Is Origin really as bad as they say?

[Quirkymeister]

Hello,
Since getting games from GoG, I've somewhat warmed to the idea of using digital distribution services aside from Steam. Thus, I was considering re-playing the Mass Effect trilogy on PC, with PC-exclusive goodies like shortened loading times, mods and keyboard and mouse controls. However the third game is exclusive to EA's Origin.
Thus, I pose the question: Is Origin as bad as people say? Because internet critics like Yahtzee and Jim Sterling pronounce Origin like it's a dirty word or something, and everyone gives it crap. So what I'd like to know is...

A. What aspects of Origin are better/worse than Steam?
B. Is Origin objectively a bad service compared to the competition, or is its negative reputation more a result of its association with the reviled EA?

I haven't installed it myself to check because I read somewhere that Origin contains malware or spyware or something, so could someone please confirm whether Origin is safe for my computer too?

Thanks!

 

[Elfgore]

I would say the only benefits Origin has is with their frequent free game trials and on the house program. Other than that, they offer good sales. But they don't occur as much as Steam.

No it isn't, that's people being drama queens. It runs perfectly fine, doesn't get in the way, and runs pretty smooth.

 

[Kingjackl]

I've been making a point of trying to use Origin and GOG instead of Steam for games that are available on those platforms, and so far I haven't had too much of a problem. The games are fairly cheap, even when not on sale. The problem is the library is so small and niche compared to Steam's broad offerings.

It's decent, it just doesn't have much to set it apart except for the free offerings (much appreciated btw) and a handful of exclusives like Battlefield 4 and Mass Effect 3.

 

[votemarvel]

The biggest issue people seem to have with Origin is that it isn't Steam.

I find Origin's interface to be nicer than Steam's. Having the game covers there is more visually pleasing to me and you can adjust their size so you can fit as little or as many on display as you'd like.

 

[TheYellowCellPhone]

Not really bad. I don't use it anymore because I don't play Battlefield anymore, but I never had a problem with it. It's really not bad. For a while, they've had deals where they've given away games for free. Mostly it's dumb games like Peggle, but two summers ago they gave away Battlefield 3.

The problem is that it's fairly irrelevant except for EA having their own PC distribution service and circumventing Steam. It doesn't have all the bells and whistles like the Steam Community Market, User Groups, or Curator Groups. It doesn't boast a wide library, most notable of the small library being Bioware, DICE, Visceral, the Sims series, and sports games like FIFA.

Up until a few weeks ago, I'd say Origin had a much better return policy than Steam. But now that Steam has automatic return policy under (relatively) lax conditions, I think Steam has the leg up on returns.

It's totally functional and in my opinion a little streamlined better than Steam. My only gripe with it besides the it's not Steam argument is how often Origin wants you to sign into your account when you just want to automatically start it, since I had a good habit of forgetting my password. I haven't logged into it in god knows how many months simply because I can't be bothered to change my password again after another one of their random checks.

 

[BreakfastMan]

Origin hasn't really been that bad for a while now. It is pretty basic, but entirely functional (and all the free games certainly don't hurt). If you just want to play the games on it and don't care about all sorts of fancy community features or modding stuff, then it should be fine. I wouldn't buy all the new releases on it, but if you want to play stuff exclusive to the service, it isn't bad.

 

[DementedSheep]

I don't have that many games on it but I find it less annoying than steam and my experience with their customer support was good. It's doesn't have as much stuff as steam dose but I only want it to buy and play games so that isn't a concern. Steam wins overall just because it has more games and better sales.

 

[FirstNameLastName]

I don't particularly like it, but I've never really bought into the idea that it's the devil's executable. It seems acceptable for what it does.

 

[KyuubiNoKitsune-Hime]

Origin is not a terrible service, or exclusive digital distribution platform really. Most people have highlighted the good so...

Here are some negatives:
-It has a habit of making confirming your login far more than necessary.
-It can be a bit invasive about certain EA things.
-In some games it doesn't automatically login your account, meaning you have to login, again, in the game.
-It calls home far more often than steam.
-It spies on you a lot more than steam, even when you opt in to all of steam's statistical tracking stuff.
-The DRM that requires it is a particularly bad type of DRM.
-Origin servers sometimes have stability issues.
-For me personally, every time I've ever used it, Origin has been buggy as hell all by it self.

 

[zumbledum]

the problem i have with origin and the reason i wont install it wasnt ever about it being bad , although in its early days there were certainly a lot of issues like its privacy invasion settings.
My issue is i simply do not want to have a store front program for every single publisher on my PC so i vote with my wallet and simply boycott all EA products that are only available on origin. This way when we have 30 odd store fronts installed at once all spamming us with crap i can turn around and say , not my fault!

 

[G00N3R7883]

I own 5 games on Origin - Crysis 3, Dead Space 3, Dragon age 2, Dragon Age Inquisition and Kingdoms of Amalur. All purchased on disk so tied to Origin. I've finished each game twice except Inquisition which is just once so far.

