The Old Republic Downloads to be Exclusive to EA's "Origin" Service

[Scott Bullock]

The Old Republic Downloads to be Exclusive to EA's "Origin" Service

If you plan on downloading The Old Republic, then get ready to cozy up to EA's version of Steam, because it's the only place on the internet you'll be able to get it.

In what amounts to a preview of its Monday E3 press conference, EA recently told The Wall Street Journal [http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304563104576361801792673260.html] about its plans to establish a game download service along the lines of Valve's Steam service or Gamestop's Impulse service.

The service, called Origin, will go live with over 150 games ready for purchase and download. While that's a respectable number for a brand new service, EA has another trick up its sleeve to help draw in the PC gaming crowd: the much awaited MMO Star Wars: The Old Republic will only be available for download from Origin. So unless you want to go out and physically purchase the game in disk form, Origin is pretty much the only way to get it.

In addition to game downloads, Origin will be packing a robust social networking aspect and some sort of cross-platform integration, allowing the play of mobile or social versions of a game to impact the core game. One example that EA's Senior VP of Global Online, David DeMartini, gave was playing a Battlefield minigame on your phone, earning experience that could be used in the console version of the game (he specifically mentioned the 360).

Now, competition is generally a good thing. So long as companies have to struggle to prove their products worth the consumer's money, they have to offer better services at lower prices. So in that way, another download service it great.

On the flip side, if every company decides to keep its games exclusive to its own download service, then while the games may be competing, the services themselves will stagnate, so in that way another download service could be a sign of terrible things to come. However, EA has not said that it will be pulling its games from any other download service, and making SWTOR an Origin exclusive may well be a one-time, lets-get-off-on-the-right-foot sort of thing.

Chances are, we'll find out more Monday.

Source: Gamespot [http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304563104576361801792673260.html]




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[InevitableFate]

This is an incredibly bad idea by EA.

All new MMOGs should try everything possible to get as many subscribers, what with the black hole that is WoW draining them all. Making the game exclusive to an untried online distribution platform, which itself will struggle against Valve's own black hole, is insane. It might make your platform more popular for a bit, but it would do so at the cost of the game's sales. A game which, I might add, is costing a very large amount of money.

If there is anyone with an ounce of sense at EA please, please, please, for the sake of TOR's success, release it on Steam.

I don't care if you have to install Origin too. Fallout 3 practically did that with Games for Windows Live, but fail to release it there and you'll seriously damage your subscriber base.

 

[Antari]

Not alot of skin off my back. I already plan not to buy The Old Republic. The lame space/rail-shooter from the 80's was about as creative as copying Steam outright.

 

[UnravThreads]

Do we really need one more, though? I know EA have problems with Steam for some reason, but launching their own is just... Irritating.

As we speak, I have Impulse, Games for Windows Marketplace, EA Downloader, Big Fish Games Manager (What?! Hidden Object is my dirty secret) and Steam installed, not to mention accounts at GamersGate (FTW!), Direct2Drive UK, PC World UK's download service and probably elsewhere, too.

Too many cooks spoil the broth, and I don't see what - if anything - this "Origin" will add to the market. It's just EA Downloader/EA Store v2.0, isn't it?

I don't care if you have to install Origin too. Fallout 3 practically did that with Games for Windows Live, but fail to release it there and you'll seriously damage your subscriber base.

And yet The Sims 3 was incredibly successful without a Steam release. In fact, it's only been released on Steam in the past six or so months, and no Sims game is in the Top 20 on Steam. Not having it on Steam won't do that much.

 

[Keldon888]

So it looks like I'm buying a hard copy anyway.

This seems like a really poor decision, not that they shouldn't launch their own service, go for it, and those 150 games better be great and much more than just 150 crappy EA games.

But I'm getting a fear that like HL2 and Steam or GTA and GFWL the Old Republic will require Origin. And in this case it will drastically cut into the spread of their game that they have invested an ungodly amount of money in. You really shouldn't put up your own road blocks for a game that already has to go uphill and you have everything riding on.

