and on about how the government needs to be changed but that is an argument for another time. As a guest of EA in this forum I prefer to keep my opinions of this company to myself and should I feel the need I would present my opinions in a far more vocal platform. If John Carmack can learn to embrace EA, EA has to be doing something right. If your time is too expensive for this why don't you first confront far more important issues like rocket man because if he gets his way the citizens of the US may not have to worry about playing computer games. I would like to continue this debate but I feel there are much more important issues to be addressed. Take care.
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