Battlefield 3 Origin free game offer has ended [Updated]

Through August, pre-orders of Battlefield 3 will net a free coupon code for Mass Effect 2, Dead Space 2, or Medal of Honor.

40

[Update 8/16] A Shacknews reader (thanks Bonzai) tells us that EA Support claims this promotion ran through August 7, and current orders won't be honored with the free game offer. Shacknews regrets the error.

[Original Story] Battlefield 3 has been paired with the term "Origin" a lot lately, as EA's push to promote its new games portal has led to its share of controversies. But the company isn't above a little light bribery, and is offering a free game for pre-ordering Battlefield 3 through the Origin service. You can actually choose from one of three downloadable PC titles, and the selection isn't half-bad.

Ars Technica reports that through the month of August, pre-orders can get Dead Space 2, Mass Effect 2, or Medal of Honor for free. Buyers will be e-mailed a coupon code to reduce the price to zero dollars.

EA has offered similar promotions before, as BioWare gave away Mass Effect 2 with orders of Dragon Age 2. This deal isn't mentioned on the Battlefield 3 Origin page, so Shacknews has contacted EA to clarify.

The game received a lot of attention last week, with the revelation that it is not coming to Steam due to "restrictive terms" on DLC and patches. It was later confirmed that even if you buy the game through a retail provider, you'll have to use Origin to run the game anyway. So since you basically have no choice, you might as well get a free game out of it, right?

Editor-In-Chief
From The Chatty
  • reply
    August 15, 2011 11:45 AM

    Steve Watts posted a new article, Battlefield 3 Origin pre-orders get free game.

    Through August, pre-orders of Battlefield 3 will net a free coupon code for Mass Effect 2, Dead Space 2, or Medal of Honor.

    • reply
      August 15, 2011 11:51 AM

      Hmm, free Dead Space... tempting.

      • reply
        August 15, 2011 12:01 PM

        Meh Dead space was crap a bland fps game that at best had a hard time trying to make you jump.

        All dead space did well was the gfx apart form that you could tell what would happen 10 mins ahead of time oh look another room sure hope i do not get locked in and jumped by 10 mobs oh no i took 5 steps and that happend.

        MOH meh another bland fps.

        Mass effect 2 is there any one who has not all ready got it beat it and put it away till ME3.

        If there going to lure us in they could of picked some good games.

      • reply
        August 15, 2011 12:23 PM

        Free Dead Space 2. Can't argue with that, even if it turns out to be a bad game.

        • reply
          August 15, 2011 12:31 PM

          That's what sold me. I'm about to buy it. I wonder if we get a code to unlock via Steam?

    • reply
      August 15, 2011 11:56 AM

      [deleted]

    • reply
      August 15, 2011 12:03 PM

      i got 2 fee games :D. since i preordered with the alpha beta which had the same deal then they gave it to me again

      • reply
        August 15, 2011 12:41 PM

        So you already got the email? I bought through the Alpha deal on 8/6 and have DS2 already, but never got an email again.

        I've now got all the games on the list registered to my EA account, so maybe that's it. Any extra code I'd get I'd just pass along to someone else.

        • reply
          August 15, 2011 6:29 PM

          yup already got it. its a promo code that reduces the price to 0

    • reply
      August 15, 2011 12:05 PM

      [deleted]

      • reply
        August 15, 2011 12:07 PM

        even more sad is that I don't want any of them (i have ME2 which i haven't finished yet :\ )

    • reply
      August 15, 2011 12:15 PM

      Man they really want people to pre-order through Origin.

    • reply
      August 15, 2011 12:16 PM

      PRE-ORDER ACQUIRED!

    • reply
      August 15, 2011 12:21 PM

      I'm guessing these don't get grandfathered in for those of us that pre-ordered last month?

      • reply
        August 15, 2011 4:37 PM

        Can we get a refund so we can re-preorder?

