EA Defends Origin From Hardcore Crowd
- Thread starter Marshall Honorof
- Start date
I just wanted to second your comment there about digital distribution being fantastic. I think it's fantastic, and except for the one or two games I buy every year where I might want the worthless crap that comes with the physical CE, I buy all my games through Steam. No discs or boxes to worry with, offline backup and offline play when I want it, access to my entire library from any desktop or laptop and then the entire ecosystem of cloud and community features. And yes, the prices and the sales, they're the added icing on the cake. Then there's GOG, which has saved me from having to dig through storage boxes and fiddle with DOSbox to play old games I liked, all for a few bucks.Deviate said:
Here's the thing. Valve did it first. Everything they did they had to learn from scratch. EA, on the other hand, had half a dozen different DD to learn from. They had the benefit of seeing what did and did not work for other companies. They chose to ignore that advantage.
EA complaining about people not switching to them from Steam is like any other new brand complaining about customers having loyalty to their old brand. It sounds whiny and pathetic. Unless Origin can step up and actually offer something new, rather than a handful of exclusives which does nothing but aggravate most people, they're going to run into problems like this and they won't feel the love from the so-called hardcore crowd. I think that's another telling example of EA's arrogance towards their own customer base. Decide that the only people that don't like you are in some specific group so you can make the dubious distinction that they don't like you, but everyone else does.
Reminds me of the time that Best Buy did a similar thing, with some exec making a statement about certain customers they didn't want or that weren't worth having. That went over about as well as you'd have thought.
Reminds me of the time that Best Buy did a similar thing, with some exec making a statement about certain customers they didn't want or that weren't worth having. That went over about as well as you'd have thought.
"Yeah, but Steam sucked when it started too!" Sounds like a kid in the playground trying to make excuses.
They've had the privilege of nearly a decade of observations over Steam's development. They then go and make the exact same mistakes. Not acceptable.
Not to mention the absolutely horrible service Origin gives anyway, especially the prices. The "sales" they have are absolutely hilarious.
They've had the privilege of nearly a decade of observations over Steam's development. They then go and make the exact same mistakes. Not acceptable.
Not to mention the absolutely horrible service Origin gives anyway, especially the prices. The "sales" they have are absolutely hilarious.
What a lovely night at the arena folks! With the two fighters on either side of the ring and the round 1 starting, this is looking like its going to be a doozy of match. Barnabas "Old Blackie" Steam, a crowd favorite, is fighting Otto "That Orange Dude" Origin.
Origin, red with jealousy, jolts a jab, boldly berating Steam for devaluing games. Meanwhile, Steam deftly dodges and counters Origin with a sucker punch of cold hard facts! Dazed and confused, Origin throws another another one, but time will tell what Steam's response is.
Origin, red with jealousy, jolts a jab, boldly berating Steam for devaluing games. Meanwhile, Steam deftly dodges and counters Origin with a sucker punch of cold hard facts! Dazed and confused, Origin throws another another one, but time will tell what Steam's response is.
I'm reminded of a Calvin and Hobbes line:
"You know how Einstein got bad grades while he was in elementary school? Well mine are EVEN WORSE!"
And anybody who thinks Origin is more stable than Steam hasn't tried to use Origin on a laptop. Every time you wake the laptop up Origin crashes. Every. Freaking. Time.
"You know how Einstein got bad grades while he was in elementary school? Well mine are EVEN WORSE!"
And anybody who thinks Origin is more stable than Steam hasn't tried to use Origin on a laptop. Every time you wake the laptop up Origin crashes. Every. Freaking. Time.
There is no conspiracy. For anyone who's been following the news in game mags the info is simply out there.Zefar said:
People have been banned losing all of their Origin games for these things.
Even if the posters were all trolls like you claim, the penalty still completely out of proportion. Why would anyone want to defend this practice?
EA loves making excuses for why their master plans to rip people off blow up in their faces. I have avoided ME3 and BF3 because they made it origin only. If EA wants to continue this train wreck well then I am happy to just sit back and watch it while buying massive games for cheap by steam sales and amazon sales.
I honestly expect EA trying to push the broken digital distribution model that the PSN and XBL have to the PC (no sales past 5 bucks) and its failing because of course their broken model doesn't have a true competitor like steam.
I honestly expect EA trying to push the broken digital distribution model that the PSN and XBL have to the PC (no sales past 5 bucks) and its failing because of course their broken model doesn't have a true competitor like steam.
They are so laughingly out of touch it's nearly enough to be called tragic ...
How do they not realize Valve actually always listened to criticism and responded to it in term?
If they want Origin to compare to Valve's Steam from years ago, fine. But it's not really the target I would take on. See you in the past, EA.
How do they not realize Valve actually always listened to criticism and responded to it in term?
If they want Origin to compare to Valve's Steam from years ago, fine. But it's not really the target I would take on. See you in the past, EA.
