What makes Origin so terrible?

[Hawkeye21]

I personally don't hate it, I avoid it like one would avoid a particularly mean-spirited retarded janitor, much like I try to avoid GFWL. It simply doesn't offer a good service. I was on the fence about Steam for a very long while, but lately I found that it became a very good service to use. Hell, I even buy most of my games now as opposed to pirating them, because it actually became easier to pay for something and get it on Steam almost immidiatley(and expect it to work 95% of the time).

It all comes down to Steam providing a better service than Origin, GFWL, UPlay, pirates, etc and I feel that this is the most important thing for me as a customer.

 

[CCountZero]

For a brief period of time, the Origin EULA said that EA could scan your computer for hardware specs, installed programs, ect. without notifying you. Once this was discovered, EA pretty quickly removed it, but there are still some people who believe that "EA's scannin mah PC!!!" That, and people hate EA and refuse to try the damn thing, yet still complain about it.

In my experience though, Origin isn't that bad. It launches fairly quickly, and while it is lacking in many features that would make it a viable competitor to Steam, it overall is inoffensive.

That covers the issue pretty well, except for the pricing, which is HORRENDOUS!

I do want to note, though, that Origin started off being a very, very clunky piece of software. Thankfully this has now been adequately, if not perfectly, rectified, but in the beginning, Origin had a tendency to lock up computers entirely, while it got itself up and running.

It wasn't dangerous, it was just very, very annoying.

...it also doesn't have Steam's several-minute loading times...

If Steam takes more than 10 seconds to boot, I'd have to say something else is causing a problem. Steam boots up WAY faster than Origin for me

 

[Vrach]

Because it's useless and forced on you. Yes, Steam is forced on you as well with a lot of games, but at least it's not useless.

Every single aspect of Origin sucks. I've had trouble opening the application, logging in, downloading games, buying games, using a discount coupon, with the purchase/browse interface and their overlay interface is absolutely terrible and has never worked for me, having constant troubles where it alt tabbed me out of the game (the evasion of which is its whole fucking point) and simply did not work.

On top of that, their selection of games is really tiny, their prices are high and their sales and discounts are lacking, which raises the question - why all of this?. This is not a tiny little company trying to succeed in a big world, this is one of the two largest, most powerful and richest corporations in gaming. The digital platform technology has been out for over a decade and these are not things that are hard to get right. They have a perfect example in not just Steam, but other digital platforms, so they're not inventing the wheel, they're just building one. They have the blueprints, they have the funds, so they have no excuse to be this bad.

Next to all of these problems, their customer support service is APPALLING. I'm not writing that in bold and caps to yell, I'm putting it like that because it's that bad. They have Indian guys (not a racial thing, not an assumption, straight-up first-hand knowledge) that can't speak a lick of English and perform worse than a high school science project robot. I'm in uni with very basic programming knowledge and I could literally design you a linear program that would help you more than EA customer service would.

When I was buying Star Wars: The Old Republic, an effort which took several months to complete, I've contacted them several times and they had no idea what it was. They asked me questions like "what platform is that game on?" when we're talking about their up and coming huge project that's an MMO, which any idiot who hasn't even heard of the game could tell you it's PC and PC only. Their replies came at the pace of (not an exaggeration) 1 reply per 5 minutes at best (often it took more than 10 minutes to reply) and that's ignoring the fact you wait some 20 minutes to get to them in the first place and another 10 minutes for them to reply to you with a "Hello, how may I help you".

I'm not even getting into their EULA, that tried to circumvent a law that can't be circumvented (one of the chief statues of the Customer Protection law clearly states "Any part of the contract that writes off, denies or circumvents these rights is null and void"), these are the things that most regular people could tell you, not to mention anyone who's spent any time studying law.

For all of these reasons and more, Origin sucks. Yes, Steam has some of the same faults. Yes, Steam had a lot of these faults when it was starting, but Steam was pioneering most of these things. It's one thing to make mistakes when you're the first one to build something, it's another to make the same mistakes almost a decade later when that something has already been built time and again and done right by guys that have less means to do it right than you.

 

[Genocidicles]

I already have Steam, I'm not having something else that does the same thing (but worse) clogging up my computer too.

 

[Doom972]

Plus, unlike Steam, you don't actually need to have Origin open to play the games you downloaded with it.

That's not completely true. non-EA games and EA games that came before Battlefield 3 (Or Mass Effect 3?) work this way. Newer EA games require Origin to be working in the background.

