Posted October 02, 2014
PincushionMan: Origin is NOT DRM free at all.
In my experience, most of the games have activation limits (SecuROM?) that require you to de-authorize a machine before you can move it to another one.
For example:
Popcap games - used to have a 5 activation limit when they were their own company. Don't know about today, probably 3 now.
Sims 3 - 3 activation limit (appears to be controllable from the Sims 3 launcher)
Burnout Paradise, Battlefield series, Call of Duty, Red Alert, Mass Effect, Spore - 3 activation limit (you must download a tool to report deleted and de-authorized. back to a server. If you forget to run the tool or don't know about it - Too Bad, you are SOL) I suppose if you complain they *may* reset the activation limit... or they may remove the game from your inventory and tell you to buy it again. Dunno. I suspect their support may do it like Steam, not helping at all with activation issues. Some of the listed games have activation servers that will be pulled after a while. Also EA, in Origin's T&Cs reserves the right to pull old (or unactivatable) games from your account.
TL;DR - Buying from Origin === Caveat Emptor. I don't mind the On the House games, I just understand I'm getting up to 3 rentals. The games are theirs, and they are sharing.
That all sounds horrible :)In my experience, most of the games have activation limits (SecuROM?) that require you to de-authorize a machine before you can move it to another one.
For example:
Popcap games - used to have a 5 activation limit when they were their own company. Don't know about today, probably 3 now.
Sims 3 - 3 activation limit (appears to be controllable from the Sims 3 launcher)
Burnout Paradise, Battlefield series, Call of Duty, Red Alert, Mass Effect, Spore - 3 activation limit (you must download a tool to report deleted and de-authorized. back to a server. If you forget to run the tool or don't know about it - Too Bad, you are SOL) I suppose if you complain they *may* reset the activation limit... or they may remove the game from your inventory and tell you to buy it again. Dunno. I suspect their support may do it like Steam, not helping at all with activation issues. Some of the listed games have activation servers that will be pulled after a while. Also EA, in Origin's T&Cs reserves the right to pull old (or unactivatable) games from your account.
TL;DR - Buying from Origin === Caveat Emptor. I don't mind the On the House games, I just understand I'm getting up to 3 rentals. The games are theirs, and they are sharing.