Migrating Your EA Games from Steam or Retail to Origin

With Battlefield 3 set to launch in a month, EA’s Origin game-delivery platform stands to gain a substantial boost to its userbase. While the ‘Steam vs. Origin vs. All Other Delivery Platforms’ battle rages on, the fact of the matter is, anyone planning on playing BF3 will be forced into using EA’s baby.

That being the case, I decided to dive into the program earlier this week and do some exploring. Above all, I wanted to give Origin the fair chance it deserves – because while Steam might be the de facto gaming platform for the PC, that shouldn’t rule out the competition, right?

Well, in its current state, I can’t say that I’m much of an Origin fan. In fact, I could list off a bunch of areas where I think the platform could improve, and likely unsurprising to most, Steam doesn’t suffer from the same issues. But regardless of my thoughts or anyone else’s, we’re going to be seeing and hearing a lot more of the platform in the future if EA has its way.

While exploring the app, I noticed a “Redeem Product Code” option, and wondered if I’d be able to use serial codes I’ve had from previous purchases to register the game there. Well, as the title of this article no doubt gives away, it is indeed possible to register both retail and Steam game serial codes through Origin – as long as the game is available there, of course.

Steam has supported this sort of thing for quite a while, but its supported game selection is slim. Origin on the other hand doesn’t even acknowledge which games will or will not be accepted. It does mention The Sims 2 and Spore, but that’s far from being a definitive list.

After successfully registering my code for Battlefield: Bad Company 2, I decided to go through the store on Origin to see what’s listed there that I own. About an hour or so later, I had a list of 40 items that could or couldn’t be registered, and the results can be seen in a table further down the page.

But first – where can you look for your serial codes? With retail games, finding the code shouldn’t be difficult. Most often it’s on the CD or in an included booklet. On Steam, finding the code is about just as easy, but there’s a catch – the game must be installed (or at least in the process of installing). Then, it’s as simple as right-clicking the title and then clicking “View game CD key”.

Unfortunately, not all EA titles in Steam will offer a CD key, but most do. In the event that a game doesn’t, I believe the prospect of registering that game at Origin is a lost cause. If someone out there knows this to not be the case, I’d love to hear about it. Also, some games might offer more than one; either two codes that do the same thing but are available in two formats, or extra codes for DLC. If a game is registered on Origin, it’s wise to test out the DLC code as well, if one is available.

After putting a code into Origin that it accepts, you’ll receive a prompt like this:

The choice here shouldn’t be made in haste, because as far as I can tell, there’s no going back. For some games, even if the code isn’t accepted, there might be a workaround. For games released in 2008 or earlier, another website might be required for registration. Here, you simply put in your CD key and then your username and password, and if all goes well, it will confirm that the game has been linked to your account.

Without further ado, here are all of the games and pieces of DLC I tested with the service, and the results:

Game Title	Works?	Notes
Alice: Madness Returns	Yes	OK
Battlefield: Bad Company 2	Yes	OK
Battlefield: Bad Company 2 – Vietnam	Yes	OK
Battlefield: Bad Company 2 – SPECACT	Yes	OK
Bulletstorm	No	*
Burnout Paradise: The Ultimate Box	Yes	OK
Command & Conquer 4: Tiberian Twilight	Yes	OK
Crysis	No	*
Crysis Warhead	Yes	^
Crysis 2	Yes	OK
Darkspore	Yes	OK
Dead Space	Yes	OK
Dead Space 2	Yes	OK
Dragon Age: Origins	Yes	OK
Dragon Age: Origins – Awakening	Yes	OK
FIFA Manager 09	No	+
FIFA Manager 10	No	*
FIFA Manager 11	Yes	OK
Gatling Gears	Yes	OK
Mass Effect	No	*
Mass Effect 2	Yes	OK
Medal of Honor	Yes	OK
Mirror’s Edge	Yes	+
Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit	Yes	OK
Need for Speed: SHIFT	No	+
Need for Speed: Undercover	No	+
SHIFT 2: Unleashed	Yes	OK
Spore	No	*
Spore: Creepy & Cute	No	+
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic	No	+
The Sims 3	Yes	^
The Sims 3 – Ambitions	Yes	^
The Sims 3 – Fast Lane	Yes	^
The Sims 3 – Generations	Yes	^
The Sims 3 – High-End Loft Stuff	Yes	^
The Sims 3 – Late Night	Yes	^
The Sims 3 – Outdoor Living Stuff	Yes	^
The Sims 3 – World Adventure	Yes	^
The Sims: Medieval	Yes	OK
The Sims: Medieval – Pirates & Nobles	Yes	OK
* Serial code doesn’t register. + Steam doesn’t provide serial code. ^ Must be registered on website.

A couple of oddities arise from these results. First, despite Spore being one of the two games listed on the official support page for registering CD keys with Origin, the code I had didn’t work. This could be a specific issue with Steam codes, I’m not sure. Retail codes for the game might work fine.

There were also a few cases where two games in the same series didn’t show the same result. The original Cryisis for example didn’t register, while its sequel (or expansion pack) Warhead did. In another example, Mass Effect 2 registered fine, but the original didn’t. We saw the same sort of differences with FIFA Manager 09 and FIFA Manager 10.

The sporadic nature in what games are accepted and which ones aren’t lead me to believe that EA could still add more support in the future. In fact, if a code isn’t accepted, it might not even be due to the fact that it simply isn’t. Rather, it could be that EA’s servers are experiencing issues and reject codes it should accept. In the case of two different games I registered, both failed to register one day but successfully did so the next.

A problem with the list of games in the table above is that those are just the games I own, not all that are available at Origin. This is where you guys can come in. If you have successfully or unsuccessfully registered a game through Origin that’s not listed above, please let us know in our related forum thread linked to below, and we’ll add it in, with full credit.

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