 

[Kaymish]

because the Eula and privacy policy are scary i got it only for ME3 because i bought it at retail for cheaper than origin had it and im in NZ where retail price gouges us so that's even more price gouging from origin before i saw the game strong armed me into it and that's the only reason origin is ever started on this machine to play 1 game to be fair i should have expected the strong arming its not unprecedented some publishers force steam on people but i have 93 other games on steam so its not so much of a big deal

also i am afraid to mod my game i have on there even if they were fucked up royally because i might lose it even if i did buy it at retail and spend $40 on some dlc which was price worked too

 

[johnnnny guitar]

As an Australian massively offensive prices with EA as usual not lowering the price of games even years after release on top of that its just generally rather shit not GFWL shittyness but nearly anything isn't that shit

 

[OpticalJunction]

Game catalog is smaller
Sales are worse
Privacy is an issue moreso than with steam
Apart from those things, it is fairly similar to steam.

 

[Nomadiac]

It's run by EA, which is known for being a bunch of money-guzzling corporate bastards. And it has ridiculously offensive prices (in Australia, at least: $90 for MoH:WF Digital Deluxe Edition, and DA:O Ultimate Edition still costs $60 more than 2 years after release and 3 years after the original game). Also, that whole thing about scanning your computer, which I think they've changed now.

On the whole, it's not that bad, though. It doesn't crash, and it works simply enough as a game launcher. That's OK for me.

 

[Varrdy]

I don't so much hate it as resent having to install it just to play Mass Effect 3. It's not like I had ME 1 & 2 on Steam, I have all 3 games on good old-fashioned discs, so I can't really get arsey about swapping platforms. My gripe was that I wasn't going to download the game, just the DLC, and so why should I be forced to download Origin just for that? ME2 DLC didn't require me to go through Origin - the BSN handled it just fine. The download speeds are also a lot worse on Origin.

To me it smacked of EA saying they will take their ball home and not let you play with it unless you do it their way, which is desperately childish and I can't beleive that no-one at EA noticed this...not that they'd care! Steam was "pushed" on me in a similar way in that, when I bought Fallout: New Vegas, all the disc did was allow me to install Steam and download the game, which I thought was as mad as Sarah Palin on LSD. However Steam was popular, worked well and considering the alternative was Games for Windows: Live (which is what handled the achievements for Fallout 3), not the worst thing that ever happened to me. I never used GfWL as anything but an achivement-logger for FO3 and GTA4 and a means to get occasional game updates / patches. I did, on occasion, look through what games were on offer but none floated my boat. Not that I knew it at the time but, when I got my X-Box 360, my GfWL achievements transferred over, giving my gamerscore a little bit of a bump-up, which was nice.

Despite my misgivings, Steam has proven to be much better than GfWL and Origin. My catalogue of games is pitifully small but I have more downloaded games than hard-copies, the achievements track and I use one or two other little features that GfWL and Origin don't have.

Actually, now I come to think of it, because I only use Origin because I have to if I want to play ME3, I have just realised that it's more useless than GfWL in that it doesn't even track / register achievements - the game does that - and that pretty much says it all!

Finally, when I am finished playing ME3 and, as I invariably do, leave Origin running in the background, it is utterly unobtrusive...right up to the point I tell my PC to shutdown or restart. What happens is that Origin pops up, syncs up and then exits...and seemingly vetoes the shutdown / reboot command, which means I have to ask my PC to shutdown / reboot again.

Now this might be a perfectly innocent glitch, which has been overlooked and it's not like it's a massive irritation anyway, unless I forget it happens (which I do - a lot!) and end up leaving my PC switched on while I go out (I hate to waste power). However, because of EA's attitude, the way they handled my previous complaints to them (I.e they didn't), the spyware thing and their forcing of Origin upon me, I think it's their passive-agressive, sulky-child attitude manifesting in their software to remind me that I am a lesser mortal. I've been forced to play with Origin, even though I didn't want to, and when I say that I don't want to play anymore because I want / need to do something else and I am going now, it stamps it's feet, sticks it bottom lip out and pushes past you to get to the door, which it then slams in your face.

If all that were not enough reason to resent and dislike Origin, consider this. If a person acted in the manner outlined in the previous paragraph, you could retaliate in any number of ways without losing out (unless you took it a bit too far and wound up in The Nick!) but with Origin, you can't. Uninstall it and you can't play your games or access your DLC; complain to EA and they will cut you off.

For me then, that means I am stuck with Origin.

Great.

 

[RicoADF]

Recently in my ever continuing immigration to PC land from Xboxville I decided I wanted my Mass Effect games on the PC (Mostly so I could download a mod that makes the ending acceptable and so the people playing multiplayer weren't 12 year olds)

Now of course to get Mass Effect 3 I needed to use Origin, now I've had Origin for a while; I played the ME3 demo on it a while back and I tried out Battlefield 2142 on it, besides that I ignored it.