 

[MightyMole]

Well I guess I wont be getting it.

Nah, I'm just screwin' without ya, I wouldn't have gotten it anyway.

OT: I can see the logic behind doing this, but as people have said, when making an MMO, or any game for that matter but MMO's especially, you don't want any roadblocks between potential subscribers and your game. If its too much of an inconvenience for them, they'll just go to the alternative, and when that alternative is WoW... Well we all know how the MMO market is.

 

[Sicram]

This'll either work decently or completely capsize. What I find interesting is that xfire has sort of gone under the radar. It's a decent service.

 

[Deathfish15]

It's not a bad idea. Really, a large chunk of the profits from a game sell goes to the distribution company, whether it be physical retailers or digital store companies like Steam's Valve. By doing this, EA is retaining 100% of the profits of the sales of it's digital games. This is even more so true by it not having to print the physical disc and box for those either.

 

[BabyRaptor]

EA wants to be Valve now? How cute!

 

[Seventh Actuality]

Wow, I've been twisting about whether or not to bother checking out this game and now it seems like EA are actively trying to give me reasons not to play it.

Thanks, EA.

 

[AngryMongoose]

Oh, like Fable 3?

Gotta support this. Download service would be better taken directly from the developer or, at least, the publisher. (Getting the Witcher 2 as well as Blizzard recently may have influenced my opinion...)

Edit: I thought this was EAs current distribution service. You mean they're launching a full digital distro platform? That's... not good.

 

[Lordmarkus]

OH NOZ! Either sign up for Origin, or go out and buy a physical copy!
Just like I do with all my games!
Seriously when did leaving the house to get a game become too much work?

When gameshops stopped carrying all PC games that wasn't labeled "Blizzard".

 

[joeman098]

how many of these dam clients do they except people to be running on their computers?! like has any one ever stood back and been like humm maybe people dont want a 90th download platform and tried something other then copying steam

 

[Ryank1908]

This isn't a big deal for me personally but it's certainly a dumb move. Why companies are even trying to steal custom from Valve in that particular market is beyond me.

OH NOZ! Either sign up for Origin, or go out and buy a physical copy!
Just like I do with all my games!
Seriously when did leaving the house to get a game become too much work?

When gameshops stopped carrying all PC games that wasn't labeled "Blizzard".

You don't even have to leave the house! That's the ridiculous thing here - it's just as easy, except you have a pritty box for it. Though you might have to go downstairs to get the door but if THAT's too much for us we don't deserve our games.

 

[z3rostr1fe]

I think EA will give in to Steam in due time... Take a look at their beloved The Sims 3, which was initially not available on Steam. That franchise once was exclusively distributed by EA, but it became available on one of the most widely used Digital Distribution Service in the world.

 

[T'Generalissimo]

It's not a bad idea. Really, a large chunk of the profits from a game sell goes to the distribution company, whether it be physical retailers or digital store companies like Steam's Valve. By doing this, EA is retaining 100% of the profits of the sales of it's digital games. This is even more so true by it not having to print the physical disc and box for those either.

But the majority of profits for MMOs don't come from sales, they come from subscriptions. It would make more sense for a big name, single player game but not for The Old Republic, especially not if the rumours about how much the thing cost to develop are true.

It seems that EA are perhaps relying a little too much on TOR being a success, they now want it to carry both their MMO and their digital distribution pushes. I think they may be betting a little too heavily on the power of the Bioware and Star Wars names to make it an automatic success. I guess we'll have to wait and see if the gambit pays off, but I could defintely see this doing a lot of damage to EA if it fails.

 

[VanBasten]

plans to establish a game download service along the lines of Valve's Steam service or Stardock's Impulse service.

It's Gamestop's Impulse now.

 

[Hamish Durie]

dumb dumb dumb dumb EA all your doing is driving people away making it harder to obtain a copy of your game