Rock, Paper, Shotgun

As spotted by the canny denizens of the Escapist forum, there is a quite extraordinary clause in the EULA of EA’s new game service, Origin. One that may well make you think twice about letting the software on your PC. Under the title of “Consent to Collection and Use of Data”, the clause states that by installing Origin you are giving EA permission to “collect, use, store and transmit technical and related information that identifies your computer, operating system, Application usage (including but not limited to successful installation and/or removal), software, software usage and peripheral hardware.”

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I mean they need to bring sexy back, too, but Electronic Arts – who have removed a bunch of games from Steam and don’t intend to put Battlefield 3 on there – will have to come first, according to this article over on Develop. Valve bossking Newell reportedly said: “We really want to show there’s a lot of value having EA titles on Steam. We want EA’s games on Steam and we have to show them that’s a smart thing to do. I think at the end of the day we’re going to prove to Electronic Arts they have happier customers, a higher quality service, and will make more money if they have their titles on Steam. It’s our duty to demonstrate that to them. We don’t have a natural right to publish their games.”

It’ll be interesting to see whether that can now get resolved. Probably not before Battlefield 3 comes out, eh?

The moves! They are becoming clearer. As many of you speculated, it seems that the retail version of Battlefield 3 will indeed require Origin to be installed on your computer in order to play it. Oh Twitter, how did we find out brief snippets of information (or organise anarchic uprisings against the grim hegemony of shoe shops) before you existed?

This admission by EA probably goes some way to explaining why the game won’t appear on Steam, because it would basically entail two Steam-like systems being folded around the game, and they would inevitably fight like giant sperm whales versus kraken in the magnetic depths of your hard-drive. Such a conflict would undoubtedly cause electronic terribleness to occur, and no-one wants that. That’s my understanding of the technical situation, at least. I suspect there are also overriding commercial monsters pulling the levers behind the scenes. This is the game could spread Origin about in the game-o-sphere, just as Counter-Strike and Half-Life 2 propagated Steam.

Anyone have any thoughts on this? I am betting that you do.

We’ve had word back from EA regarding their peculiarly-worded terms of service for Origin. Senior director of corporate communications John Reseburg explains: “The Origin terms of service are designed to protect against misuse of the Origin system. No Origin user who has paid entitlements and/or downloaded games will have their account cancelled or games expired due to extended non-use. The term regarding account cancellation for non-use is designed to guard against creation of non-active accounts for inappropriate reasons.”

So that’s good. As long as you weren’t intending to create non-active accounts for inappropriate reasons, anyway.

A number of readers have written in to express concern about this clause in the terms of service for Electronic Arts’ new digital distribution, Origin. Here’s the key bit: “If you have not used your Entitlements or Account for twenty four (24) months or more and your Account has associated Entitlements, your Entitlements will expire and your Account may be cancelled for non-use.” The “entitlements” it’s talking about are “paid and free downloadable content, unlockable content, digital and/or virtual assets, rights of use tied to unlock keys or codes, serial codes and/or online authentication of any kind, in-game achievements and virtual or fictional currency.”

We’ve asked Electronic Arts for clarification on this, but it suggests you might lose DLC, achievements, and even your account if you don’t log on for two years. Not exactly the kind of permanence we’ve come to expect from certain online services, is it? I can think of quite a few services I’ve not logged into for two years, and I’d still expect all my stuff to be there. Is anyone aware of similar clauses in other distribution systems or online game services?

Some astonishing controversy from Friday that escaped our gaze – Devolver Digital, they publishing Serious Sam 3: BFE, have announced that they’ve scrapped their planned proprietary digital distribution service, Krundle, and instead are opting to use Steam. And not Origin. The press release, containing their reasoning and what could have been (including features such as “Free-to-Play-for-Fifty-Bucks games wherein the consumer is free to play the game once it is purchased for $50″, and velvet-covered jet skis), is below.

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Oh, I hope this isn’t a sign of a dark, headline-writing times to come. I don’t want to spend the rest of 2011 writing ‘Game X Gone From Steam’ every other day. The latest departure from the packed ranks of Steam is EA and Bioware’s Dragon Age II – and right on the eve of the launch of its new DLC Legacy.

Something which may be no coincidence.

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THINGS ARE GETTING REALLY STRANGE NOW. Now being outside of UK office hours mean we’re yet to get our own EA response to why Crysis 2 vanished from Steam yesterday, but across-the-ponders have now received one. The upshot? Despite all this ‘only on Origin’ stuff, EA didn’t do it. So: who did?
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Back in the late 90s, EA rereleased Ultima IV as freeware. Sort of. If you didn’t download it from an officially authorised host, you’re still technically committing piracy – even though the game is indeed freely available. It’s a long story, documented exhaustively here, but the sudden upshot of it is that EA are cracking down on sites that have been hosting it for bloomin’ ages. Unfortunately, this has also affected a number of ambitious and long-standing fan mods and remakes.

Why? And why now?
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