Community Manager
I do agree. Especially that this compensation does not cost money to EA.
In big corporations statistics rules and giving away free stuff indeed might not cost a thing to them at the beginning. However, for them, it's a loss overall. In our case with boosters - it's a loss in playtime, which is used in estimating the probability that the player donates to the game later on. Basically, the more player plays, the more likely player donates. Moreover, considering the refunds players made on that day due to this particular issue is also a loss. I don't know what they have for inputs for statistical calculations, but surely not the "being fair and trustworthy to the player" value.
