Eurogamer reports that German gamers found that Origin, EA’s digital distribution platform, was accessing external programs and synced data from mobile phones. Following these reports, EA has adjusted the Origin license agreement for German users. More information is included after the jump.
According to the report, the German version of the Origin license agreement included a clause that would allowed EA to access other EA-branded products without notifying the user, as well as the right for EA and her partners to “gather, use, store and transmit technical and related information” and use these for “marketing purposes”. Such practices are illegal under German law.
Following a surge of users returning their copies of the game to retailers, EA revised the license agreement “to create more clarity.” After the news became public, upset German users of Amazon.de began giving Battlefield 3 a slew of negative product reviews. Though the title maintains a Metacritic rating of 90, the game is currently rated on the German Amazonas a 1.2/5.0 after 3000 user reviews.
I’d like it if that origin thing just got taken off/down, doesn’t feel right with this game and makes the game so fussy and slow with all the updating and out of game menus.
Hope EA and DICE see to this.