Battlefield 3 Will Require Origin

[Vivi22]

You did the same for Half Life 2, right? Right? ...right? Probably not. Which means your bitching is 100% unfounded.

If you were someone like me who was still playing games like TFC and CS when HL2 came out you were already on Steam. And at the time, Steam really wasn't what it is now. At best it was a fancy place to manage your Valve games. It had only just started to sell other titles shortly before that, but more to the point, it was already a year out of beta when its first big title was released, and you didn't even have to be able to authenticate it on Steam to be able to start playing the single player (as I recall they underestimated the server load and it took a day or so for most people to be able to activate it on Steam).

But the important thing to realize is a lot of people were already on Steam to play some of their favourite games, and it had already been around for almost 3 years if you include the beta so it was running quite well at that point, and the features you get with it have been continually improved since then.

But what do you get if you want to buy Battlefield 3 at launch? Well, at best you get to be their guinea pig for testing the Origin service. At worst, you might not be able to play anything unless you're logged in, which could be a big issue if the service has the kind of growing pains Steam did at launch.

 

[AssassinFisH]

Having to install Origin is not something I am overly happy about, but it sure beats playing on the consoles, due to the 24 player cap. Please Microsoft / Sony, give us some next gen consoles that can support 64+ players!

 

[RicoADF]

who gives a shit you download a free thing and play an awesome game

And if you dont login for 2 years you can lose you account and thus your game. A rather large difference to steam.

Having to install Origin is not something I am overly happy about, but it sure beats playing on the consoles, due to the 24 player cap. Please Microsoft / Sony, give us some next gen consoles that can support 64+ players!

MAG supports 64 players, so perhaps ask EA to get off their lazy ass and code the game to support 64 players

 

[Zenode]

Half Life 2 forced you to install Steam....and now people are whinging about this?

Seriously if your rig is able to run BF3, pretty sure it can handle a simple DRM program running in the background....

 

[Keava]

That's not the problem. Origin IP blocking regions of the world. That's the fucking problem. If this is the case, I quite literally won't be able to play the game. Really hope there's something amiss here cause fuck knows you don't need a DRM to protect an online game with an authentication system.

Steam has region IP locks as well. Point being?

Everyone saying "everyone loves Valve", but what if that's not true? Really the only game i liked from Valve was first Portal, and that's about it.
I applaud them for bringing indie devs into the spotlight but currently they are loosing even that, since other digital distributors do the thing better.
I dislike Valve for not letting me pay in my country currency, forcing me to use euros, and thus making me pay 30% more for a game, despite the fact other DDs do not have such nonsense, including the "oh so evil" EA.

The famous Steam Deals? They are still more expensive than my local retailers deals and those don't vanish over the weekend with odd timing, because 11am for Valve is different than my 11am. I can get a game for as little as 0.25 euro/0.33$ at a normal media shop here with some of the deals...

Sorry, personally i just treat those services as patchers/launchers, like many of online games do have, especially MMOs. I don't buy a game from a certain place only because i like or dislike given distributor, i buy it where i get the best deal, the logo on a shop means nothing.

 

[Operations]

I buy all my games from Steam, and I buy some of them retail

Slight logic fail there

 

[Operations]

When I first heard about Battlefield 3: "I am so pre-ordering this shit off Steam."
When I heard that the game wasn't coming out on Steam: "Eh, well I guess I can shell out a bit more to buy a retail version." :/
When I heard that the game will require Origin: "...not sure if want." >_<

I guess this must be a US thing, in the UK I never pre-order triple A titles from Steam, always more expensive than a boxed copy.
Same way I wont be ordering new titles through origin when its £10 more expensive, just for the chance to beta test 2 days early.

 

[ph0b0s123]

Where was all this complaining when Steam did it. I posted many times with complains about how non valve single player games were using steamworks which requires steam installed and no-one cared. Well you reap what you sow. To late to belly ache now....

Steam does it = OK

EA does it = BAD

Is it me or do Steam fanbois seem very much like Apple fanbois with their idols can never do any wrong.

You conclusion however, is based on incomplete appraisal of the situation.

Steam does it - it works, it's high quality, fully featured, stable and professional.
EA does it - it barely works, its shoddy and frankly unprofessional.

I have 6 games on Origin at the moment. I'm not speaking out of my ass, and I am certainly not a fanboy because other people are content equating apples with oranges.

The complaint is that Origin is a subpar product and since its launch has barely gotten better. Whereas Steam has improved in strides and it will continue to do so because Valve WANT that kind of involvement. Like I said, Origin is halfassed to say the least.

See the post above for my response to that as in some screwed up causality I got my response in before your post?! But bottom line whether one service is better or not, I don't want either if I did not buy the game on-line. And certainly not if it has nothing to do with either Vavle or EA and is single player.

