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

[freakymojo]

Had a friend who bought ME3, finished it and didnt play it (and by extension didnt log into his origin account) for a couple of months, wanted to pick it up to play the leviathan dlc. game is gone from his library. as is all knowledge in their database that he ever owned it. so ofcourse customer support does nothing. obviously the funds didnt re-appear in his bank. he even had the "from ashes" dlc. and i know for a fact he had bought it. you can even see the files on his computor. but origin denies its existance now.

and thats why i will never use it.


fuck EA.

 

[Yopaz]

Made my EA + competition to steam= RABID HATRED from escapists.

Jesus next you will be asking why escapists think 1+1=2

I will admit that having the need for a new client besides Steam in order to play games was something I didn't like at first. Then I started thinking that it was good that EA was taking a share of the digital distribution market away from Steam preventing monopoly.

However I tested it out and it didn't look very pretty, it didn't run perfectly, the prices were higher than anywhere else. Also the update system seems clumsy in comparison. Now I will admit that I am not one of the biggest haters of Origin. I dislike it and I hope to see improvements. I am a huge fan of Steam, but the main reason I dislike Origin isn't because they're competition or because of EA. It's more because they're not competition to Valve. They try to take over a large established service by offering what Steam offered when people hated that.

 

[NeverTheDeadMan]

Made my EA + competition to steam= RABID HATRED from escapists.

Jesus next you will be asking why escapists think 1+1=2

I will admit that having the need for a new client besides Steam in order to play games was something I didn't like at first. Then I started thinking that it was good that EA was taking a share of the digital distribution market away from Steam preventing monopoly.

However I tested it out and it didn't look very pretty, it didn't run perfectly, the prices were higher than anywhere else. Also the update system seems clumsy in comparison. Now I will admit that I am not one of the biggest haters of Origin. I dislike it and I hope to see improvements. I am a huge fan of Steam, but the main reason I dislike Origin isn't because they're competition or because of EA. It's more because they're not competition to Valve. They try to take over a large established service by offering what Steam offered when people hated that.

That a good response. I was honestly being flippant with my original post and did not expect to get so many serious responses.

 

[Assassin Xaero]

Well lately i have been seeing a lot of complaining about The Origin program you have to install on your PC to play new EA games, some people have so much hate for it they simply do not buy any of the games that require Origin just so they do not have to install Origin.

Now I understand the dislike for EA to put it lightly and I too share that dislike for how they have butchered great games and I hope to heck they do not ruin the new Sims city game, but Does everyone not want this Origin Launcher because they Dislike EA so much or is there a main reason?

I have Origin on my PC (for Mass Effect 3) and to be honest I have not had any issue with downloading and installing and playing games, I have honestly had more problems with steam but in saying that steam does have much more features.

So yea why the hate for the origin program? (other then the fact that EA made it)

This is gonna sound dumb, but as for the poll, "I don't know" would be my answer. I had an EA account (think I had to get it for Dragon Age: Origins), and I guess it was converted over into an Origin account?

As for Origin it self, my main thing against it was the original "one year rental" system it had. Since I lack self control and money sense, I've bought tons of games that I haven't touched yet (getting a lot better at it now), and some of those I've had for years. Other games, like Pokemon Blue (I know it isn't on PC, but for example sake), I've had forever, and I'll go years without playing it, then sit down one weekend and play through it. I guess they've changed it shortly after that was found, but I still don't like the idea of it.

Other than that, I don't really have any reason for getting it. BioWare games are pretty bland and boring (in my opinion), and the Battlefield games aren't that great, either. So no point in getting games on yet another launching system unless I absolutely have to.

 

[Yopaz]

Made my EA + competition to steam= RABID HATRED from escapists.

Jesus next you will be asking why escapists think 1+1=2

I will admit that having the need for a new client besides Steam in order to play games was something I didn't like at first. Then I started thinking that it was good that EA was taking a share of the digital distribution market away from Steam preventing monopoly.

However I tested it out and it didn't look very pretty, it didn't run perfectly, the prices were higher than anywhere else. Also the update system seems clumsy in comparison. Now I will admit that I am not one of the biggest haters of Origin. I dislike it and I hope to see improvements. I am a huge fan of Steam, but the main reason I dislike Origin isn't because they're competition or because of EA. It's more because they're not competition to Valve. They try to take over a large established service by offering what Steam offered when people hated that.

That a good response. I was honestly being flippant with my original post and did not expect to get so many serious responses.

Yell out that everyone on the Escapist are immature and they will construct the most mature responses you've ever seen just to prove you wrong. Not everyone, but some. However your post was in fact quite descriptive. EA gets hate for being EA. EA could be giving out puppies to sick kids and they would still be hated for it.

 

[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