Electronic Arts has run over a few bumps in the road with its Origin service on the PC since its release. Over the weekend, the publisher accidentally gave away thousands of free games to some very lucky customers who completed a survey.
The code attached to the survey was originally intended to allow players to download a single game of their choosing, but due to an oversight at the company, users quickly discovered that they could download as many games as they wanted from the service.
The code was circulated on various forums on the internet, including reddit, where thousands of users (including those who didn't participate in the survey) downloaded countless games onto their Origin accounts for free.
EA spent the entire weekend giving out the free games before the code was disabled. There's been no word on whether any of the gamers who exploited the loophole will be allowed to keep their games, but users who claimed to have exploited the service say that their accounts—and the games they downloaded—still work, so it looks like EA may just let this one go.
Thanks Kotaku.