EA Defends Origin From Hardcore Crowd

[FalloutJack]

Someone answer me this:

Has it always been the standard operating procedure in companies to blame the customer for their own shortcomings? Every time you complain to anyone about any product, service, or whatever...the first thing they do is blame you. After years of this, you'd think some of them - any of them - would realize that the fault lies not in the customer at all.

There use to be something about the customer always being right. The very core of what's wrong with business is that this has changed to 'blame the customer - your source of income - for everything'. This happens all over the place, and EA will probably stick to that gun like the last fucking hope in the cosmos. Shame it's backing the wrong horse.

Steam isn't exactly perfect itself. I've had problems on there, and they sometimes try to blame me too even when I explain thoroughly and with as many details how much that is impossible, but the concensus here appears to be that they're not as bad, so...yay.

Oh, and please yes let me here from that guy who dared call me out for saying EA was voted as a horrible company. I see a thread full of people who might find your arguments less than compelling!

 

[Ed130 The Vanguard]

"EA defends capitalism"

Less "EA defends capitalism" more EA showing us what happens when producers don't adapt or in Origins case adapt poorly, loss of market share and lack of consumer support.

And when you are going against the juggernaut that is Steam you need every advantage that you can get, not excuses that are over 7 years out of date.

 

[Aeonknight]

Someone answer me this:

Has it always been the standard operating procedure in companies to blame the customer for their own shortcomings? Every time you complain to anyone about any product, service, or whatever...the first thing they do is blame you. After years of this, you'd think some of them - any of them - would realize that the fault lies not in the customer at all.

There use to be something about the customer always being right. The very core of what's wrong with business is that this has changed to 'blame the customer - your source of income - for everything'. This happens all over the place, and EA will probably stick to that gun like the last fucking hope in the cosmos. Shame it's backing the wrong horse.

Steam isn't exactly perfect itself. I've had problems on there, and they sometimes try to blame me too even when I explain thoroughly and with as many details how much that is impossible, but the concensus here appears to be that they're not as bad, so...yay.

Oh, and please yes let me here from that guy who dared call me out for saying EA was voted as a horrible company. I see a thread full of people who might find your arguments less than compelling!

That wouldn't be me would it? Cause if it is, kinda funny you wasted the time to remember something so insignifcant. But since you brought it up, yes the whole event itself was a complete joke. But as long as it adds fuel to your fire of interest you'll look the other way I'm sure.

But hey, if it gets you off to know that your preferred DRM program is "better" than another, whatever floats your boat. I've seen pettier things to argue about on the internet, but this is pretty close to the top.

 

[kouriichi]

Yeah... after you tried to stick the "We have the right to view everything you do ever, and every file on your PC" thing into your agreement, my mind is never going to change.

No EA. You are not like Steam. You will never be like Steam. Steam is everything together, in one (semi) glorious browser of savings. Your Origins is EA, and all the crap EA puts out these days. Anything good you will ever do, will be vastly overshadowed by the bad you've done in the past.

I will personally never give a kind would about EA anymore. I might say "Oh, Dice did their best on making BF", or maybe "Bioware is doing everything they can at this moment to support us", but EA will never deserve a single word of praise from me.

 

[Vault101]

Oops sorry that last bit was actually Bioware's white knights.

quite the oposite...aparently I'VE been the entitled one

 

[deathyepl]

At the end of the day, all other issues aside, my prime issue with Origin is simple. EA has proven repeatedly that they will not continue to run an online service that is not successful enough, which means that I have uncertainty that my games will continue to be available one EA decides that Origin has failed.

I know that some folks have the same concern with Steam, and I do not claim that it is an invalid concern, but at least Valve has given us no reason to EXPECT this to happen.

 

[Nantucket_v1legacy]

I actually have no problem with Origin and I use it quite often to play Dragon age, Mass Effect, The Sims and The Witcher 2.
They look around my computer if they really want because I have nothing to hide. I only use my desktop to game so that is all they'll find. Mind you, they might find my shameless collection of Nancy Drew mysteries and hold it against me when I complain about their shitty patch updates for Sims.

 

[The Human Torch]

I am more than willing to give Origin a try, even though I heard and read plenty of opinions that say that it's atrocious, but the problem is: I can't.

Origin was installed with SWTOR, even though you didn't need to log into Origin, it needed to be installed, otherwise the entire game wouldn't install. Not exactly a positive start, but let's roll with it. A couple of days after installing Origin, I figured I would try to log in and see what all the hubbub was about.