The whole reason people complained about it is because of the fact that it is EA, and they felt it would be a ploy for them to force Origin upon people. Do you think it would have been the same reaction if it was Valve who said the would do it? What about platforms like GamersGate or GreenManGaming?shiajun said:
Why are people believing this garbage?
Steam came out in mid-2003 alongside Half-Life 2. It was DRM then. Valve said they'll make it worth it, and people realized HL2 was a damn good game and Steam was an acceptable way to install/reinstall games wherever.
EA released their EA Download Manager in mid-2005 TWO YEARS after Steam had come out. They later rebranded it into 'Origin' after it had a horrible reputation.
Origin is not as new as EA would have you think. Origin is seven years old and still thay don't have the kinks worked out.
Steam came out in mid-2003 alongside Half-Life 2. It was DRM then. Valve said they'll make it worth it, and people realized HL2 was a damn good game and Steam was an acceptable way to install/reinstall games wherever.
EA released their EA Download Manager in mid-2005 TWO YEARS after Steam had come out. They later rebranded it into 'Origin' after it had a horrible reputation.
Origin is not as new as EA would have you think. Origin is seven years old and still thay don't have the kinks worked out.
Actually it's quite true, the bottom line is in your last comment about "requiring activation, which is all that are released these days". Given that little development services like STEAM are the best option, but a gilded cage is still a cage. In the end you wind up having or controlling nothing. If a service like STEAM goes down, it takes all of your property with it, and as untouchable a juggernaut as some of these services seem right now, nothing lasts forever. I can take a disc of a 20 year old game, pop it into an old computer, and play it any time I want to. STEAM goes the way of the dodo, even if they removed the requirement to run through them I won't be able to access my media anymore.Deviate said:
In general, acceptance of digital downloads is largely due to a younger generation that has known nothing else, and honestly does not know any better.
Likewise, we've already seen that those running services can cut people off from their content on a whim. We've had people banned outright from their digital libraries due to accusations of cheating in a single game. If someone like Gabe decided to ban you from STEAM entirely, he could potentially cost you thousands of dollars. I'm not saying he'd personally do that, but the fact remains that he COULD do it, and we've already seen situations where things like this happening though services run by companies like Microsoft and EA, which demonstrates how little control you have over your own digital property, and that control is a big part of why the industry has decided to push this technology so heavily.
As far as GOG goes, I've done more than a bit of business with them, but I will say they aren't quite what a lot of people think. What GOG basically did was decide to run an Abandonware site as a business. They came up with the idea of buying the rights to some otherwise abandoned games up in bulk, tinkering with them to get them to run on never machines, and then selling them. Basically GOG is giving you what sites like Home Of The Underdogs and others have been providing for free in exchange for money, your basically paying $5-$10 at a pop for them to get Dosbox or whatever running for you (which is admittedly a pain), and admittedly they are doubtlessly making the people who originally developed those games and abanddoned the titles pretty happy since they are probably
getting paydays off of them again.
This is not to say there is anything wrong with GOG (there isn't) but the thing is that their generosity has to be interpeted in the light of most of their product actually having been out there via abandonware sites without any kind of DRM for years before they even bothered to come along. Sticking DRM on an old game is kind of pointless when there are established cracks without it that had been in circulation (more or less legally, since the titles were abandoned, which is why Abandoware operated publically) for years.
It can also be argued that while GOG is good for some of the developers who had a reason to renew liscences and such, it's been bad for a lot of users and abandonware sites who now again have to pay for what was basically public domain before they came along. You can insist I'm ignorant all you want, but a lot has been said about this already, and while Abandonware still exists, it's actually taken a hit from GOG. GOG isn't doing anything wrong (to repete this), quite the opposite in fact, but again, their apparent generosity has to be taken with a grain of salt.
Done a lot of business with them, but they aren't exactly what you and a lot of people think they are. I just wrote a lengthy run down on them in another message in this topic. A lot of their apparent generosity isn't as generous as you might think given the realities of dealing in old games and the pre-existing abandonware infrastructure it's been replacing.lacktheknack said:
If I wanted an intrusive program to force feed me DRM, I'd intall Steam!
Which I already did and I'm not willing to soil my computer with another one.
The fact that gamers defend Valve's nefarious malware while attacking Origin for its spyware that was no worse even before they dialed it down is a lesson in marketing. Namely, that it doesn't matter how good your marketing team is in theory if every part of your company isn't working towards the same goal. Also fanboys will be fanboys and if you managed to snatch yourself a bunch you won't even need a PR agent.
Which I already did and I'm not willing to soil my computer with another one.
The fact that gamers defend Valve's nefarious malware while attacking Origin for its spyware that was no worse even before they dialed it down is a lesson in marketing. Namely, that it doesn't matter how good your marketing team is in theory if every part of your company isn't working towards the same goal. Also fanboys will be fanboys and if you managed to snatch yourself a bunch you won't even need a PR agent.