PC Game - EA Origins (Resolved)

[Electric_Andy]

Hi all,

we bought our stepson a game (Dragonage; The Veilguard Standard) on PC as an xmas gift. Little did we know, he uses STEAM and not EA Origins. Amazon have said we cannot get a refund; I just wondered if anyone has any advice? We thought that since the game code has not yet been redeemed, we could get a refund but they are saying no.

Is it possible to sell the code on ebay? Is this a done thing, or is there any danger attached to it? I'm just thinking someone could pay (£50) for it and we send them the code, and they could simply say it didn't work and ebay could force us to refund them.

TIA

 

[Sterlo]

Can anyone translate for us technophobes?

 

[fossyant]

He just needs to set an EA account up. Games come from a number of publishers and Steam/EA Origins are a 'publisher' of sorts.

 

[Electric_Andy]

He just needs to set an EA account up. Games come from a number of publishers and Steam/EA Origins are a 'publisher' of sorts.

We have explained this to him but it looks like he would have to subscribe to EA Origins which is £4.99/month. At the moment it would be cheaper for us to buy the game again on STEAM than to pay another 4.99/month (which we'd have to pay for)! I assume it's much like PlaystationPLus where you need to be subscribed to play the game online

 

[wiggydiggy]

Hi all,

we bought our stepson a game (Dragonage; The Veilguard Standard) on PC as an xmas gift. Little did we know, he uses STEAM and not EA Origins. Amazon have said we cannot get a refund; I just wondered if anyone has any advice? We thought that since the game code has not yet been redeemed, we could get a refund but they are saying no.

Is it possible to sell the code on ebay? Is this a done thing, or is there any danger attached to it? I'm just thinking someone could pay (£50) for it and we send them the code, and they could simply say it didn't work and ebay could force us to refund them.

TIA

It is possible to sell on eBay but as you say it's easy to rip people off, once that code is used they can just use eBay to refund themselves. I'd try to sell it privately to a friend TBH Maybe your stepson knows someone that might want it?

Will Amazon not even exchange rather than refund it?

He just needs to set an EA account up. Games come from a number of publishers and Steam/EA Origins are a 'publisher' of sorts.

He could, but I'd imagine he'd like to keep his collection all in the same place. Plus @Electric_Andy has confirmed you need a subscription as well.

Can anyone translate for us technophobes?

Computer games can come via a code now, basically you put the code into a website and it downloads the game to your computer. The issue here is the code is for one online shop, when it should have been for another and they are not interchangeable.

 

[Electric_Andy]

Can anyone translate for us technophobes?

STEAM and EA Origins have their own separate accounts which you have to subscribe to to make the most of online gaming and to redeem game codes. We didn't know there were different ones. It's a bit like someone buying you a film with a Netflix code, but you only subscribe to Amazon Prime who of course wouldn't accept it. You'd therefore need to subscribe to Netflix in order to watch a film that has been given to you, thus costing you £x/month. But with a game, you can't simply download it and then unsubscribe and stop playing. You have to be subscribed to play it. He already pays for STEAM and he, no we, can offord £4.99/month for life just so he can play his £50 game.

 

[Electric_Andy]

It is possible to sell on eBay but as you say it's easy to rip people off, once that code is used they can just use eBay to refund themselves. I'd try to sell it privately to a friend TBH Maybe your stepson knows someone that might want it?

Will Amazon not even exchange rather than refund it?


He could, but I'd imagine he'd like to keep his collection all in the same place. Plus @Electric_Andy has confirmed you need a subscription as well.


Computer games can come via a code now, basically you put the code into a website and it downloads the game to your computer. The issue here is the code is for one online shop, when it should have been for another and they are not interchangeable.

Thank you. No, Amazon has refused a refund saying that digital downloads/codes are exempt from their refund policy. Understandably I guess, as someone could get the code and then say it didn't work and get a refund. The seller won't necessarily be able to communicate with the publisher to ensure this is true

 

[bonzobanana]

I can't say I'm surprised he wants to keep to steam only. It can be a pain with steam, ubisoft, EA Origin, GOG, Epic, Amazon? Probably others too. I try to keep to just having Steam and Epic installed but have games on EA Origin too which I enjoy like Wing Commander games plus others.

I would say difficult to sell as EA Origin are a bit out of favour nowadays. Origin is closing down next year and the EA play thing is subscription based I think. Not really sure but its best not to get involved with EA in anyway really. I never bought anything on EA Origin but did enjoy their free games for a while and I guess I no longer have access to those anymore going by some comments on the internet although there is conflicting information.

 

[bonzobanana]

STEAM and EA Origins have their own separate accounts which you have to subscribe to to make the most of online gaming and to redeem game codes. We didn't know there were different ones. It's a bit like someone buying you a film with a Netflix code, but you only subscribe to Amazon Prime who of course wouldn't accept it. You'd therefore need to subscribe to Netflix in order to watch a film that has been given to you, thus costing you £x/month. But with a game, you can't simply download it and then unsubscribe and stop playing. You have to be subscribed to play it. He already pays for STEAM and he, no we, can offord £4.99/month for life just so he can play his £50 game.

Steam is free its not a subscription service you just buy steam games and use them. It's not like Xbox live or Playstation Network or anything like that. I've had steam a long time and only buy steam games occasionally. I've been less interested in newer games but my older games still work fine. I'm not sure I've bought a single Steam game in the last year but that isn't a problem.

 

[Electric_Andy]

Thanks everyone. We have advertised it on marketplace so fingers crossed someone will buy it for £5 less than what it cost!

 

[Dadam]

Your son shouldn't need a paid subscription to play the game if you've paid for a code that includes the full game.

EA Origin, like Steam, is a launcher system that game publishers require you to use to launch their games. EA Origin is ending next year, being replaced by the "EA App".
He will probably need to create a (free) account on EA's service in order to play the game. It might be that EA Play (the subscription service) is needed on top of the basic EA account, to access online play against other players but to play the single player it shouldn't be necessary.

It's annoying as it's yet another account with password to remember and another launcher app that needs to be running on the PC, but it's the way a lot of the games industry works these days. I do gaming on the PC as well as Xbox and Steam Deck. I have Steam launcher, Epic Games launcher, EA App, GOG Galaxy, Ubisoft Connect and the Microsoft Xbox App for PC!

However reading this he might not need EA after all

 

[Electric_Andy]

However reading this he might not need EA after all

Thanks for looking into this. Annoyingly my partner has already gone and bought it on xbox for him. So we are now trying to sell the code we have