Using it now I have to ask, why is it so horrible exactly?

I mean sure its not the BEST game distribution downloader thing, and I doubt it's sales are nearly as good as Steams but overall its not offensive or horrible. Hell I managed to pick up the ME3 digital blah blah edition for about 40 bucks which isn't all that bad.

Did I miss the memo where Origin raped someones dog or what?

TL;DR
Why is Origin so hated?

I don't mind it, but I wont buy a game from it.
The issues I know of are:
- The EULA had clauses regarding scanning your computer without checking with the owner first (while it was likely just legal cover so they could scan systems to see what systems were popular and which were causing issues with their games the fact is it was worded badly and could be misused).
- People have been banned from the EA forums and then found they couldn't log into Origin due to them being the same account, thus having their games stolen from them. This was an issue which was due to technical error from what I've read and EA fixed it AFAIK, however the PR damage and stigma was already done.
- EA store charges high prices in Australia, even more than local retail, which is rediculas for a digital service especially when compared to other online stores. Even their sales aren't great, and while this may not be an issue for Americans (not sure) it has meant that the store side of things is useless to those from regions outside the US.

 

[SadisticBrownie]

I got it for the same reason, Mass Effect (bought the trilogy last week, played it on 360 on release). I don't hate it, but there were a few niggles. Despite having the disks, it insisted on downloading the whole ten gigs of ME3, and at a speed about 1/6th of Steam's average on my admittedly shitty internet. To be fair, Steam's done that a couple times too - forcing download when there is a disc to install from. It's also a pain to close completely, I had to end the process from task manager before I realised that if you right click the small icon on the taskbar you can exit it there.
In short, it's just not very user friendly or efficient. It's certainly not the antichrist, but I can't see it unseating Steam anytime soon.

 

[fix-the-spade]

Why is Origin so hated?

On BF3's release it didn't work, which accounts for a lot.

There's also the minor point that if you incur a ban on origin, EA can and frequently do just ban you from everything, including your single player games. Congratulations, your entire Origin library is now bricked, should you want to use any of those games ever again through Origin, you'll be setting up a new account and buying them again, full price.

Bear in mind that EA have induced blanket bans on people for such heinous crimes as questioning or complaining about a feature/bug on official EA forums.

Also, the use of mods in single player games, including altering the screen output settings. Congratulations, you just got banned for changing the aspect ratio...

Needless to say, my Origin account runs to BF3 and that's it. If I'd known just how draconian and occasionally insane I doubt I'd have ordered BF3 at all.

However, having said all that, it's still more reliable than either Uplay or GFWL.


#Edit, as a side note, Origin may not be around very long either. This is EA's fifth attempt at a Steam-like system, all of which have bled money because people buy non-EA games cheaper on other services or retail (for the record: EA Downloader, EA Link, EA Store and EA Download Manager).

 

[teebeeohh]

It was spyware for a time, once bitten twice shy and all that. It's EA' who have proven time and again that they see the customer as nothing but cashbags. And the name comes from a company ea bought' killed and then used for spare parts, imagine the sales robot at your second rate whatever store suddenly starts wearing your friends face as a mask

 

[ascorbius]

Obvious Troll bait thread is obvious, but I've not eaten lunch yet - so I'll bite.

If Origin and Steam had comparable catalogues of games, then it would simply be - Which shop do you choose to support.

Steam has a massive catalogue of games and EA have already forcibly removed some of their games from steam so they can be sold exclusively on Origin. Forcing you to install their service if you want to play their games.

I can see why EA would want to do this - Steam has a massive foothold in the PC gamers digital market and it'll be almost impossible for them to break in with their Shop Front of their own without resorting to shady practices. So shady practices it is...

I say almost impossible, because they could have done a better job by offering a competitive service to steam - but that would take time to get players to move over - Time is money and every dollar spent at a competitor is a wasted dollar in their eyes.

So EA make it so that you have to install Origin to play games you want to play. I mean face it - If it wasn't for the fact that Mass Effect 3 and Battlefield 3 were exclusive to Origin, who would have installed it? I had the exact same annoyance about Halflife2 years ago.. that rage has now subsided but I still resent Steam for making me install it - It does offer a good service in return though, so I forgive it.. mostly.

I will not install Origin until EA offer a service which makes it worth my while. They must offer some form of competitive service which I can choose which is the best for me - Like a comparable list of games at competitive prices, they can tack on whatever else they want which I might like as a bonus to lure me, but I want a choice beyond play or don't play.