I'm not going to say that you love EA because honestly, how could you? They have no identity. It would like loving Microsoft or Ubisoft. I don't love them because I see no personality there. But I love Id and Valve and so on, because they do have that personality. Imagine loving Harper Collins just because I loved American Gods, or loving FOX because of Alien. But I love the actual creative identities that made those things.

Anyway, that's beside the point. You make a fair point about needing to run Steam or Origin in the background for single player games. I understand that. I, on the other hand, love that I don't have any software boxes since Oblivion Game of the Year Edition. I love that I can install my 32 games easily, anywhere with a Net connection, and that my only problems have been with the games themselves, not with the download service.

I love that many of the games have cloud based save game storage. Sometimes the files can be out of date but it's better than starting again.

And certainly it IS fair to compare a burgeoning service with an established one, and it is the same fair logic that keeps many competitors from succeeding. We are consumers - we don't care about giving a fair go to the newcomer when we've already got all or most of what we need already. Moving to Origin is a definite downgrade right now, and I am not confident that, in the time it takes for BF3 to release, the service will get anywhere near as robust or featured as Steam is now.

All those things you mentioned about buying game on-line are exactly right and are very good things, but the crux of the problem is they are not optional. That is the whole point. If I go out a get a boxed game, so have opted not to have the positives of buying on-line, I find it massively unfair that I have to be forced to take the negatives of having to load clients that have to check via the internet before I can play. And which give pop up's of sales pitches when I am finished....

So back to my original point, complain about EA forcing you to run a client, fine. But complain about Steam making you do it as well, if not in a worse way with Steamworks on 3rd party single player titles. That's it....

 

[ShakerSilver]

I guess this must be a US thing, in the UK I never pre-order triple A titles from Steam, always more expensive than a boxed copy.
Same way I wont be ordering new titles through origin when its £10 more expensive, just for the chance to beta test 2 days early.

Actually, it's a Lebanon thing. Here, retail copies of new games cost somewhere between 60 to 80 USD, where it would usually cost about 50 bucks off of Steam. >_<

 

[cahtush]

Found this btw.

What worries me is the "loyalty program". I have no idea what it means but it sounds sinister.

 

[Operations]

Actually, it's a Lebanon thing. Here, retail copies of new games cost somewhere between 60 to 80 USD, where it would usually cost about 50 bucks off of Steam. >_<

Ahhh like this then http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEsRYkRpySY

 

[Jnat]

"but another client running in the background, sucking up CPU cycles and RAM, is not something that's likely to make gamers very happy."

Why don't you just shut down steam while playing bf3 then?

 

[Bajinga]

I don't see anything wrong with this plan.
EA are just trying to get some more members on their service; Valve have done the sameut

I hate EA, I really do, but Origins is good for what it serves.

 

[manythings]

"Steam doesn't update EA games like we want them to so... No Battlefield. We promise! It's about updates!"

Days later. Battlefield requires Origin.
Fuck it. I'm playing it on my Xbox.

And many, MANY games require Steam. Everything bad people are going to say about this Valve has already done a long time ago.

And Steam is a stellar and robust service that kicks Origin in the ass. I have installed 5 games on Origin (DVD games I could transfer over for sh!ts and giggles) and some of them, including Dragon Age Origins and Mass Effect 2, didn't even install properly, failing to install and run the required DRM checking software. I then had to use a DOS prompt to run the software that origin's installer failed to. Yet, Mass Effect failed to run. Turned out out it was Origin's social aspect that was crashing the game. EA's response each time I've had problems with Origin: 'uninstall everything and try again'.

So sure, 'Valve did it' too, but it has done it so much better and with so much more professionalism and care for the end user. Don't for a second try to equate Origin with Steam. Perhaps you will answer cynically that Valve, as it is a business, only pretends to care about its customers, but it has done a lot more to show that its intent is genuine than EA has even done. I've been playing EA games since I had to load them via cassette tape. They've never fostered the love in me that Valve has with just 3 game franchises.

Steam was shit for a very long time so if your counter is "It works better now" that's not really changing the fact that Steam is forced on the consumer even by devs other than Valve.

 

[Keava]

What worries me is the "loyalty program". I have no idea what it means but it sounds sinister.

Loyalty program is, hmm, i don't know what types of those you may have in your country. But general idea is the more you buy from Origin the more "bonus points" of sorts you would get that later you can exchange for either a lower priced games or just for discount coupons.

CDProjekt does something like this in their retail distribution. Every boxed version of game you buy distributed by them contains a small card inside with a code, when you put the code in on their website you get points, value depends on price of the game, and you can use those points to buy games from GoG.com catalogue rather than pay money.

Or like on gas stations, they give you points and then you can exchange those points for a toaster or a beer mug, or whatever they might have in offer.

 

[Phantom Echo]

Well, I refused to buy Fallout: New Vegas because it wanted to FORCE me to play on Steam. I haven't played TF2 or CS because they're on Steam, and I refuse to pay for a game only to have someone else own it.

