Red Alert 3Ooh, someone’s head surely needs to roll for this screw up.

A week or two ago EA finally slipped Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 out its doors, much to the excitement of many a gamer worldwide. Unfortunately for said gamers, purchasing your copy of Red Alert 3 turns out to be a little bit like playing Russian roulette – you may just be one of those unlucky few that purchase a copy with an incomplete CD key printed on the box!

It would seem that some of the copies released suffer from the smallest, but most inconvenient of errors ever – somehow the last digit was dropped off the printed serial key, meaning that if you are sitting with a 19 digit key, you happen to be one of those unlucky few. Thankfully though EA was quick to the rescue, their brightest minds working overtime on this one, and immediately put a notice on their site urging you to GUESS the last digit. Yup, their big suggestion was that you start from 0-9 and failing that, attempt A-Z. Eventually you should get it right :)

Naturally this notice was quickly removed once the rest of the comedic gaming world got a wind of it, and it has now been replaced with a statement that reads:

“If you are trying to install Command and Conquer Red Alert 3 and the code is only 19 characters long, then it is missing the last letter or number. This was due to a misprint on a small number of manuals and we apologize for any inconvenience this has caused.

In order to get a replacement code, please click the “Contact Us” link on the left side of the page to send an e-mail to our team.

If you would like you can also contact us by phone using the number found on page 28 of your manual.”

Yeah, from a publisher as big as EA, this just makes them look silly. Like I said, someone’s head is going to have to roll! :)