EA doesn't want my money...

[Nek0jin]

... or they want it a little too much.

A little backstory - last week, EA had a Survey sent out on their behalf, with a promise of $20 off anything* on their Origin service, with typical restrictions. Their planning was somewhat lacking, though, and only had one "generi-code" to hand out - which meant that anyone who had the code, regardless of how they got it, could use it. Even worse, they had no tracking implemented, which meant that a single person could use the code repeatedly... and quite a few people did use it over and over again, picking up every $20 title they could lay their hands on.

I didn't respond to the survey immediately, but rather put it off for several days. I finally did the survey, got my code, and trotted over to Origin. After a little bit of window-shopping, my fiancee and I settled on Supernatural, the most recent Sims 3 expansion. The only *restriction that we could see that might apply was that the code wouldn't work for anything released within 30 days of that date, and Supernatural was over 40 days old. So we added the game to our cart, and applied the code...

And nothing happened. Almost literally nothing - no discount, no error code, no perceptible change to the page at all. I noticed that it did a quick reload of the page, but it didn't seem to do anything. So I lodged a Customer Support complaint. I spoke with a pleasant EA CSR who tried to explain reasons why it might not work, and I pointed out how those didn't apply. She escalated my ticket, and sent me a new coupon for 15% off anything in the store, with fewer restrictions while I waited for a Response From On High.

And then, as per the link above, EA melted down because of their poor planning. It took them almost a week to get back to me, and it wasn't a personal contact - they sent a mass mail to everyone who legitimately did the survey, with a new (and unique) $20 off discount. The email was titled, "Please accept our apologies," and went on to explain how those evil Internet people abused the code, so they had to cancel it (well, not in so many words - but they did subtly shift the blame away from themselves). But I was getting the $20 discount that I was originally promised, and that satisfied me, so I was willing to drop it...

...except the new code didn't work, either. Or it didn't seem to, anyway. Before I fired off another request for support, I tested things, and found out that yes, the code actually was working... just not for Supernatural. Or Showtime, the previous Sims 3 expansion. So, armed with this knowledge, I once again turned to lodging a Customer Service ticket, this time via my still-open previous complaint, which apparently bumped me to the head of the line - I got a call back from EA in 2 minutes.

The CSR that I spoke to was even more eager to help me figure out what the problem was, and after 10 minutes of discussion, she confirmed that the Expansions (on their own) were not eligible for the discount, and the reason was... that they're considered Combo Packs. Because they offer a free in-game widget as a separate line item that is automatically added to your cart at $0.00 along with the expansion, it's considered a "combo pack." However, the actual Combo Pack - the version called "Sims 3 Plus Supernatural" which retails for $10 more (which is the core game plus the expansion) is eligible for the discount. Even though it comes with the same freebie goodies... they're just not added to the cart.

It took a minute for this to sink in. EA explicitly and deliberately created fake "Combo Packs" for their Sims 3 expansions by adding a virtual goodie in the Store so that the expansions would be ineligible for the vast majority of their discounts and specials.

You lost me there, EA. You'd rather let me have a free $20 anything than get $20 of my real cash for an expansion? How does that make any economic sense? (Don't get me started on the policy that discounts don't apply to virtual currency, either). How is this a net positive for you? Are you so certain that I HAVE to get that expansion that I'll eventually cave and pay full price?

Sorry, no. Thanks for the free $20 goodie; I picked up one of the Sims 3 Stuff Packs for free. I won't be buying Supernatural at all. Nor will I be buying Showtime, or Seasons. In fact, you won't be getting a dime from me, unless and until I can find these expansions at or below the $20 price I was about to spend on it... and since I'm more likely to find it marked down in a brick-and-mortar store than in your virtual fiefdom, you won't be getting as much of that as you would have from the online sale. Nor will I be using the 15% code that you gave me.

You threw away a perfectly good customer with cash in hand with stupid "gotcha" tricks. I still got something out of the Survey; you, however, didn't. Not a new sale, anyway.

It's a shame, too. Really. Because that money will be spent somewhere else now.