I couldn't log in. My EA account (used for that dread online pass system), wasn't accepted. So I figured I would make a new account, so I registered my e-mail adress and it said that it has already been taken. Weird. So I figured that maybe I wasn't using the right password, I clicked the 'forgot password' option and I would receive an e-mail to reset it.

We are now 7 days further and I have yet to receive anything.

So yeah, I am willing to give EA the benefit of the doubt, but their own system keeps me locked out. One heck of a security program if you ask me.

 

[Evil Smurf]

If they want to give better service why stop them?

 

[Sis]

The difference is that Steam was the first serious digital distribution network. They made plenty of mistakes.

Origin has the benefit of a decade of Steam's mistakes, yet they continue to make *EXACTLY THE SAME ONES*. They're even managing to make the mistakes that Steam managed to not only avoid, but explicitly called out so that other distribution networks would be able to benefit from those experiences.

That's the problem people have with Origin: This is the year 2012, and they've produced a service that isn't even as good as Steam was *when it launched*.

^ You pretty much summed it up.

 

[ScruffyMcBalls]

"and anytime EA does something that is significant in the industry, it generates a certain amount of reaction."
What, like that time when you tanked a sci-fi franchise beloved by millions which had the potential to be one of the best video game series in history? Like that? Yeah, I'm bitter, be the bigger man, you get over it.

 

[Strazdas]

So what their are saying is basically: steam did mistakes at the begining, so we will be doing the same mistakes and noone can blame us because we are too stupid to learn from steam mistakes.
great idea you got there EA, go back to your corner now.

 

[Clearing the Eye]

Let me be honest, nobody with half a brain likes digital distribution even a little bit.

Because sweeping generalizations and derogatory attacks are sure sign of intelligence?

 

[Metalrocks]

steam at least works pretty fine, despite some flaws that you cant use it if your not connected to the net.

Actually if you are connected at some point, then hit the go offline button under the 'Steam' drop down menu you can play all of your already installed games with no net connection. Just have to reconnect if you want to download/buy new stuff.

last month my connection was gone for few days and had no way to connect my pc to the net. even when i clicked on offline mode, it still wanted me to be connected to the net just to start it up. surely pissed me off. i dint had this crap few years ago when i had a very unstable connection.

 

[Casper Andersen]

To me Origin is just he gatekeeper for Mass Effect 3, I dont think I have even opened the program in the last two month, since I stopped playing the ME3 multiplayer.

And I think a lot people feel the same way about it, only you know, also with Battlefield.

 

[DTWolfwood]

"People forget that when Steam launched, there was a lot of backlash from the core," he explains.

That is true, but whats your excuse for not learning for their mistakes?

 

[veloper]

Steam had many technical difficulties in the beginning, but that's nothing compared to Origin now.

EA go deliberately go out of their way with Origin to take away customer's games just for modding/fan-patching their games and for using common street languange on their forums, that wouldn't even get you a warning here at the Escapist.

It's the difference between simple failure and malice.

PC gamers are not likely to forget terrible treatment like that any time soon, even if EA change such policies.

 

[Romblen]

I only used Origin for Mass Effect 3. Once I was done with that, It's just been inactive. Outside of a couple games that I don't really care about that much, Origin has zero advantage. Steam has good service, good price, large selection, decent social interaction, and it continues to innovate.

 

[ZephrC]

Look, this completely fails to address my main concern, which is that I don't want to own half a dozen consoles and run half a dozen download services just to play games.

And don't feed me that stupid bullshit about how the competition makes games better. It doesn't. Not any more than having HD-DVD still around would make movies better. That just straight up doesn't make any sense. Having a single, stable platform to make games on would improve the quality of the actual games themselves, which is the only thing I give the slightest shit about.

So until Origin becomes the only download service available, I'm gonna stick with Steam. And hey, on the off chance Origin does somehow do that I will finally have a reason to like EA and their evil.

 

[RvLeshrac]

The difference is that Steam was the first serious digital distribution network. They made plenty of mistakes.

Origin has the benefit of a decade of Steam's mistakes, yet they continue to make *EXACTLY THE SAME ONES*. They're even managing to make the mistakes that Steam managed to not only avoid, but explicitly called out so that other distribution networks would be able to benefit from those experiences.

That's the problem people have with Origin: This is the year 2012, and they've produced a service that isn't even as good as Steam was *when it launched*.

You have very bad memory of when Steam launched my friend.

And you seem to forget that the Steam of Counter-Strike and HL was the Steam Beta, essentially IM and a server-browser, while the HL2 Steam ('Launch') was substantially improved.