> This is definitely an "unmitigated disaster". What nobody's seemed to realize about EA's offer to give away a free Origin game is this: EA can write off the games they give away in dealing with this debacle as a tax write-off at full "market" value (on the Origin market, anyhow) even though they cost only pennies to deliver to you. In addition, the $20 coupon for another Origin game that was given to those who bought the game through Origin will also be used as a write-off against the $50+ the game went against. If we assume that the value of the games that they will offer for their "apology" will be around $35-40, then they will have effectively written off the entire purchase price of SimCity in "promotional" and "apology" give-aways, thus turning the aforementioned "unmitigated disaster" into EA's most profitable quarter ever. This is not just consumer fraud, it's tax evasion.