Poll: Can someone explain the hate for the Origin program?

[kingthrall]

I am one of the people who dont buy games from EA because of Origin and not just saying this.

1. The reason is origin scans your computer for programs it deems pirated or from EA like a Trojan.
It breaches privacy and gains access to all your computer details. If it doesn't like a piece of software it can lock you out entirely from origin and the games you have got. They use the excuse of seeing your information on your computer for "marketing purposes"

2. Steam does a similar thing however, yet Ive used steam much longer and ive yet to see dubious reports and scandals in comparison to the company EA. I do not trust them to keep privacy and its more than one major company that uses their platform in comparison to the single EA company.

EDIT- Here is a link of what Origin truly does

http://www.cinemablend.com/games/EA-Says-Origin-Isn-t-Spyware-Although-It-Does-Scan-Your-Entire-PC-36690.html

 

[Lord_Gremlin]

Because EA. They deliberately inventing and adapting ways to rip off the consumer. Worse than any other company in the industry.
And origin is a bloody STORE run buy goddamn EA. STORE. EA. That's all the reason for hate you need. EA opening a store that sells videogames is like a confirmed pedophile opening a child daycare...

 

[Fishyash]

Well, despite the spyware debacle...

It is inferior to steam.

Holy crap how do you even do that? It's almost scary how steam is still the dominating DRM client, and Origin comes out and turns out to be pretty much worse than steam in every possible way.

Not to mention people don't want to have two DRM programs on their computer. With all the digital distribution companies now, having to deal with more than one takes the piss. The best option would be that NO client is necessary.

But... despite all this, Steam's actually worth it, because they put their games on sale all the time.

To be honest, if Origin was any good, I would probably even support it, but at the moment it's got the same bullshit as steam does, but outright inferior.

 

[sethisjimmy]

It doesn't have anywhere near the mass deals that Steam does, and its terms of service are much more strict that Steams, for instance, the whole "your account gets banned = you lose all your games" debacle we've seen pop up multiple times.
You also forfeit your right to sue and other legal rights by agreeing to the Origin TOS, which you need to agree to to play many exclusive games.

 

[crazyrabbits]

Really? You only have the EULA to tell you the spyware (which isn't spyware anyway) isn't there anymore? It would be a major felony if they told you that and it wasn't true. And most unfamiliar programs red-flag anti virus programs. Steam did it for a while until enough people reported it a false positive that companies added it by default.

You're playing devil's advocate - that's a hell of a role to take.

Any program that looks into potentially private files when it has no reason to is spyware. Don't start giving me semantics. As I said before, it's come under fire (even after it was supposedly fixed) for prying into private collection records on the computers of German users.

If you think that concept somehow sounds alien, read up on the Sony rootkit scandal, and how the eventual discovery of that item caused massive amounts of negative publicity for them and BMG. The only reason we haven't seen a class action suit yet is because no one's grabbed the bull by the horns and called them out on it by suing them to kingdom come.

This whole concept behind EA apparently wanting to nickle and dime customers is just paranoia

Wrong. The continuing frequency of cases of day-one DLC from companies like EA, Capcom and others is enough to show that it's not just paranoia, but an absolute trend that is rightly freaking people out.

People wanting to gang up on EA because it's cool.

You know, I could sit here and quote posts and major news stories showing just how silly that statement is - their anti-consumer laws, their habit of killing profitable companies via hostile takeover, their incompetent management, meddling executives, backwards logic...I'm sure you've heard it before, which is why you're trying to spin the conversation. They are what they are - a company that believes the end justifies the means, no matter how many bodies they trip over to get to that point.

I really don't give a shit about Origin or Steam, they're both online retailers and I have no need for them while Gamestop and SKIDROW still exist. Great thing about Canadian copyright law. You can buy a game and crack it anyway.

I live in Canada as well. I guess you've heard about EA's war on Gamestop/the second-hand market too, huh?

 

[DoPo]

Well thank you all for that I was just curious because I am looking forward to he new sims city game but I was reading there forums about sims and lots of people where saying that if it requires Origin they will not get it etc so I was just curious about you guys opinions.

Didn't some EA higherup recently state that they were only going to be making multiplayer games? In that case, have fun with you deathmatch City Building Sim!

