It is free, but with conditions. I dislike EA doing this as a publicity stunt while they’re essentially keeping people at their mercy if they use these patents. I guess I would prefer it if they said “conditionally free”.
Why is it even possible for them to patent stuff like this? There should be no IP to own in the first place.
This kind of defensive use of patents I’m actually ok with. Indie firms who can’t afford expensive patent disputes benefits and in the mean time it protects EA against larger firms.
The bigger issue here isn’t the clause, it’s peoples dislike of EA. Sure EA have earned that distrust but this isn’t one of their shitty moves.
Plus as I’ve said before, this kind of clause is really quite common. Even FOSS has done it on occasions