EA Defends Origin From Hardcore Crowd
- Thread starter Marshall Honorof
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OK, no one said anything negative about EA wanting to pass off Origin as an indie-crowd sourced haven? Really? So I just imagined all those articles raging about EA being delusional about listing the games that are financed that way because companies like EA have forced them into that? Really? Damn...I think I've got to restock my meds 'coz they ain't working no more'.
Seems like EA tends to notice trends without paying any attention to what people are saying.
Let me be honest, nobody with half a brain likes digital distribution even a little bit. People do not like having no control over what they buy. As the industry started forcing people onto digital platforms, where even buying a disc just made you DL it online anyway, STEAM wound up becoming a darling by dropping their prices. The big arguement was why should someone pay the same price for a product they don't control and represents a risk through dependance on a digital service. Noticing that the promised lowering of prices that was going to come with digital distribution never manifested, as publishers just kept prices the same and pocketed the money saved on discs, packaging, shipping, and other things. STEAM has shown that they can lower the prices of games by as much as 75% (even on fairly new titles) and still make a profit. When your paying $5-$10 for a game as opposed to $50 ot $60 it softens the impact. STEAM is kind of keeping the promise with their sales that digital would lower the cost of gaming substantially... and people have noticed that.
Origin really brings nothing to the table, it's intrusive, and has all the negatives of digital services, but also charges top dollar for it's games. There is no benefit from buying from Origin as opposed to having a disc in hand without any kind of DRM, it costs the same thing as buying a game in a brick and mortar store.
What's more EA kind of shot themselves in the foot with the recent rants about how STEAM sales were "devalueing Intellectual Property" when really they kind of show what games should cost, as opposed to what EA wants to sell them for and the monster profits it wants to make.
There is also the matter of STEAM's community, their support isn't the best, but it is there, and tends to get the job done, there are a good number of users, a lot of differant groups, and a lot of tie ins through STEAM like their give away sites, and everything else.
What's more as STEAM was the first to the party, most people who obtained digital content there became invested in the service in part to keep their digital games all in one place. Having to worry about five or six differant sites for differant games is a pain in the rear. What's more STEAM's prices encourage you to buy more and more stuff from them, as opposed to taking a "we have you by the wrinklies since your here already, now we are going to squeeze".
Oh yes, and Origin generally sucks in terms of support. Back when I pre-ordered TOR EA messed up with the codes they send to gamestop. My CE of TOR wound up being registered as a standard edition. Upon getting a proper code for a CE pre-order I couldn't put the code into my account since it had the standard version listed and you couldn't upgrade a product you already had. Customer service told me to make a second account until they could resolve the problem, and they would eventually merge the accounts. In the process of juggling two accounts I wind up making mistakes an installing a couple of games to each (since I have to logout and then log back in), leading to me having to play games with Origin every time I want to play Amalur or TOR, or whatever else, to make sure I'm under the right account. Origin has yet to merge my accounts or find any way to solve this problem, and every time I've sent inquiries it's been ignored... the root of this problem all coming from EA screwing up their pre-order codes, making promises to merge placeholder accounts used for the proper accounts, and then never bothering to work on their system archetecture.
Indeed I just cancelled my TOR account, I've been playing a lot of other games on and off, and honestly juggling Origin back and forth finally got to be too annoying for me. I've pretty much stopped playing all of my games on Origin, and really, despite having hundreds of dollars in software tied up in it, I'm probably just going to cut my losses instead of continueing to mess around with it.
In short EA and Origin blow chips, they can't update products based on better versions of the same thing (upgrading from standard to collector's), and even after months they have yet to find ways to do things like merge multiple accounts which is something they had allegedly been working on since the first day TOR pre-orders became availible.
EA wonders why people hate Origin, well, they should ask what they have ever done to get people to like it. With STEAM it wasn't hatred of STEAM in paticular, but what it represented digitally. Origin isn't hated because it's something new, and radical, and we aren't used to it, it's because it's a poorly run, poorly maintained mess, it's like STEAM's retarded cousin. It's pretty much the second coming of Microsoft's "Games For Windows Live", execept without the excuse that it's a new thing and trying to co-habitate with a console based digital network (sharing gamerscore with XBL and such).
