EA might have the dubious distinction of being the worst gaming company in America, but when it comes to free stuff, gamers don’t discriminate – after users on Reddit discovered that a $20 promotional code sent out to survey participants could be exploited for an unlimited number of games, everybody got in on that.
The codes were sent out on Saturday, and people quickly (inevitably) discovered that the code could be used twice, via the Origin store browser as well as the client interface. Later, it was found that the code could be used an unlimited number of times by using it while logged out. Although the code was ostensibly a voucher for an amount of $20, any Origin game priced under that was basically free – including Dead Space 1 and 2, Dragon Age 1 and 2, Mass Effect 1 and 2, Bulletstorm, and Crysis.
According to a report over on Minimaxir, the mistake was an obvious one – the Origin server simply failed to check if a user had used the code previously.
Approximately 18 hours after the exploit was announced all over the internet, EA managed to shut the whole thing down, but not before thousands – maybe even hundreds of thousands – of free games had been downloaded.
EA has not yet commented officially on the matter, and for the moment, it’s not clear whether there will be any repercussions to users for what was, essentially, a major boo-boo on the publisher’s part. On the bright side, it’s probably the most business Origin has ever seen. Expect to see a gloating “Origin users increase by 500,000 percent in Q3” statement from EA soon.
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Still not enough of a reason for me to install the origin service on my PC.