A GOOD experience with EA's Origin sustomer service

S

Savoy

2[H]4U
Joined
Oct 1, 2005
Messages
2,494
Ok so I had 3 EA $20.00 off promo codes from about 2 months ago when I (like alot of people) had problems logging into the MP portion of Crysis 2. What happened was Crytek issued a patch and for some reason some people (like myself) simply couldn't log into the MP. I could log into the main site without issue but not in the game. This went on for over a month so I called EA CS and complained. They offered me 3 coupon codes as a way to make it up to me. No problem I wasn't complaining hehe. So I used 1 code a few weeks ago on a game through Origin. Still having 2 left I decided I wanted to Pre order BF3 limited edition through Origin. Put in one of the valid codes I had and it kept saying invalid code. So I called Origin support. Spoke a nice guy explained my problem and he tells me 2 weeks ago they rendered those old 20 dollar off coupons defunt as in invalid and replaced them with 20% off coupons. He said they used to be able to give them out pretty easily but not they are allowed to use the 20% off codes instead. Needless to say I explained how that's not exactly fair to me since noone told me they would expire and blah blah blah.....He says hold on and comes back says to me how about if I give you the 20% off for the BF3 pre order and I can also offer you a credit toward a game download on Origin. To make a long story short he offered me a few games that were cheap in price but I got him to agree with Dragon Age 2 which is on sale at the moment for 50 bucks.

So all in all I got DA2 for free and 20% off my BF3 pre order. I'm happy. :p;)

Oh and I had already pre ordered BF3 from gamestop but decided I wanted to get it instead from Origin since I'm gonna be using Origin quit a bit going foward with TOR and all that. So you see EA can be decent to their paying customers. Not to mention.....when was the last time someone was able to get a steam CS agent on the phone let alone get a 50-60 dollar game for free because they fucked up? Heh I love steam but let's be real a second they would NEVER do what EA just did. Again I'm a happy customer at the moment.

Just wanted to share the experience. :)

Edit: I really need to check my thread title spelling....sustomer = *customer typo
 
Savoy said:
..when was the last time someone was able to get a steam CS agent on the phone let alone get a 50-60 dollar game for free because they fucked up? Heh I love steam but let's be real a second they would NEVER do what EA just did.
Click to expand...

Well you can't even get Steam on the phone so lol...
 
Savoy said:
LOL exactly my point. You can't even get them to refund a pre order on a game without an act of god.
Click to expand...

I cancelled a preorder for a game using Steam and they refunded me within 24 hours. Was pretty seamless.

Now Origin tech support really tried everything to get Dragon Age Origins: Ultimate Edition to work but it never authorized my DLC. They even gave me another serial and that didn't help. I believe I spent about 40 hours in total diagnosing my problem with no solution in the end. When I had a problem with Star Wars preorder the person was a total fucking dick. Ended up doing a charge back with the bank to fix it since she was unwilling to at least comprehend what I was trying to explain to her. So I'm not too keen on Origin yet.
 
cageymaru said:
I cancelled a preorder for a game using Steam and they refunded me within 24 hours. Was pretty seamless.

Now Origin tech support really tried everything to get Dragon Age Origins: Ultimate Edition to work but it never authorized my DLC. They even gave me another serial and that didn't help. I believe I spent about 40 hours in total diagnosing my problem with no solution in the end. When I had a problem with Star Wars preorder the person was a total fucking dick. Ended up doing a charge back with the bank to fix it since she was unwilling to at least comprehend what I was trying to explain to her. So I'm not too keen on Origin yet.
Click to expand...

Ya I guess YMMV as per usual but I have to tell ya over the years I have lost count how many times I've heard of people having a very hard time canceling pre orders through steam. Or getting any kind of real customer service from valve period. That said I've never had a problem personally with steam or valve so I'm just going on what I've heard in various forums over the years.

Sounds like EA really sucked in your case but in mine it was painless what can I say. That's life sometimes I guess.
 
I'd rather not trust in EA, they have not earned my trust.

I'm however, glad you had a good experience, and I'd rather hear that your experience is the norm rather than the exception.
 
Fail said:
I'd rather not trust in EA, they have not earned my trust.

I'm however, glad you had a good experience, and I'd rather hear that your experience is the norm rather than the exception.
Click to expand...

