Well, let’s see: If I broke a legal and binding non-disclosure agreement, would I rather lose my Origin games or lose my assets AND have to pay for my idiocy through wage garnishment for 20 years? Hmmmm. I think I’ll give up the games.
Dude fucked up. NDAs are not to be fucked with. No sympathy from me here. I have no problem if Dumbass here wants to petition to get his games back, as long as he’s willing to go to court and accept whatever punishment is rendered. Financial judgments are no joke; they follow you until you pay the debt, and it makes working to make ends meet a little tougher. Imagine having 20% of what you make every week removed from your paycheck and given to EA for the foreseeable future. That’s not insignificant.
Now, we can argue about the digital future and how it gives the video game industry an immense amount of power. You can lose your licenses at the flip of a switch, for any number of reasons. Before the internet and digital distribution gave the industry such extreme power, publishers and platform-holders weren’t about to send people to your house to take their games back if you did something stupid. Different times now, and the industry holds all of the cards.
Of course, had our incredibly stupid person here broken an NDA 20 years ago, before digital distribution was the thing to do, he’d have to lawyer up quickly to avoid losing everything, instead of EA taking its games back in punishment.
Sucks for him, but, as the saying goes: “Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.”