I am wondering is anyone here has purchased from the EA store directly and how their download system works.
Do you need an EA downloader?
Once you download can you install offline anytime you wish as many times as you wish?
The reason I ask is they have Dragon Age: Origins Digital Deluxe Edition for $45.46 and would like to pick it up if there are no strings attached to the download process.
Thanks for any help you can provide and light you can shed on the subject.

You have to have the EA download Manager active to both install and play your games. You cannot play any EADM games without access to the internet. It's a big drawback to an actually quite decent service.

Thanks for the reply.
That is such a bummer. I guess this is a pass for me then, but if others do not mind this intrusion it seems to be a great deal for the entire game with all content.

Yeah, like I said its a nice service and usually I game on my desktop so internet is not an issue. However I was without the net for 5 days while changing ISP's and you know that at that point I really, really had to play Red Alert 3.

You need the EA Download Manager to download but after you've downloaded, you can backup the install files to reinstall in the future.
If you're given the serial number after purchase, you could even backup the downloaded files and then uninstall the EADM - you'll be able to install, activate and play the game without it.
I currently have 3 downloaded games installed and running without the EADM.

OK, I am confused now. Are you saying that you can download burn the download to a disk and then install anytime you want (offline) and play the game (offline) without ever needing the EA installer?

You won't need EADM once you've got the games backed up, but the games still have SecuROM that requires an internet connection and has imposed machine activation limits.

Yeah, you can backup the games as they're downloaded to the EADM download folder (programdata\Electronic Arts\EADM folder in Vista). You can uninstall the EADM and install your games without it (make sure you've copied the downloaded files to My Documents or something beforehand). You'll need to activate the game once online, but then after that you won't need to be connected to the internet to play (for my Mass Effect and Dead Space at least).
Edit: and yes, you'd be able to install anytime you want without the download manager, as long as you have internet just to activate the game.

Installs can be revoked. In some cases at least this is done automatically.
Note you can only re-download for one year.

god. they are like four games sitting in my steam account untouched and not installed even once.
shitty system is shitty.

This 1 year download period, is that US only? It's certainly not applied to the Japanese EA Store, but then, we were never sold the extended download service either.

Do all EA games that you download have SecuRom installed on them? If not, is there a way to tell if DA:O has it or not?
Thanks

It covers whichever parts of the EA retail business that are run by Digital River. All of that stuff...the 1 year download period, the extended service, etc....is their way of doing things.

OMFG, they even have a digital store?!?