Dear Origin, You Stink

[mrverbal]

Steam doesn't need corporate competitors, because they are already facing and conquering a competitor that very few corporations have handled: massive piracy. Piracy forces Steam to have low prices and good service, because Valve already knows that if they fail to provide those things then PC gamers will return to piracy.

The next mistake is to assume Origin intends to "compete" in the sense of free market competition. Everything EA has done with Origin so far shows that their business plan is to strong-arm customers into using it with monopoly, not to entice them by competing in an open market.

So this article is good for pointing out obvious problems with Origin, but it's premised on two key errors: that steam needs a corporate competitor, and that Origin has any intention of competing in an open market.

I'm not so sure steam doesn't need a competitor, I'm in Australia but Origin's download speed shits on steam's and this is something most of my friends have noticed too. This is both in terms of max speed and general reliability. With steam my download will go at 5 kb/s until I restart the download then it'll jump up to 500 kb/s for about 5 minutes before dropping back down again. Origin just chugs along steadily at a couple of mb/s and then bam the 4 gig BF3 patch/DLC is down in record time. Steam claimed to have fixed this a while ago by changing how the servers handle load distribution but it's still a problem.

But hey, when you're competing against torrents then for anything other than popular/new games you're setting the bar fairly low.

Sorry to hear that they are giving Aussies a crappy connection. I'm in the same part of the US as Valve headquarters, so downloading from Steam always maxes out my connection at 3 MB/s. I agree they need more competition in that area if they are giving you guys crappy speeds.

I actually don't have problems with steam (or at least rarely). I'm usually in the same sort of range (between have a mb and a mb) on it as any other download client I use. (And am in Australia, just to clarify.)

 

[Klonoa Prower]

I know it's a little bit cliche to bring out the "boycott yada yada," but on a personal level, I simply will not buy ME3 if it requires a download of Origin. Maybe one sale doesn't mean much to EA (heck, anything their customer's think doesn't mean much to EA), but I'm not amused to have to download a faulty, useless and invasive program just to play a game.

 

[Doom-Slayer]

It seems like all of their projects to top big dogs fall short. Battlefield 3, Origin, and SWOTOR

Except that Battlefield 3 and SW:TOR has been recieved very well, so I'm not sure what constitutes as a fail here. Of course you're right though about SW:TOR's staying power, that's something it has yet to prove.

Theyve less failed..and more just slightly below expectations. BF3 had a very average Single Player campaign which made me a bit sad since I was actually rooting for it to do well, and TOR is well..in the same boat as Origin, competing against a well known rival that has been out for ages.

I dunno, I can see Origin becoming a small time contender like Impulse, but then..if it does Im not sure if EA will bother keeping it online. Time will tell.

 

[Adultism]

Even though this has valid points, I doubt EA really cares, they just want to make money. They will off all the 14 year olds who beg their mom for a copy of battlefield 3 on Origin and get it. EA sees no reason to change its ways yet. It would take something drastic.

 

[NotSoLoneWanderer]

I'm still mad at EA for the friggin registration codes. Can't play my game at my friends house...*grumble grumble grumble* one use code *grumble grumble grumble*. Though I haven't used Origin, I assume it is concentrated evil in affront to Valve who gave me two free games. Doubt origin will be giving out free games. Largely console based gamer cep't for TF2 and some other valve games on PC.

 

[Omnific One]

ME3 will be my last EA/Bioware game until they drop the mandatory Origin install (which I bought for $48 from Newegg, and retail disk copies only return 25% or so to the publisher, so take that, EA! ). Origin is far, far worse than Steam and seems to be doing literally nothing to change that.

 

[Rainboq]

Excellent article Shamus, its nice to have your very intelligent, witty voice back on the Escapist.

And yeah, EA has its head stuck up its ass, but thinks its soaring above the competition when it comes to Origin. All I can say about it is that it lets me play 2142 and I got a free copy of Burnout Paradise on it.

 

[Denamic]

To counter one thing you said here... "If you were actually thinking of your customers (and if you were smart like Valve) then you would give free copies of Mass Effect 1 & 2 on Origin to people who already have copies through Steam."

I've actually put my steam keys (and D2D cd keys) for quite a few EA titles and instantly got access to them on my origin account free of charge (in Origin its under redeem cd key or something like that in the gear menu). I can only think of one title where I wasn't able to do this and it was my D2D copy of the Red Alert 3 expansion thingy, which is old at this point anyhow.

Otherwise, yeah, Origin is fairly stinky, and I agree with all your other points.

That's not getting free games, that's getting digital copies of games you already own.
There's no 'steam keys'; those are simply the game's own cd keys that steam stores for you.
While I also think being able to get your games as digital copies through their respective cd keys is great, it's very different from free games.

 

[keideki]

Oi Oi, Shamus, aren't you a little late to hop on this bandwagon? Origin bashing is soooooo 2011.