Let me be honest, nobody with half a brain likes digital distribution even a little bit. People do not like having no control over what they buy. As the industry started forcing people onto digital platforms, where even buying a disc just made you DL it online anyway, STEAM wound up becoming a darling by dropping their prices. The big arguement was why should someone pay the same price for a product they don't control and represents a risk through dependance on a digital service. Noticing that the promised lowering of prices that was going to come with digital distribution never manifested, as publishers just kept prices the same and pocketed the money saved on discs, packaging, shipping, and other things. STEAM has shown that they can lower the prices of games by as much as 75% (even on fairly new titles) and still make a profit. When your paying $5-$10 for a game as opposed to $50 ot $60 it softens the impact. STEAM is kind of keeping the promise with their sales that digital would lower the cost of gaming substantially... and people have noticed that.
Origin really brings nothing to the table, it's intrusive, and has all the negatives of digital services, but also charges top dollar for it's games. There is no benefit from buying from Origin as opposed to having a disc in hand without any kind of DRM, it costs the same thing as buying a game in a brick and mortar store.
What's more EA kind of shot themselves in the foot with the recent rants about how STEAM sales were "devalueing Intellectual Property" when really they kind of show what games should cost, as opposed to what EA wants to sell them for and the monster profits it wants to make.
There is also the matter of STEAM's community, their support isn't the best, but it is there, and tends to get the job done, there are a good number of users, a lot of differant groups, and a lot of tie ins through STEAM like their give away sites, and everything else.
What's more as STEAM was the first to the party, most people who obtained digital content there became invested in the service in part to keep their digital games all in one place. Having to worry about five or six differant sites for differant games is a pain in the rear. What's more STEAM's prices encourage you to buy more and more stuff from them, as opposed to taking a "we have you by the wrinklies since your here already, now we are going to squeeze".
Oh yes, and Origin generally sucks in terms of support. Back when I pre-ordered TOR EA messed up with the codes they send to gamestop. My CE of TOR wound up being registered as a standard edition. Upon getting a proper code for a CE pre-order I couldn't put the code into my account since it had the standard version listed and you couldn't upgrade a product you already had. Customer service told me to make a second account until they could resolve the problem, and they would eventually merge the accounts. In the process of juggling two accounts I wind up making mistakes an installing a couple of games to each (since I have to logout and then log back in), leading to me having to play games with Origin every time I want to play Amalur or TOR, or whatever else, to make sure I'm under the right account. Origin has yet to merge my accounts or find any way to solve this problem, and every time I've sent inquiries it's been ignored... the root of this problem all coming from EA screwing up their pre-order codes, making promises to merge placeholder accounts used for the proper accounts, and then never bothering to work on their system archetecture.
Indeed I just cancelled my TOR account, I've been playing a lot of other games on and off, and honestly juggling Origin back and forth finally got to be too annoying for me. I've pretty much stopped playing all of my games on Origin, and really, despite having hundreds of dollars in software tied up in it, I'm probably just going to cut my losses instead of continueing to mess around with it.
In short EA and Origin blow chips, they can't update products based on better versions of the same thing (upgrading from standard to collector's), and even after months they have yet to find ways to do things like merge multiple accounts which is something they had allegedly been working on since the first day TOR pre-orders became availible.
EA wonders why people hate Origin, well, they should ask what they have ever done to get people to like it. With STEAM it wasn't hatred of STEAM in paticular, but what it represented digitally. Origin isn't hated because it's something new, and radical, and we aren't used to it, it's because it's a poorly run, poorly maintained mess, it's like STEAM's retarded cousin. It's pretty much the second coming of Microsoft's "Games For Windows Live", execept without the excuse that it's a new thing and trying to co-habitate with a console based digital network (sharing gamerscore with XBL and such).
What is negative about it? That is actually a smart move on EA's part. People need to get the content out to the people who crowd source these games, and EA said the would do it for free for a short period of time. The goal is to get people using the service. With the free period (30 days?) it acts as a way for someone to use the service (download the game they crowd sourced) and decide if they like the service. If they don't the don't, if they do they do.shiajun said:
Seems kind of harsh to boycott a game because it's on Orgin. I can understand the Mass Effect 3 boycott since there was a lot of crap going on with it but BF3 is a decent and fun game that has managed to avoid pissing it's fans off too bad despite being stuck with EA. The whole Premium thing is just a chance to take a bite of COD Elite and up till this point the DLC has been decent (Now if they would only stop breaking the game every patch with glitch weapons). To me BF3 is one of least serious offenders and so long as EA doesn't make DICE drive the series into the ground with cheap business tatics and horrible DLC I'll probably still play it. I still hate what EA has done to Mass Effect, The Sims, Crysis, Simcity, Deadspace, and Command and Conquer but BF3 is still somewhat ok.Croaker42 said:
I personally get a massive headache from trying to reconcile all this "we want to be indie" non-sense coming from EA, but that's not what I posted about. I posted about EA denying there was any negative feedback from this announcement, once again determined to ignore the opposing voices. If this move is good or bad is yet to be seen, but a notable part of the community did not react favorably to it around the time the announcement was made. That's my whole point.robert01 said:
I'm already signed into PSN or XBOX Live to play online games only WHY do I need to sign into ANOTHER network while within a already functioning network service for online AND offline games!?
