It’s something we’ve been advocating for over the last few months and it looks like EA is going to be the first ones to make a move to improve game customer rights.

EA has announced that it will begin offering refunds on EA games purchased as digital downloads on Origin.

Currently, the refund plan, called the Great Game Guarantee Policy, only applies to those games that are published by EA. Third-party published games sold on Origin are subject to the refund policies in that publisher’s terms of use agreement. Refunds on EA games purchases through a third-party retailer have to be handled by that retailer using their policy rather than Origin’s policy.

There are some understandable caveats to the plan. You are only allowed to request a refund within the earliest of 7 days of purchasing the game, 7 days after the release date for pre-orders and 24 hours of launching the game for the first time. Origin also may not provide refunds during special promotions though non-refundable games/deals will have it explicitly stated before purchase. They also reserve the right to deny refunds if they detect fraud or abuse of the system so you can’t play through a game in 24 hours and get a refund.

I can’t see this being anything but a good thing. Even though it’s only for EA games, it’s a step in the right direction and gives them a small leg up over Steam. I say small because most EA digital downloads for PC are only available through Origin anyway. Hopefully other publishers take a look at this system and start allowing refunds on their games sold through retail stores, Steam and Origin.

Source: Origin