EA Affiliate Halted

[Carl]

EA has just halted their affiliate program. Why do I announce it? A number of you have very kindly attempted to buy all your games through our link in order to support the forum. All those links are now broken, though I just removed about 500 of them from the guides and forum design. I can't track them all down, so a few broken ones may be here and there.

This affects the future a bit, because I can no longer rely on those to help with contests etc. Those who purchased through the link made it possible for me to do something crazy like give members 10 copies. This was also the route I chose in order to disable ads for members. I'll try to leave everything as-is.

The program may come back in October after restructuring, but I heard it's tentative so may not come back at all. So, that's that. I don't think it reflects on the state of The Sims 4 at all. It's EA and Origin as a whole and mainly between them and the websites who participated.

I'm kind of disgruntled they didn't just change up the commission or something simpler. There are probably a lot of upset webmasters out there. Since they forced me to either remove or switch out every link, with the logical replacement being a link direct to the DLC on Origin, I just removed any mention of them. I'm not making some statement against them, just not willing to do all of that extra work to direct people to the proper page on Origin for all addons since they made this decision. People can easily do a search if they really want the content. At least we have info on what they'd be getting.

Just wanted to explain the disappearance of the link(s) here and everywhere on my network. I'll still give away at least a few copies of the next EP, assuming that comes next quarter (Oct-Dec). Sad to say how long it's been since one of those, and I know I'm not the first to complain about a lack of gameplay DLC

Lately I've been working on guides to Stardew Valley and No Man's Sky to pass the time and build my sites up, since there's not much gameplay-wise to talk about with Sims. A lot of you might enjoy SV, made by one person and a very relaxing game reminiscent of Harvest Moon back on SNES. Definitely something to do on the cheap, it's a $15 game. It has great reviews on steam and all kinds of let's plays to help you see if you might like it too. I'm not some shill for the dev, just like the game and recommend it to people all the time

[Sid1701d9]

I would like to mention the affiliate program was canceled or postponed because of origins restructuring and one of the new features fans have been wanting was the ability to buy gifts through origin.  I don't really know how that works.  However, now they added wishlist to your profile and a gift option when buying a game through origin.  After the restructuring of origin the affiliate links would no longer work.  However I am glad they added the gift option through origin because its what everyone wanted.

Sorry I am late with this information.
Sid1701d9

[Carl]

@Sid1701d9 I thought it might be related of course, and maybe this extra layer of complexity is why it's delayed past October. I check every week or so and will use their program again once it's working. I look forward to that, it helped out quite a lot in between packs and let me do some pretty awesome things over the years. Our members were pretty great about always using the preorder link through us, but there was another side to it on the guide that covered the server bill in part

[Sid1701d9]

I think they moved it Carl, yes I used to run a server myself and its not easy.

http://www.viglink.com/merchants/12/ea-store-affiliate-program

They moved it under the origin banner, but both EA and Origin is there and it says open, so maybe its a new one.
I hope I helped.

[Carl]

@Sid1701d9 Wow. you just helped me so much with that one little tip. I applied immediately and put up both our Sims sites for approval, here's hoping they get to us soon. I'm a bit disappointed that none of the people I talked to were aware of this or informed me. I kind of get the linkshare people not doing so because that's a direct competitor, but too bad no one from EA told their former affiliates! Who knows the situation that led to that, but I'm relieved to have found a way and very eager to get us rolling again. Man do I have a lot of links to make..

[Sid1701d9]

@Carl your welcome I just found it in a google search under ea affiliate origin affiliate program, because I had the feeling they was going to change origin to a new design before the holidays to fix the major complaint many have been having with not being able to buy gift through origin, so since the pre holiday update of origin would have changed the links to the affiliate program, they warned people to remove them, but forgot to tell them when the affiliate program was going to be back up.  This happens with all big companies its right hand does not communicate with its left hand.  The new redesigned origin added two new options under the buy button.  If you click the buy button directly you buy a copy for yourself just like normal, but next to the buy button is a down arrow and if you click it 3 menu options come up, buy for self, buy a gift, or add to wishlist.  I guess Origin got tired of loosing money to amazon for gifting items.

[Carl]

@Sid1701d9 Looks like they accidentally left that up, but interestingly that still works in Spain and another country, according to the people at viglink. This gives me some hope that they are just delayed in getting it back up

I had a page on another site about how people could get around the lack of gifting in origin, now it just tells people to do exactly what you described... sadly that is not the most obvious way to do gifting.

[Randingo]

Thanks for this info- I was just searching for links in your site to purchase my Christmas ep's and stuff paks. Sad to see can no longer do that.

[oshizu]

As I prepare for the release of the Vampires GP, I'm wondering about the status of the affiliate program.
Is our best way to support the forum to pre-order through Amazon?

Just wondering.

[Carl]

I think that they don't give it to you on release day, so if people want it sooner I wouldn't suggest it. Unfortunately there's not a great way. It's not so bad to use it if you're getting something that is already released. At this point I'm skeptical if the program will be coming back! It may have existed only for the short term to get people to use the platform, kind of as a marketing tool.

[smastbrook]

A couple of days ago I pre-ordered the Vampire pack thru Amazon via Carl's link on here. This morning I went to Amazon and checked my order. There was a link to the Product Code. I got my Product Code and went Origin. I entered my Product Code in Origin for authorization. The download didn't start automatically this morning because Origin was down. When I tried after work, I was able to complete the download. I'm playing with Vampires on the same day as EA released the pack.

[Carl]

@smastbrook Hey thanks for confirming this. Mrsflynn had told me that she saw the release date was the same for Origin, so it is nice to know this may become a trend! Also thanks for the support, we appreciate it!