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EA gives away a huge number of free games... by mistake

News
By Justin Towell published 15 October 2012

A free code that wasn't tied to one account? Oops

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Electronic Arts recently ran a survey promotion on its online digital distribution service, Origin. Fill out some questionnaires, get a download code for any $20 game. It's the sort of promotion that happens all the time. But EA's code wasn't tied to the participant's account, nor did it expire after one use. No, with a simple log-out trick, it just kept on giving, allowing some gamers to download loads of games without paying a single penny.

According to Kotaku, the loophole took a good while to fix, by which time countless games had been downloaded. There were some corkers available, too - look at this gamer's 90GB haul:

Above: Some gamers downloaded over 15 games using various accounts

Article continues below
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Acquiring free games through an exploit is stealing and it's explicitly stated in the terms of service that taking advantage of exploits will result in termination of your account. But seeing as a lot of people just signed up to Origin as a result, perhaps EA will turn a blind eye this once. Perhaps.

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Justin Towell
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Justin was a GamesRadar+ staffer for 10 years but is now a freelance writer, musician and videographer. He's big on retro, Sega and racing games (especially retro Sega racing games) and currently also writes for Play Magazine, Traxion.gg, PC Gamer and TopTenReviews, as well as running his own YouTube channel. Having learned to love all platforms equally after Sega left the hardware industry (sniff), his favourite games include Christmas NiGHTS into Dreams, Zelda BotW, Sea of Thieves, Sega Rally Championship and Treasure Island Dizzy.

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