This is a trend in gaming which I will not abide... and I choose to vote with my money.

While folks sit here and justify the bastardization of the gaming industry based on which company whores them out better... I'll be contentedly playing Minecraft and sipping Mountain Dew through a crazy straw.

-Cheers.

 

[RobCoxxy]

I'll download Origin, but fuck if I'm going to buy anything from it.

Pretty much this.

 

[Vrach]

That's not the problem. Origin IP blocking regions of the world. That's the fucking problem. If this is the case, I quite literally won't be able to play the game. Really hope there's something amiss here cause fuck knows you don't need a DRM to protect an online game with an authentication system.

Steam has region IP locks as well. Point being?

Everyone saying "everyone loves Valve", but what if that's not true? Really the only game i liked from Valve was first Portal, and that's about it.
I applaud them for bringing indie devs into the spotlight but currently they are loosing even that, since other digital distributors do the thing better.
I dislike Valve for not letting me pay in my country currency, forcing me to use euros, and thus making me pay 30% more for a game, despite the fact other DDs do not have such nonsense, including the "oh so evil" EA.

The famous Steam Deals? They are still more expensive than my local retailers deals and those don't vanish over the weekend with odd timing, because 11am for Valve is different than my 11am. I can get a game for as little as 0.25 euro/0.33$ at a normal media shop here with some of the deals...

Sorry, personally i just treat those services as patchers/launchers, like many of online games do have, especially MMOs. I don't buy a game from a certain place only because i like or dislike given distributor, i buy it where i get the best deal, the logo on a shop means nothing.

Point being that Steam has never made a game exclusive to their service and thus unavailable to those areas (also, where is it region blocked? I saw certain titles not being sold in certain areas, but never the whole service?). Origin is doing that. I don't mind Origin at all, I have no reason to really, it's just an EA Store-turned app and I don't give two shits about it. What I do give a shit about is being prevented from buying and playing titles because they're Origin-exclusive.

EA allows payment in all world currencies? Yeah, no. They don't even do business with the world as a whole, most, if not all larger companies have wider coverage than them in that respect.

Steam deals? If you can get it cheaper elsewhere, do. Sometimes they beat others, sometimes they don't, I personally haven't seen a copy of both L4D games going for 5 euros anywhere else, nor Saints Row 2/KOTOR being priced at 2.5 euros. Likewise of course, I've found better deals on Amazon, Zavvi and other companies at times. But Steam really does have some of the best deals during holidays.

Agreed completely on your final point. I really have nothing against Origin because it's from EA. Hell, I like EA, when I see the EA logo on a product I think good things, not bad. What I do mind is when they take an incredibly amateurish service (being one of the two largest companies and doing less in every aspect than your much smaller counterparts is being amateur in my book) and shove it down players throats, giving them no choice about it. If they introduced it as a choice, I wouldn't mind, hell I DIDN'T mind, you can look up my earlier posts on the subject, I was defending them against Steam fanbois and EA haters.

I'm not praising Steam, I like it for some things, dislike it for others, but it's undoubtedly a far better service. But that's completely beside my point, I haven't even mentioned Steam in the post you've quoted, I hate the fact that I can buy a retail disc and then not be able to play the game because it requires me to install Origin that's gonna region block me. As reasons go, I'd say that's a pretty fucking solid one.

 

[Mantonio]

I'll add my voice to the chorus of those who don't see what the big deal is. This is EXACTLY the same thing that Valve did with Half-Life 2 and you might think that Steam is pretty shit-hot now but believe me, it was a piece of crap when it launched. So why is it okay for one but not the other?

Because Valve hasn't got a reputation for being an evil company.

EA held that throne for a long time, and has only recently (just) lost it to Activision. I have no reason to trust them.

Valve is earning one, and it's because of Steam.

How? What is Steam doing?

 

[MonkeyPunch]

Ironic that a PC based CDS is going to end up "making the PC look bad" by apparently (from this thread) turning many users to the console version, stacking the sales numbers for console whilst decreasing the PC sales figures and fortifying the notion that PC gaming is becoming less worthwhile for Publishers.

I mean I can't blame people for deciding on the console version in order not to have to deal with Origin.
Why am I getting this feeling that Origin is more of a blackmail than anything else?
Maybe because if they had done this with a game with less interest behind it the sales of the game would have bombed because people would have made the decision a lot easier to not bother with Origin.

For me personally all this means is that I'm not buying BF3 day one. I will wait and see how Origin does for everyone else first because there are many, many questions open about it, it's performance and it's usability. It's more-or-less untested and unproven.

I wonder what will happen post-BF3 and how well Origin will be doing then too.

Lastly - I find EA's stance on Steam quite ludicrous "The service limits our ability to deliver patches and downloadable content directly to players."
Steam always updates my games automatically and pain free... so that is evidently just a poor excuse as to why they are forcing users to use Origin.