Never had a problem with Origin in terms of installing the games, downloading patches, launching the games, stability/crashes, or any other practical functionality.

I think Steam is better because there are more games and more community features, but if a game is exclusive to Origin there is absolutely no reason to ignore it.

Some people just automatically say that everything EA does is evil without actually looking at the facts because its EA and everybody hates EA so it must be bad.

 

[Bad Jim]

It was once a complete mess but it got better. Not as good as Steam, but if you want to play Mass Effect 3, it's not a big issue.

 

[Lufia Erim]

As far as i know. They don't say that anymore. That was a couple of years ago. But I'm not one to give EA money anyways for anythinf that isn't Dragon age.

 

[Dornedas]

When it comes to my experience: Yes Origin is as bad as people say and it should not exist.

Where does this experience come from?
I actually gave Origin after people continued to say: No it's not horrible. Everyone that says it is is just a hater. yadda yadda yadda.

So last year (I think) I bought all 3 Mass Effect games on it because I wanted to replay them and coincidentally they were 60% off at that point.

So I bought them, installed Mass Effect 1 and tried to play it. Nothing happens. After looking around in the Mass effect folder I saw that there was no .exe file in there. Well maybe something went wrong during the download of the game. I redownloaded it and still nothing.
After a quick search on the EA-Forums I found out that this was apparently rather common and that the problem was known for years and nobody cared to fix it.
I will cut my story here and say that the same happened with Mass Effect 2. Except here it was the Mass Effect Launcher.exe and not the game.exe that was missing.
The moral of the story: Ea sells broken games on their platform and they can't be asked to fix them. If they were 3. party games I maybe could forgive them but they are not and I will not.

 

[Andy Shandy]

Runs smoothly, they give away free games, had refunds long before Steam and their customer support is miles better (in my experience anyway). So no, not nearly as bad, people have just stuck to their first impressions of it for the most part - which to be fair were awful.

 

[asdfen]

I will not install that pice of shitoware. I had to return a game I bought on disk that refused to install without installing Oriin first. Nowhere did it mention that I had to go throuh that to play before I bought it...

I bought a single player game on disk I will not install some 3rd party aditional software on my pc / register / etc just to play a single player game. EA has been a terrible company for decades I will not put up with their latest bs. Uplay/Games for Windoze are bad enouh.

 

[Worgen]

I don't trust ea with digital content. It launched in a bad state, but so did steam, the big issue is that I don't trust ea. They have frequently shown they can't be trusted and since the content is digital and controlled by them. That's enough that I want no part of it.

 

[OldNewNewOld]

I'm not sure if Origin improved or if Steam went a really long way downhill, but there are several aspects where I find Origin to be way better than Steam. Maybe it was really bad at the start, I don't know, I didn't use it at that time. And honestly, I only use it for Titanfall, but I don't find it bad at all. Boots faster than Steam at least. Like 5 seconds and it's up while Steam updates so shit literally every single time I start it, even if I just closed it a second ago. I just don't understand how EA didn't think of adding a freaking screenshot button to the Origin overlay. What the fucking hell?

 

[Soviet Heavy]

It's fine now. When it launched it was absolutely unacceptable. The argument that "Steam sucked when it launched too!" didn't hold any water. Steam launched in 2004, Origin launched years later, there was no excuse for how barebones and nonfunctional it was. But the kinks have been ironed out, and it works like any other distribution platform, however only dealing exclusively in EA products.

 

[votemarvel]

When it comes to my experience: Yes Origin is as bad as people say and it should not exist.

Where does this experience come from?
I actually gave Origin after people continued to say: No it's not horrible. Everyone that says it is is just a hater. yadda yadda yadda.

So last year (I think) I bought all 3 Mass Effect games on it because I wanted to replay them and coincidentally they were 60% off at that point.

So I bought them, installed Mass Effect 1 and tried to play it. Nothing happens. After looking around in the Mass effect folder I saw that there was no .exe file in there. Well maybe something went wrong during the download of the game. I redownloaded it and still nothing.
After a quick search on the EA-Forums I found out that this was apparently rather common and that the problem was known for years and nobody cared to fix it.
I will cut my story here and say that the same happened with Mass Effect 2. Except here it was the Mass Effect Launcher.exe and not the game.exe that was missing.
The moral of the story: Ea sells broken games on their platform and they can't be asked to fix them. If they were 3. party games I maybe could forgive them but they are not and I will not.

That's the first *I've heard of that problem and I've got all three games on Origin too.

However it was Mass Effect 3 that delivered the only problem I've had with Origin and it's important to mention that I bought the game on disc. The first install went fine and I had many good hours of play.

I eventually upgraded my PC and decided for a clean install of Windows. Went through and installed all my games and eventually encountered Mass Effect 3. For some reason because the game is already registered with Origin, it refused to install again from the discs and wanted to download the game.

To this date there isn't a proper fix for the problem.