 

[Awexsome]

Although there are some good points... this just seems like any old rant made about every negative point someone could make about Origin... including the ones that are completely blown out of proportion, are part of a maturing process for a new digital distribution platform (still good reason to criticize so it can reach a very much more experienced one such as Steam though but is still given no credit) and last but not least hypocritical if you praise Steam at all.

I particularly liked the, "Where's your library of games that Steam has?" later... "Why are you keeping ME3 exclusive to better your library of games?"

 

[major_chaos]

oh look a guy doesn't like origin, and then look at all the fucks I don't give. bought BF3 and will buy ME3 day one origin has yet to be any more annoying than Steam and this article smells like fanboy all over, in fact it bears mentioning that I wish Origin would do well because I absolutely hate the idea of a monopoly, especially a Valve monopoly, as it is PC gaming without Steam is almost impossible and that worries me.

 

[Not G. Ivingname]

Remember when you were bellyaching about how mean old Gamestop was stealing all your money through used game sales? Note that digital games can't be re-sold. So why are you selling your AAA titles at store prices? Why are you giving gamers a reason to buy retail? I mean, if I'm going to pay $60, I might as well get the cool box and stuff. Every sale on Origin is pure profit because you don't have to share with Wal-Mart, and that's one less disc floating around the used game market. You were so proud of yourselves with "Project Ten Dollar", but if you were smart you'd be cutting online prices for "Project Keep All The Money For Yourself and Kill The Used Game Market".

This one problem actually has a reason behind it that is outside EA's control, retail stores themselves.

Retail stores know that the days of physical games is ending. You can increasingly just get a game in a form where you cannot just break the disk, not have to have some dedicated place for a game (and maybe the box), nor have to waste your time driving to the store to get it. Even the Playstation 3 can now download full AAA titles (don't know about the Xbox). With Onlive now... live, we have the Cloud. The system doesn't matter anymore, as long as you got the internet connection, you can play dark souls on your Android with full graphic settings. The disk is obsolete, it is still here just because most consumers have yet to make the switch.

Game stores are trying to fight this trend, and stave off their own finite existence. Developers on Steam tried to sell there games at a lower price (not as a sale) or before the normal release date, the retail stores have pulled the games from their shelves until they rose the prices or pushed the Steam releases to match the retail one. Also remember the fiasco with Deus Ex: HR where Gamestop removed coupons that would of given free copy of the game on OnLive.

EA knows that they still are in a position where they need more the retailers rather than the retails need them, thus they match the prices even though it makes no other logical sense.

 

[JackyG]

I typed in my mass effeect 2 serial on origin and it added to my account. Its like their steamworks for a select few games. Me 1 didnt work though.
Its invasive. Thats why I dont use it. I dont need it, and to be frank, I rarely want EA games...

 

[LazyAza]

I feel like Shamus is under the impression EA has the capacity to be humble, reasonable, logical or hell simply respect their customers which is pure crazy talk. If anything they and Activision are the two heavy weight champions of asshole-ery when it comes to be being a game business.

It would be nice if they could both change their ways but I just, can't ever see that happening.

 

[Not G. Ivingname]

Remember when you were bellyaching about how mean old Gamestop was stealing all your money through used game sales? Note that digital games can't be re-sold. So why are you selling your AAA titles at store prices? Why are you giving gamers a reason to buy retail? I mean, if I'm going to pay $60, I might as well get the cool box and stuff. Every sale on Origin is pure profit because you don't have to share with Wal-Mart, and that's one less disc floating around the used game market. You were so proud of yourselves with "Project Ten Dollar", but if you were smart you'd be cutting online prices for "Project Keep All The Money For Yourself and Kill The Used Game Market".

This one problem actually has a reason behind it that is outside EA's control, retail stores themselves.

Retail stores know that the days of physical games is ending. You can increasingly just get a game in a form where you cannot just break the disk, not have to have some dedicated place for a game (and maybe the box), nor have to waste your time driving to the store to get it. Even the Playstation 3 can now download full AAA titles (don't know about the Xbox). With Onlive now... live, we have the Cloud. The system doesn't matter anymore, as long as you got the internet connection, you can play dark souls on your Android with full graphic settings. The disk is obsolete, it is still here just because most consumers have yet to make the switch.

Game stores are trying to fight this trend, and stave off their own finite existence using the one weapon they have, the amount of sales they have. While each year, the amount of games sold digitally increases, retail stores make up for the lion's share of games sold. Developers on Steam tried to sell there games at a lower price (not as a sale) or before the normal release date, the retail stores have pulled the games from their shelves until they rose the prices or pushed the Steam releases to match the retail one. Also remember the fiasco with Deus Ex: HR where Gamestop removed coupons that would of given free copy of the game on OnLive.

EA would lose so much if stores pulled all EA games from their shelves. EA knows that they still are in a position where they need more the retailers rather than the retails need them, thus they match the prices even though it makes no other logical sense.