Dear Origin, You Stink

[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.

 

[getoffmycloud]

For once its nice to see someone talking about the problems origin has without just being a valve fanboy. Origin could be really good if EA were willing to listen to points like this when they were made

 

[Zakarath]

I might've gotten Battlefield 3 if it wasn't locked to Origin. I would've got TOR. I would buy ME3. But my reflexive response to someone trying to strongarm me into something lies rather closer to Yol Toor Shul than meek acceptance. EA, you think you can make me get your platform by preventing me from getting your titles elsewhere? Sorry. I'm sure there's other games I can find to entertain me.

(Evochron Mercenary? Ooh, what's this?)

 

[Elyxard]

Bingo. EA isn't just criminally evil, they're stupid evil.

When you've created a huge subset of gamers that are MORALLY AGAINST BUYING YOUR PRODUCTS, you have done something horribly wrong. Origin is not a system anyone wants to use, it's a system they're forcing on us to make more money. It's all set up in the desperate hope that their customers don't know what Steam is. It's already set up for failure.

I can't by any good conscious buy ME3. Every single EA product I have bought in the last 5 years has made me physically ill with regret due to all the bull**** they keep putting me through; from abusive DLC, to ridiculous codes, to horribly buggy games, to overpriced PC titles, etc, etc. And they want me to trust them with my credit card? I can't trust them to release a complete game.

It hurts because they could actually be making much more money, they wouldn't even have to advertise quite as hard if they actually gave a damn about the people keeping them in business. People buy from their developers despite EA, not because of them.

 

[Steampunk Viking]

You know I was browsing XBox Marketplace thinking the same thing as you said with Origin Shamus - I saw Oblivion, downloadable without any expansions for £20, when you can buy it for about £5 now, what a rip! I even exclaimed myself that it's dumb, they don't have to pay to burn a new DVD or buy a new box to put it in, do these developers think we're dumb? (On second thought, don't answer that)

 

[Mista Miggins]

I only used Origin to by SWTOR. Never using it again.

STEAM FTW!

 

[Marik Bentusi]

The thing is, if Origin proves successful for whatever reason, it'll probably encourage more people to pull their franchises from Steam to do something on their own as well (pulling in people with exclusive sequels - UbiSoft could do that very well), complicating things for the customer unless they move to something like xFire and offering questionable innovations by competition if they do it like EA/Origin.

I'm all for more competition to keep the gears turning, but it doesn't work if you create small monopolies on titles to draw customers in instead of providing a better service.

 

[L-J-F]

It seems most of the issues people have with Origin is that it's not Steam and is competing with it. I use Origin and have had absolutely no trouble at all. The privacy issue ain't pretty though ...

Edit: also, note that you can buy games from other distributors besides Origin (just not Steam), so unless your definition of monopoly is having to have Origin installed they certainly don't have one. That is just what Steam does btw.

 

[-Torchedini-]

Dear Origin, You Stink
free copies of Mass Effect 1 & 2 on Origin to people who already have copies through Steam.

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You know you can redeem the key's you have bought in steam in origin ? At least that's what I did.
Don't know of it still works but that's how i got ME2 and DA2 on origin.