No, nobody ever said that. OK, actually to be fair, clueless people who parroted what bigoted haters fabricated, said that. What the EA higherup actually said was that they were not making any games that were a single player-only experience. And that means that a game might have DLC or an online leaderboard. The Cerberus Network from ME2 is an example of that "online component". Please stop perpetuating this "only multiplayer lololol" nonsense.

 

[zidine100]

its a matter of public image, when you image is bad and consumers feel that they cant trust you, dont expect people to jump on your online shop/drm, no matter if its good or not.

Its just simple business practice. Keep you customers happy -> leads to a good public image -> leads to customers gladly using your products and services. Its not rocket science.

To be honest it wouldn't surprise me to see ea just say screw it one day, up ship from the pc market, and supply a very small refund to customers well below the price they paid for there games with a simple apology tacked on at the end. Thats how much i trust ea, even if all the rumors are overblown, which they most likely are, that still stands.

 

[votemarvel]

This is the reason for my hate.

So with the release of the new Mass Effect 3 DLC I thought I would reinstall the game and try out the changes to the multiplayer.

However despite having the game on disc, starting the install opened Origin and started to download the game. It refused to install from the disc no matter what I did.

So I had to copy the files off the disc, extract them to Origin's download folder and start the install again. Origin then 'downloaded' the game and installed it.

Then I downloaded the new DLC and thought all was going to work. Another problem happened though that I couldn't play the DLC because Mass Effect 3 wasn't up to date with the latest patch.

So again into Origin I went and picked the option to update the game, which for some reason prompted Origin to try downloading the entire game again.

Cancelled that and had to wait a half hour for Origin to do a Repair Install instead.

Finally I was allowed to start the game and enter the multiplayer lobby. However by that point I had gotten so fed-up that I quit out. All the trouble with Origin had sapped me of the desire to play the game.

 

[Darknacht]

Its simple Steam fanboys hate it because its not Steam, EA haters hate it because its EA, and everyone else hates it because its a shittier version on Steam and Steam is already shit.

 

[Charli]

Hate is too strong a word. They've yet to convince me is almost too mild.

It's some kind of lazy arrogance that if Steam has done it than clearly 'we EA, the superior company' MUST be better. Even when not offering anything better and in many cases worse deals than Valve do.

Their attitude towards this affair is all wrong and I think that's what causes this 'hatred' more than Origin itself.

It's like that guy who struts in wearing a suit, well styled hair and spinning a gold pocket watch when everyone in the room is wearing jeans and casual-wear and he opens his arms and says "I HAVE ARRIVED. I BROUGHT NOTHING NEW WITH ME, I'M JUST HERE NOW. COME ONE AND ALL TO SEE MY WONDER."


... No one is going to move from the chair EA. Valve came before you, dressed in the appropriate attire and with pudding. Unless you brought the cinnamon to put on the pudding we don't really see the need to pay attention to you.

 

[drisky]

My problem with it works with this combination

1. The can spy on your computer for advertising data, even if you delete your account
2. No class action lawsuits

Steam has number 2 also now, as do a lot of companies, but number one seems to me like they are already intending to do stuff that should get them sued. Unfortunately EA tech support now makes it mandatory to sign up for origin now, I might not be able to avoid it forever. As more and more EA games become mandatory it will be harder and harder go without it.

 

[Mycroft Holmes]

I don't hate EA at all, but I will probably never install origin or buy any games that requires its use.

I don't trust them at all after that spyware scandal. Also the 'you can only play your game three times and then you owe us another 50 bux, is ridiculous. And I've heard tons of stories about people getting double charged for one game, and then EA locks down their accounts because they ask not to be double charged.

 

[Valdrrak Draconis]

Wow so many more responses then I thought haha. I do not even know who to reply to but I agree with you all, and most of you make very good points

however It would be nice If EA kinda Learnt and stopped ruining games, I'm sure they read forums like this etc and they must know people disapprove of what they do I mean look at C&C4. anyway cheers for all the insight and reasons.

there are a lot more then I thought.

also someone mentioned about Origin going into Offline mode when you do not have Net? that is awesome because the other night my modem exploded and it was late so I couldn't get a new one and I opened steam to play SP games and guess what you cannot play any games at all without the net. So I thought I would change steam to offline mode, however you need the internet to be ON to turn steam onto OFFLINE mode so I was stuck without out any of my steam games (so majority of my games these days)

Thought it was kinda weird.