The fact that there is a steam client and an origin client which must be run to play the games is a real problem. You have to be in the shop to play your games - It's fairly analogous to the old Arcades in that respect. If their particular shop goes under - you can't play your games any more. This is a REAL PROBLEM. Big companies go under FACT!.

As it stands, I have Steam installed. I do not want to have to install Origin installed too. But if I did have to, I'd like to choose which one I purchased from to get the best deal for myself..

But then I'm left with the situation of having to start the correct service to play the games I want or leave them both running consuming memory and network bandwidth.

Imagine the situation in a few years time if this continues.

4 or 5 different Steamesque clients running. One for Valve, one for EA, one for Microsoft... One for the company who takes THQs place. maybe one for Amazon.

Consider this.. Who would have thought that THQ would have folded? What if you had a Steam style THQ client to run their exclusive games and then they tanked.. It happens..


So in answer to the OP question, the reason I don't like EA is because it doesn't offer any competition and strongarms people into using it.
There's nothing more annoying than having freedoms taken away apart from when they are taken away and someone tries to tell you it's for your own good.. Don't piss on me and tell me it's raining.

 

[barbzilla]

There were a few reasons. I will try to list the more obscene ones for you, but they still aren't bad enough for me to "hate" the service. I use the service personally (mainly because I had no choice, and they gave me 2 free games as an apology for one of their fuck ups) for a few games. Their sales used to be absolutely horrible, but now they are "trying" to make it more appealing. Even though they take years to do so, they do listen to customer feedback on it. Anyhow, without further adieu I give you the reasons Origin is so reviled;

-Origin was originally a giant piece of spyware. They did this to scan your system for pirated EA games and to collect non-personal data to sell to data miners (at least if you believe their quarterly reports). This was an absolute deal breaker for many people, myself included. It wasn't long before they removed it though.

-EA pulled all of its games from the Steam Marketplace to force players to use Origin over Steam. This was seen as a bad public relations move because it forced people's hands if they wanted to play EA games. This one bothered me a little bit, but not enough to keep from using the service. EA eventually came to their senses and allowed Valve to continue selling the EA products that they already had on Steam.

-Origin had this nasty habit of banning your entire account if you got banned in a game or any of the EA forums. This was an especially vile practice as it could potentially cause you to lose hundreds of dollars worth of products that you owned. This means if you were to be banned on the Mirror's Edge forums, you would lose access to your account and all of the games you had purchased on it. They eventually changed this practice (but I am not sure if it was a retroactive change or not) to where when you get banned on a product, it is just that product that is effected.

-EA originally over priced everything on Origin. In many cases they would price stuff higher than it was retail if you could find a physical copy. This was because EA knew it had a monopoly on that market. If people wanted to buy a downloadable EA product, they had to do it through Origin. So they thought they could charge whatever they wanted. People voted with their wallets and got that practice changed as well.

-Origin's final nail (at least as far as I can remember) is that it was a major resource hog. When it came out 4gb of ram was the usual high end. Meanwhile Origin would eat up half of a gb just sitting in the background. This was a major issue for many people as they didn't run with 4gb, it was way more common to run with 2gb on a mid range machine.

None of these things are particular cause for Hate in my opinion (well the banning thing could be if you lost a lot of money on it), but that is how people reacted. It was probably a combination of everything Origin did wrong and everything EA has done in the past that causes so much disdain, but it is an individual choice for each and every person.

 

[Assassin Xaero]

Few reasons why I don't like it:

1. It is yet another launching platform I'd have to install on my computer (on top of Steam, GFWL, and maybe another one or two I'm forgetting - Gamefly might be one).

2. They started off with this "you pay full price to rent the game for a year" model, and I've had games for over a year (even on consoles) that I bought and haven't played yet. Some games I'll play, then a few years later want to play again, but with that model, I'd have to pay for it again. Guess they removed it, but still don't trust them after that.

 

[m19]

I have Origin for BF3. So far I have no reason to hate it. Also unlike Steam the off-line mode works.

 

[Antari]

Because there is a Ea logo on it and gamer are nothing but whiney crybabies.

(yea bite me but honesty gamers sorta deserve that rep in my reguard.)

Then enjoy having your games stolen from you someday by EA lawyers. I won't even bother saying, "I told you so". You deserve it.

 

[Tdoodle]

I think I've only used it to download The Sims 3 expansions for my girlfriend during the Christmas sale. It's just sort of sat there for a year before then. Can't say I hate it, but some of the stuff I've read in the thread is worrying.