Ya honestly I would love for Origin to turn into a fantastic alternate to Steam. That's not to say I want to replace steam with Origin but I would like for it to be a great platform as to keep steam honest. Competition is good for us all and honestly Steam has had a DD monopoly for far too long imo. Heh you would have throught the great alternative to steam would have been GFWL and it's 15 re-launches/attempts to provide a real service but heh not. I happen to like the basic interface EA went with. It's almost a direct rip of steam and that's a good thing.
 
Interesting. Good to hear that Origin was decent for you.
I've got Origin installed because of Shift and Shift 2 which had the free dlc+patch[shift2].
I had no trouble downloading the dlc for the non origin version or the EA version.

I also would like to see Origin be a viable alternative to Steam which is my #1 source for gaming needs these days.
 
I just wish all game games are tied to your social security number or something and every game provider must let you have those games you already own on any of their services.
 
You'll think Origin will start selling titles from other publishers? For me that would make it a viable alternative to Steam. In all honesty I stopped paying attention to EA games after they took the rights to NFL football from the 2K team. The only reason I even bothered to start playing their games again is because they were enticing on Steam.

Then I discovered Battlefield Bad Company 2 and I kinda forgave them for killing off my favorite franchise. Doesn't mean I haven't forgotten; just mellowed a bit. So I have no allegiance to their IP; when they bought Bioware I stopped playing their games on principle. I only picked up Mass Effect because of Steam forums and [H].

For me to dump Steam for them would require them selling a wide variety of games like Steam. I know little of their current titles so those aren't "selling points" for me.
 
cageymaru said:
You'll think Origin will start selling titles from other publishers? For me that would make it a viable alternative to Steam. In all honesty I stopped paying attention to EA games after they took the rights to NFL football from the 2K team. The only reason I even bothered to start playing their games again is because they were enticing on Steam.
Click to expand...

http://store.origin.com/store/ea/en_US/pd/productID.181157700

Portal 2, so yeah I think they'll start selling games from other publishers. ;)
 
cageymaru said:
For me to dump Steam for them would require them selling a wide variety of games like Steam. I know little of their current titles so those aren't "selling points" for me.
Click to expand...

There are already other digital distribution services that sell titles from a wide range of publishers and developers.

I don't see why you need to dump Steam though. Each digital distribution service has their pros and cons, what I think people should do is be aware of these and the options available. But it seems there is propensity for some Steam fans to turn everything into a Steam vs. competition, where you are either for everything being on Steam or against Steam.

This is the one thing I don't like about the current prevalent method of digital distribution in that you are essentially locked into a service, which creates issues when you choose to try out or switch to another service.

CryingGod said:
http://store.origin.com/store/ea/en_US/pd/productID.181157700

Portal 2, so yeah I think they'll start selling games from other publishers. ;)
Click to expand...

All the Valve games at the EA Store are physical copies only. This is because EA handles Valve games for retail.
 
cageymaru said:
You'll think Origin will start selling titles from other publishers? For me that would make it a viable alternative to Steam. In all honesty I stopped paying attention to EA games after they took the rights to NFL football from the 2K team. The only reason I even bothered to start playing their games again is because they were enticing on Steam.

Then I discovered Battlefield Bad Company 2 and I kinda forgave them for killing off my favorite franchise. Doesn't mean I haven't forgotten; just mellowed a bit. So I have no allegiance to their IP; when they bought Bioware I stopped playing their games on principle. I only picked up Mass Effect because of Steam forums and [H].

For me to dump Steam for them would require them selling a wide variety of games like Steam. I know little of their current titles so those aren't "selling points" for me.
Click to expand...

I seriously doubt other publishers will sell their games on Origin. Why give your direct competition a cut of your profits? If anything, if Origin does well, they will make their own version of it and keep more of the profits for themselves. The reason none of the publishers have had a problem with putting their games on Steam is because Valve is a developer, they aren't putting out dozens of games a year, many of which would be direct competition to your own, and on top of it, Valve doesn't even publisher their own games, instead they use the EA partners program for that.
 
Savoy said:
Ya honestly I would love for Origin to turn into a fantastic alternate to Steam. That's not to say I want to replace steam with Origin but I would like for it to be a great platform as to keep steam honest. Competition is good for us all and honestly Steam has had a DD monopoly for far too long imo. Heh you would have throught the great alternative to steam would have been GFWL and it's 15 re-launches/attempts to provide a real service but heh not. I happen to like the basic interface EA went with. It's almost a direct rip of steam and that's a good thing.
Click to expand...

