EA Gives Away Free Games in Accidental Goof-up

What started out as a gift of appreication turned into a massive security breach for EA.

The gaming company originally sent codes for one free EA game to people who took a customer survey, but the code they sent had a security glitch which allowed unlimited downloads.

Users immediately exploited the error by passing on their codes in a Reddit thread. The incident took place over the weekend.

All those who had the codes were able to redeem two copies of the same game - one on the website version of Origin Store and another on the Origin. Users could also check out both the games simultaneously, a Reddit user posted.

Armed with the code, users could shop any number of EA games, barring those that were less than 30 days old and Valve titles, The Verge reported.

EA plugged this major loophole at around 1:28 p.m. PST, after which the promo code became useless. Thousands of games were downloaded for free. Reports suggested that the code was usable for 18 hours.

There is also a theory floating in the Internet that this was all an intentional ploy from EA to widen its user base. Erik Kain, the tech blogger at Forbes, disagrees.

"It's just an enormous stretch to think that EA is running that elaborate of a scheme on the hope and prayer somebody figures it out and is then able to spread the news properly, etc," he said. "If they wanted to grow their user base, they could use all sorts of upfront promotions and sales to do that."

The games that were downloaded as per the Reddit thread were

* Dead Space

* Dead Space 2

* Dragon Age II

* Crysis

* Crysis Warhead

* NFS Shift

* NFS Hot Pursuit

* NFS Undercover

* SHIFT 2 UNLEASHED

* NFS World ($20 speed boost credit included)

* Medal of Honor