    • reply
      August 15, 2011 12:27 PM

      weird, i preordered the BF3 yesterday and didn't get anything. All i got is an "order confirmation" email and inside it there was "Play4Free Beret and Gun" preorder promotion

      • reply
        August 15, 2011 12:28 PM

        [deleted]

        • reply
          August 15, 2011 12:37 PM

          i hate contacting support, i'm already in the process of asking for $10 refund, they're selling the game for $70 due to the fact they're including VAT although i don't live in Europe or U.K, they admitted that there's an issue in Origin that customers in certain regions are not getting routed to a properly localized store and should send me a $10 refund anytime soon but looks like i need to open another ticket :[

          • reply
            August 15, 2011 12:40 PM

            [deleted]

          • reply
            August 15, 2011 12:53 PM

            just contacted the tech support of EA and according to them this "free game" promotion is only for U.S and Canada :(

            • reply
              August 15, 2011 1:11 PM

              No surprise there.

            • reply
              August 15, 2011 1:16 PM

              Damn. Oh well, I just pre-ordered...they have my british dosh. The free game wasn't essential anyhoo..

            • reply
              August 15, 2011 2:05 PM

              You are completely WRONG.
              I am in France and I got the free game promotion without problem.

              • reply
                August 16, 2011 12:38 AM

                did you participate in the alpha ?

                • reply
                  August 16, 2011 12:41 AM

                  quoting EA's tech support guy:
                  "BF3 special offer for Battlefield Alpha Trail players only for US and Canada. We are not adding any free game as of now. When the customer pre-orders this game through the email link, they’ll automatically get an option to select the free game they wish to download."

    • reply
      August 15, 2011 12:34 PM

      I can confirm this. I'm new to Shacknews, so my credibility isn't the best, but I did preorder over Origin and I received a confirmation email. A couple days later I also received a promo code that reduces the current price of the mentioned three games to $0.00 It's a cool promo in my opinion. One note though, you have to preorder through Origin; other preorders only get you the limited edition and map.

    • reply
      August 15, 2011 12:40 PM

      What are they going to offer to people that already have the games they are trying to give away.

      • reply
        August 15, 2011 12:50 PM

        The chance to make a friend and give the code to someone.

    • reply
      August 15, 2011 1:17 PM

      US/Canada only by the way :(

    • reply
      August 15, 2011 1:20 PM

      I thought you only got a free game if you pre-ordered BF3 and played in the alpha, it was kind of a thank you gift for giving feedback from the alpha.

      I choose medal of honor, and I must say that is one terrible game.

      • reply
        August 15, 2011 2:15 PM

        Yeah, they offered this to me for the Alpha participation. Pretty meaningless now, EA.

        And MOH is a great game! MP is so much better than MW2 or BLOPS.

        • reply
          August 15, 2011 2:25 PM

          I was tearing it up in MoH MP but the game died out way too fast, sadly. It was generally pretty good, but some of the maps were horribly balanced. There was one Domination (or whatever they called it in MoH, the mode with the three flags to hold) map that was impossible to win if your team got stuck in one part of the map. Garmzir Town I think it was.

    • reply
      August 15, 2011 1:38 PM

      give me a coupon for free copy of Mass Effect 3 and i'm there

    • reply
      August 15, 2011 1:53 PM

      Damn it. Damn it damn it damn it. I've wanted BF3 since I first heard about it. This whole Origin thing / no Steam thing has sucked and I've declared that I won't buy it except on steam.

      But a free game (plus all the other pre-order shit you get) is really hard to turn down :(

      • reply
        August 15, 2011 2:05 PM

        TBH the whole thing doesn't bother me that much. Yea I really don't want to run another gaming service in the background, I already run both Steam and Xfire (If only steam would do full game stat tracking). But I've used Stardock before while I played Sins of a Solar Empire and it didn't bug me that much. I guess Origin will be sort of the same thing a nuisance but not a big deal.

        I don't get why people say they will stick to Steam only. That's kinda like saying you'll only buy/watch movies published by Warner Bros. Damn you Paramount for publishing awesome movies!

        • reply
          August 15, 2011 2:27 PM

          ParaMOOOOOOOUUUUUNT!!! *fist shaking*

      • reply
        August 15, 2011 2:08 PM

        I don't see why you would not get it...

        Origin is a nice place to value some previous EA purchases and be able to re-download them.
        Blizzard also forces online sales on its website, and it works ; I like Battle.net as well.

