From the badass cover art on old-school Atari games to basically all major review sites, video games have always relied on lies to get you to buy them. And the same way the graphics advance every year, so too does the level of deception. We're reasonably sure that the most ingenious "video game plot" these days is the one designed to scam you. Here are six outrageous examples.

6 EA Promises They'll Give You A Free Game If You Buy Battlefield 3, Then Just ... Doesn't

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One of the toughest moments in every gamer's life is when they have to decide which of the near-identical versions of the near-identical sequels to the near-identical video game franchises they'll buy. Well, in 2011, Electronic Arts made that decision a lot easier for fans of first-person shooters: They announced that everyone who bought the PlayStation 3 version of Battlefield 3 would get another game, Battlefield 1943, completely for free on the same disc.

Electronic Arts

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It was a clutch maneuver. Sony got an exclusive deal to brag about, and EA got pre-orders out the wazoo. Everyone wins!

Except for gamers.

When Battlefield 3 was finally released, fans noticed that the promised extra game wasn't included. No notice, no apology, not even a crude IOU note -- it simply wasn't there. The angry masses took to Twitter to ask what exactly the fuck was going on (because Twitter is the modern equivalent of torches and pitchforks), until EA finally addressed their concerns. Their response: Instead of Battlefield 1943, PS3 owners now had the exclusive right to buy all the downloadable content a week earlier than on other platforms!

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A right they already had.

Twitter.com/Battlefield

To recap: Electronic Arts advertised a full, free game as an incentive for buying Battlefield 3, and didn't bother telling anybody that they had changed their minds until millions of copies had been sold. And to make up for that, they generously invited players to spend even more money buying extra content for the game, at full price. In unrelated news, EA won the "Worst Company in America" award the next two years after this.

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Unfortunately for EA, it turns out that PS3 owners are the kinds of ungrateful bastards who would look a gift horse (or rather, an opportunity-to-buy horse?) in the mouth. It took the threat of a class-action lawsuit for the company to finally fulfill their promise and make Battlefield 1943 available for free download on the PlayStation Network. To this day, EA executives patiently await the flood of "thank you" letters that are surely incoming.