[socialist_coder]

Who wants to bet that the free game will be limited to 2+ year old titles?

And still no acknowledgment for the people that either don't care to play online or can't maintain a stable internet connection. Want to play while travelling? Want to play while in the military & deployed? Fuck you!

[rdl]

Doubtful, since most of the EA games I see on origin are either old or are "buy the game cheap, buy lots of expensive expansion packs" model.

Giving SimCity buyers who bought on pre-order or release day a copy of Battlefield or The Sims is probably a great economic choice for Maxis/EA; they're the same people who will likely buy lots of expansions.

The exception is what, Mass Effect (old now)? I guess there's Far Cry 3 and Assassins's Creed III (although AC has expansions and the Season Pass model, too)?

[yohui]

> Far Cry 3 and Assassin's Creed III

Could EA give away Ubisoft title? I expect they'd have to pay Ubisoft for each redemption if they did.

[rdl]

Oops; I was assuming all the games on Origin were EA-owned-studios. They probably will only allow EA studio games.

The Sims is the obvious one; if they give away Sims base games to everyone who bought SimCity, they'll probably see something like $30/user lifetime purchases.

[dclowd9901]

$100 says its Need for Speed Most Wanted (2012). Just new enough to not feel like a cheap jab, but not so new it hurts them in any way.

[res0nat0r]

Why would you buy a game you know before hand must be played online if you don't have a good Internet connection or would want to play while in an airplane? You shouldn't be mad at EA you should pissed at yourself for letting that happen.

[mikeash]

How clearly is this advertised? I poked around online on stores that sell it and saw no mention that an Internet connection is required to play. It's not even mentioned in the system requirements.

[newbie12]

Don't forget us rural folk on satellite broadband! We're screwed too.

[rdl]

It doesn't seem to actually use much bandwidth.

[sesqu]

It uses low broadband levels of bandwidth, from what I've heard. So it's pretty iffy for a lot of people.