EA Bans Entire Country from Using Origin

Origin, EA’s online game distribution platform, will surely have few defenders – though, its occasional free game offers are a nice perk – but it is often a necessary evil to endure in order to play the publisher’s raft of games. However, a new US law has forced EA to ban the use of Origin in an entire country.

A few days ago, users in Myanmar found that they could no longer access their purchased EA games through Origin. As reddit user trivial_sublime described the situation:

“I live in Myanmar, and I own about 20 games on Origin, and have spent hundreds of dollars on the platform. I’ve bought the full editions of all of the Battlefield games up to this point, with their season passes. I was trying to log into Origin a few days ago, and got a bizarre “Access Denied” message. I googled it, and found that “Origin is no longer available in Myanmar.”

According to an admin (or Origin Champion, as they are known) on the EA Answers forum, “with the Origin 10 update, US laws (which is where EA is based) forced them to block certain countries. Unfortunately you live in one of those countries. I’m sorry but there is nothing we ca [sic] do here to allow you access again.”

The move highlights the potentially transient nature of digital game purchases that rely on an online platform to play: despite paying for and ‘owning’ games, access to them can be taken away at any time, at the whim of the platform’s administrator, and without compensation or reimbursement.

EA is yet to make an official statement on why it has pulled the Origin platform from Myanmar, which US law is responsible for the prohibition, nor has it stated which other countries may be affected by this US law.