The Flow of Consciousness

I’ve been getting back into gaming the past few nights. I finally put a usable PSU into Rahab, my new gaming PC, and have been enjoying my shiny, new 8800 GTX. The game of choice has been Battlefield 2142, my favorite first-person shooter.

A few hours ago, I finally earned a promotion in the game. I don’t recall my rank now, but I have more than 8,300 points. Upon earning promotions in BF2142, the player is rewarded with unlockable weapons and utilities. Excitedly, I attempted to choose perhaps my favorite utility item to get when my squad gets field upgrades (temporary unlocks for excellent squad maneuvers): motion mine bait grenades. These handy things can be chucked at a pile of motion mines and will detonate the mines safely. They can also be thrown at enemy vehicles, attracting the mines to said vehicles and allowing the explosion to take with it more than just the mines

However, I couldn’t choose them. I needed to purchase Battlefield 2142: Northern Strike, an expansion for the game. “Alright,” I said to myself, “I guess it’s time to do that.” I’d originally held off because it was $20 and I didn’t want to spend $20 on an upgrade for which I had no use.

Credit card in hand, I went to EA’s Online Store and found the Northern Strike package. It’s downloadable only—no physical package available. I’d used EA Downloader to get Battlefield 2′s dual expansion packs, so I am OK with downloading Northern Strike.

However, when I added it to my cart, another item was added.

It says Extended Download Service, and there’s a small link beside it that offers this explanation:

Think of this as your digital safety net for those unexpected occurrences – like your hard drive frying or a virus infection. EDS means that with the purchase of your digital product, we’ll keep a copy of your file for two full years, so you don’t have to. This is in addition to the complimentary coverage we provide for 6 months with any digital purchase from the EA STORE. You’ll gain peace of mind knowing that we have your program stored and ready for you to download again at your convenience. A little extra protection on your order to keep your products safe? Why not!

I can pay an additional $6 to be able to download it more than six months after I purchased it? Ludicrous.

Digital content downloads are supposed to be forever available, EA. Ask Valve. Steam, while imperfect itself, at least comes with a feature to backup installed games so one doesn’t have to download them again.

In the interests of preserving my EA downloads, I dug around EA Downloader a bit and found where it caches the installers: C:\ProgramData\Electronic Arts\EADM\cache\{a number here}. By going there, one can get the installer and back it up to optical media or another hard drive.

Or, I could just wait until Battlefield 2142 Deluxe Edition comes out and sell my copy of BF2142. I don’t want to wait until January, though.