EA Store: You Just Don't Get It

I know, shocking.

Here's the sitch: some friends have picked up Crysis and are enjoying it. I thought I might join them. Then I remembered that EA has that Steam-like downloadable store thing that should, in theory, let me buy the game digitally. Sweet! No more having to remember where I put the damn DVD. I decide to check it out.


You might notice that when I chose a digital download for my delivery option, they added a little something to my cart automatically. It's that $6 line item there, with the unfortunate acronym EDS (hint: a little Cialis will clear that problem right up, EA Store).

What might that be, you may wonder, as did I. Let's click on the little "what is this?" link, shall we?


Whoo, check that out! For only an extra $6 (and let's not even start on how EA is making out by selling me this thing digitally, because they keep 100% of the retail price and don't even have to print a BOX), EA will "keep my game on file" for 2 years. Uh, no thanks. If you do this, you are an idiot. They're going to keep a copy of the game online whether you get this or not, so they can sell it as a download in the future. You are literally handing EA free money. It's like the extended warranties you get at Circuit City (again, only if you're an idiot). Here's a clue guys: if you buy a game on Steam, you can reinstall it at any time in the future by simply re-downloading the Steam client and logging in. Not for 2 years, and not at some price premium -- forever. Likewise, if I want to play Galactic Civilizations 2, I just install the Stardock client and download it. Forever. Those guys clearly get it.

Some marketing bleeb came up with this genius idea to soak the credulous for a few extra bucks. Don't reward them for this behavior by taking them up on it.

While this may seem like my usual ranting about greedy corporate etc. etc., it's really not that. I was honestly interested in the digital download alternative, but this clause makes that untenable. Genuinely disappointing.

Welcome, Wired Visitors

Back in September, a fellow here in town who works freelance for Wired interviewed me for an article. Unfortunately, that article got morphed into something else & I lost track of it.

Apparently, the morphed version of the article finally got posted a couple of days ago. The interview I did got cut down to a one-line quote -- but more importantly, it linked back to this blog. So for those of you out-of-towners visiting courtesy of Wired: welcome! For your amusement, here's a link to my post about the AGC talk I did (including a copy of the slides), which is what started this whole ball rolling.