        I believe these big corps have reasons to set out their own online shop standards.
        Steam gives me awesome service, but Origin looks like a more simple and well-arrayed tool, I find it actually neat.

      • reply
        August 15, 2011 2:14 PM

        Don't be a crazy person. If the game is fun, buy it. If the final version is anything like the alpha test was, it's not going to be a problem for anyone.

      • reply
        August 15, 2011 2:16 PM

        You guys are nuts. It's basically a downloader. I don't even need it on to run games so far.

        • reply
          August 15, 2011 2:29 PM

          I don't want another service when the one I've got works great. I don't want them thinking I approve of this shit just because I bought a game from them. I'm like those people that write the Catholic church asking to be excommunicated.

          • reply
            August 15, 2011 5:13 PM

            I promise not to rub it in when you buy it and realize this was silly. In the long run competition between services will be good for the consumer.

      • reply
        August 15, 2011 2:16 PM

        dude, it's a 10 $ incentive.

    • reply
      August 15, 2011 1:54 PM

      BF3 to get MOH, that is kind of a weird deal.

      • reply
        August 15, 2011 2:06 PM

        I will continue to hold the opinion that Medal of Honor was underrated. The single player campaign was pretty good in my opinion, much more believable and meaningful than ModWar2 or BLOPS. It was definitely a flawed game, in some pretty dumb ways, but it did its job well.

        • reply
          August 15, 2011 2:35 PM

          [deleted]

        • reply
          August 15, 2011 4:26 PM

          [deleted]

        • reply
          August 15, 2011 4:47 PM

          Oh, definitely. I still play the MP on 360, and there is still a constant number of people playing at any given time. that number happens to be about 1700-2000, but it's better than nothing.

    • reply
      August 15, 2011 2:41 PM

      Pricing the games back to 49.95 and not the 59.95 many try and do now would get me to buy it for the PC.
      Bring back the PC prices!

    • reply
      August 15, 2011 2:49 PM

      I preordered after hearing this last week and still haven't received any email.

    • reply
      August 15, 2011 2:56 PM

      Pretty sure this deal expired a week ago, why report it now?

    • reply
      August 15, 2011 3:08 PM

      Give me Alpha / Beta access and you have my pre-order, even if it is on origin.

      • reply
        August 15, 2011 3:15 PM

        Origin orders get the early start on the Beta. Same as the MoH buyers. Not a big deal, though, as it's only 2 days early.

        • reply
          August 15, 2011 3:34 PM

          Yea, 2 days means nothing to me. i want to play now :(

    • reply
      August 15, 2011 3:20 PM

      Already have those games :(

      • reply
        August 15, 2011 4:11 PM

        Same here. This actually caught my eye until I read what the games were. Already got em on Steam.

    • reply
      August 15, 2011 4:17 PM

      I was really really really really really exited for Battlefield 3, but now; I don't give a single fuck.

      Red Orchestra 2 HERE I COME BABY !!!

    • reply
      August 15, 2011 6:36 PM

      [deleted]

    • reply
      August 15, 2011 7:06 PM

      Nice, already own ME2 and MOH but Dead Space 2 sounds nice. I already pre-ordered, when do I get my email?

    • reply
      August 15, 2011 10:10 PM

      so is it only for orders placed during August? I pre-ordered back in February, I wonder if they will honour the deal for those that pre-ordered months ago??

    • reply
      August 15, 2011 11:46 PM

      Dice now selling out too, disspointed they would et EA get away with this.

      Origin is a joke

      • reply
        August 15, 2011 11:48 PM

        Ha and its £40, they can definitely piss off then

    • reply
      August 16, 2011 1:08 AM

      Is there still no fancy edition of ME2 that includes all the DLC?

    • reply
      August 18, 2011 12:59 PM

      I just finished chatting with someone from Origin Live chat. I asked him why I hadn't gotten the email for the free game(I preordered yesterday 8/17), he asked me for my order number, name, and address to verify. After about 5 minutes he asked me what game I wanted and that was it dead space 2 for free. Enjoy

Hello, Meet Lola