Ok I'm biting. I'm getting my flame suit on and hopping on my soapbox so here it goes.

Seriously this shit has got to stop. I'm sick and tired of all this Steam fud it's disgusting. You've never had a problem with Steam yet you trash it, you've never tried to refund a pre-order with Steam yet you trash it. I've had Steam since day 1 and have had zero problems with customer service, refunds, or getting answers to questions in a non timely manner. As a matter of fact they've went above and beyond in their dealings with me and I've seen way more posts supporting this then the opposite. Does that mean there aren't problems? Nope. But WTF...you state that you've had perfect service from them nor have you ever tried getting a refund from them but all you do is bash their CS and how much it sucks. Hyperbole much?

Steam has had a DD monopoly for far too long? What about GFWL, D2D, Impulse, GoG, GamersGate, EADM, and a couple other sites as well? Just because every other site tanks and bombs because of a lack of foresite doesn't make Steam some big bad boogie monster trying to kill off competition. Steam is nothing like any other DD site out there which is why the majority of gamers like it. Origin doesn't nor will it ever compete with Steam for the DD market until they decide to sell other publishers game via Origin, but not only that EA has to offer something other than just a store front to compete with Steam. Steam is an all in one place, none of the other services are. Until the other sites can implement the other services that Steam offers they are nothing more than "another online store".

With Steam cloud, VoIP, friends list, automatic updates, and the plethora of other services Steam is leaps and bounds above everyone else. Steam right now just offers a better platform for the delivery of an online marketplace. Is Steam perfect? Hell no. Is there a lot of room for improvement? Hell yes. Are all the other services way behind? Very much so. Am I a Steam fanboy? No, I like and want competition so my hobby is cheaper but all this FUD has got to go. You're not going to make any improvements in the DD market if you keep lying to yourselves and others, putting up with half assed attempts from other services, accepting crippled services, extra DRM, and draconican EULA's with "doomsday scenarios" clauses. You shouldn't have to surrender your rights to the products you buy and essentially that is what many of these companies and their DD sites give you; same with Steam, but at least Steam tries to give you something in return that makes their site worth using. GoG is another site that delivers by providing old time favorite games without DRM and updated to work on modern systems. Get these other DD sites onboard with these models and we're on the right track.

Innovation in the DD market has to come from gamers pushing the services to excel and make in roads to make our lives and our hobbies easier. Allowing multiple publishers to launch from one online client, allowing cloud saves from multiple publishers, friends list to span multiple clients, VoIP, automatic updates directly from publishers, same region release dates, same regional pricing, and the list goes on. That is innovation and that is what we need. Right now Steam and possibly B.Net are the only ones pushing those boundaries. Until the other companies step up Steam will continue its dominance not because it was the first to the market, but because it is consistently and constantly improving and expanding their services to meet the needs of their consumers, i.e. which would be us!

I'm really glad you had a positive experience with Origin and I hope their services evolve and expand to offer gamers a better gaming experience. I hope other companies take a chance and try expanding their services to give us all a better gaming experience, but until then we're limited to Steam for a complete service or price wars with other DD sites that offer nothing but the game.

Rant off...
 
Well with me it's all about the friend's list, and the ability to pick a game from any publisher and play with someone on my friend's list. I don't care if the game is from EA, Paradox, Valve, etc; as long as I can partner up I'm good. Now 90% of the time I team up with one of my nephews, but once in awhile I grab someone I met in LFD2 or whatever.

I know that this makes me somewhat tempted to stay with just buying things off Steam, but that isn't reality. I have a few games on Origin, Impulse, Drirect2Drive, etc. But most of those games are single player romps and not multiplayer. The few that are MP I use my Steam friend's list to set up a play through.

Right now I'm on a Dice /Bioware kick with a ton of Indie games tossed in for good measure. I like reeling off a few achievements every so often to stroke my epeen. I'm too old to be competitive so I don't dare brag about it. I don't mind buying things in other places; but I expect to find similar service like Steam. And so far I don't think I've found that in Origin or any of the others.


No hate for it because it's EA; just no real love for it because it doesn't do what Steam does for me. Does that make sense to you? Nothing malicious meant by that last sentence. :)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top