EA Snatches Your Privates

When you load up Unreal Tournament, Metroid Prime Hunters, Mario Kart, Counter Strike, Halo 2 or any other online action game, do you expect to be required to give up your email address to the publisher so they can spam you? Get ready kids. Electronic Arts is getting’ ready to rape your personal info.

From the moment you load the Battlefield 2: Modern Combat demo on the Xbox 360, the game sends your email address to Electronic Arts. Within moments, emails are sent out to fill your mailbox with crap.

Remember, your EA Member Account automatically stores your information, making the game registration process quick and easy. Even better, you could receive a free cheat code or game hint, or an opportunity to receive special offers on EA games with each game you register.

Look EA. I didn’t want to be part of your community. I wanted to try out your game. I don’t like the way you wrangle my email address out of me. It isn’t fair.

Perhaps if you spent more time creating compelling games, you could spend less time trying to trick people into giving up their personal information. It is rude, sneaky and dirty.

Thanks for playing on Xbox Live. The EA and Xbox Live partnership gives you an even deeper and richer experience on the ea.com website, including access to your personal stats, rankings and more.

And shame on you Microsoft. Your Live service has been great so far. Not once have I been bombarded with an advertisement or newsletter telling me how I can spend my money on your stuff. It is great, a no-pressure approach. But this ‘partnership’ with Electronic Arts is shady. It stinks. Is this what Live is going to become, a sell out to any company that puts up a demo or arcade game?

The slope is slippery. You have a great opportunity here; you are currently the greatest online gaming service of all time. Do you maintain that title by shafting over customers, giving their private details out to any publisher with a bit of cash?

Electronic Arts, you suck.