 

[pilouuuu]

Because it reminds me of a great company that was eaten by EA.

Also everything should be available on Steam. Origin has its exclusives which make it even more annoying. Steam does everything it does and it does it better.

Captcha: empire state of mind

 

[Blackdoom]

The combination of the fact it essentially acts as spyware, the price of the games whilst rather lacking in any interesting games to buy. The fact that it seems to love logging me out every 20 or so minutes when I have it running.

But the biggest problem to me is the Customer Support.
Because holy shit the customer support all I wanted to do was try and work out why Battlefield 3 wouldn't load I have contacted them 10 times explaining it and each time I have had the chat closed on me without any help.

Similar stuff happened with Mass Effect 3 when I couldn't connect to the multiplayer at any point.

The one thing I will give Origin is that it seems to download stuff pretty fast.

 

[Callate]

Because installing Origin is allowing someone with serious issues to keep a gun pointed at your head at all times on their assurance that they'll never use it.

There is virtually no customer benefit to having Origin on your system; in return EA gets to market to you, collect data from you, and shut down your access to every game you thought you bought on the service on a whim because of a perceived infraction against rules and terms of service that they can change at any time without notice. And if EA in any way abuses your trust or fails to live up to even a basic level of service, your recourse is virtually nil.

It's a bad deal that a company with an increasingly terrible reputation has forced on its customers and then claimed that because it was doing it, it was "industry standard". Some people want to claim this view amounts to nothing more than a kneejerk "We love Valve, we hate EA" response, but frankly, that description is incredibly dismissive and facile, and no one should accept it at face value.

 

[MeChaNiZ3D]

Because it is inferior to Steam in game availability even though it acts like it's a viable alternative, because EA leverages its games to force people onto Origin, because Origin will always be subject to EA's business practises, because of shitty customer service, because of many problems and bugs, because of the suspicion around what it does or doesn't do to your computer without your permission (and I'd say these fears are not entirely baseless), because using Origin supports EA, and because EA.

 

[malestrithe]

Because EA is evil. A lot of the haters would tolerate the program if EA was not tied to it.

 

[Bostur]

Any proof of this?

See http://www.origin.com/faq#can-i-opt-out-of-data-collection

Can I opt out of data collection through Origin?
You can opt out of sharing hardware specifications and crash reports at any time. Sharing of system interaction data can be limited and made anonymous, but not completely disabled. All data sharing preferences can be controlled through your Origin Settings.

If you read the whole part it sounds a lot less ominous.

Are any other types of data collected through Origin?

There are two types of information that are always collected through Origin.

The first type is system interaction data essential to the continued operation of Origin. This includes anonymous information about crash occurrences, game launch successes/failures, information about download sessions, and other functional details. MAC and IP addresses are collected as well, but are obfuscated or hashed to protect your anonymity.

The second type of collected data is information that you give to Origin directly. This includes Origin preferences, online feature usage (chat, cloud storage, etc.), purchase information, and account information. This type of data is used only to allow specific services to work. Origin cannot, for example, process a video game purchase without first collecting and verifying your personal information.
For more information about EA?s collection, storage, and use of consumer information, please see EA?s Privacy Policy.

According to this what they collect is:
- Error Reports.
- Data that Origin uses itself for operation.
- Account information.
- IP address.
- MAC address.

The MAC address can sound a little fishy but is probably necessary for the DRM they use. The rest is pretty standard stuff. I know that some people are very protective about their IP address, but many websites will collect those for statistical purposes. It even states that they encrypt the IP address which I suspect a lot of normal websites don't bother doing.

It sounds worse than it is, because they are very specific about it. Software needs to store data in order to run. If you save a game in the cloud, Origin needs to store that. Thats the intended behaviour.

I totally expect EA to be incompetent, and I imagine programming or design errors can happen as was the case with the "Program Files" incident a while ago. But there is nothing in their privacy statement that should be a concern.

 

[Genocidicles]

Before I start I'd just like to say that I hate Steam. If I had my way all games would be on GOG or something similar, rather than having some DRM crap on my computer...But considering how many games force you to install Steam, I put up with having it on my computer... But now EA wants me to have another DRM client on my PC.

As much as I hate EA, I don't hate Origin because it's ran by those assholes.

I hate it because I already have Steam. I don't need its retarded little brother too.