1. You can't even buy RAGE on Origin. Their list of games is short.kajinking said:
2. I just checked Origin and all their 20 dollar games you can still find cheaper everywhere else for about half the price, more or less, for on disc and 65% to 80% for download. How does anybody defend that without sounding like a greedy dick?
3. Looking back at that "Dear Origin, You Stink" article either nobody at EA read it or somebody did and not a fuck was given because it's still the same Origin. Why the hell would anybody want to pay for overpriced games on a screwed up service that won't adapt to save itself?
![Fr]anc[is](https://eg-forums-escapist-data-bucket.fra1.digitaloceanspaces.com/data/avatars/l/93/93202.jpg?1620797781){kind=avatar}
Um...no. I'm sorry EA, but you can't pull that "we're new and you hated Steam when it was new!" bullshit with me. Origin is NOT new. It's a reskin of your years old EADM with a few new features and more exclusives.
You failed to learn from your mistakes in the past. You failed to learn from Valve's and other DD services mistakes in the past and present. And, I can not foresee you ever learning or adjusting in the future. (let alone consider your player base as customers instead of consumers and pirates)
I actually somewhat hoped Origin would be "good". If only so Steam would have a solid competitor beyond GoG. (so Valve would start adding more features more quickly. I'm greedy that way.) But, I was a fool. Why I expected anything smart or decent from post-2008 EA is beyond me. :/
Unless, of course, EA is charging an extra 10 dollars to pre-order a DIGITAL COPY of a game exclusive to THEIR OWN GOD DAMNED SERVICE.
Which, thinking on it now, would not surprise me.
But thanks to time, effort, and listening to community feedback Valve has made it into (at least for me) the preferred service for my gaming needs.
You failed to learn from your mistakes in the past. You failed to learn from Valve's and other DD services mistakes in the past and present. And, I can not foresee you ever learning or adjusting in the future. (let alone consider your player base as customers instead of consumers and pirates)
I actually somewhat hoped Origin would be "good". If only so Steam would have a solid competitor beyond GoG. (so Valve would start adding more features more quickly. I'm greedy that way.) But, I was a fool. Why I expected anything smart or decent from post-2008 EA is beyond me. :/
Seventy now. Just look at the new Medal of Honor pre-orders. Seems they've beaten Activision to the punch in terms of "raising game prices by 10 dollars a year until players complain". [sub](Oh Bobby Kotick, you precocious scamp.)[/sub]Waaghpowa said:
Unless, of course, EA is charging an extra 10 dollars to pre-order a DIGITAL COPY of a game exclusive to THEIR OWN GOD DAMNED SERVICE.
Which, thinking on it now, would not surprise me.
I felt the same, for the most part. It was God awful in the beginning.Sober Thal said:
But thanks to time, effort, and listening to community feedback Valve has made it into (at least for me) the preferred service for my gaming needs.
Actually, post EC, I'd say Bioware has been forgiven by me for the initial problems with ME3, and I'd even call it the best in the series now. See, that's what a good company does. It listens to the fans. We complained about the ending, and rightfully so, and Bioware fixed it.Saviordd1 said:
DA2, yeah, that was not a great game.
On-topic, EA can bite me. I don't play many PC games anyways, due to a rather behind-the-times laptop (seriously, I'm running a Radeon HD 6320 graphics card and an AMD Brazos Dual Core 1.65 GHz CPU), but charging $60 for DIGITAL games, and no sales short of a blood anniversary? That's not changing.
You didn't like what was added, I did. It fixed my problems with the endings which were the plot holes, the mass relays getting destroyed, and a lack of feeling of accomplishment. The ending's not perfect, don't get me wrong. But it is, to me, now satisfying, and that's all I ask.Deviate said:
All the endings fit in with the theme of the third game, that there is no victory that comes without a cost. I'm not sure how you missed that point that was hammered in over and over again. If you are talking about the Catalyst, yes, I agree, faulty logic that goes against what you've proven, yadayada. But I liked the fact that it was one situation that Shepard could not talk hir way out of. A hard choice had to be made, and there was no way around it.Deviate said:
Edit: And I'm dragging things off-topic, so if you want to debate me further, let's do it over PM.
