EA's Origin Service To Go Mobile

Electronic Arts recently launched their own digital distribution platform named Origin, a merging of various similar services they've operated in the past and a direct competitor to Steam. The two rivals have already butted heads over DLC distribution, with Valve's business terms forcing Crysis 2 off Steam. (And this may be just the first shot in the upcoming content distribution wars, though EA says it will continue to allow downloads through other outlets, and that Origin could support games from other publishers in the future.) Now, EA has announced that Origin will include some degree of cross-platform support, and will try to battle Apple's Game Center on iOS devices.

They didn't force

[geekoid]

Crysis 2 off. The DLC wouldn't mean their Terms of agreement. Terms that EA was well aware of.

This is EA being dicks and create a DLC they new would allow them to get out of their contract with steam regarding Crysis 2.

waiting...

[spire3661]

I have had Origin installed and setup just like Steam since it came out. IM a big fan of competition and Origin has the chance of being a serious contendor. Its just a tiny catalog of their titles right now. They need about 20 bullet points filled now. I even checked to see if they had anything to counter the Big Steam Summer Sale. Nothin, Zero, Zilch, Bubkiss


If they want to be taken seriously they need to get their ass in gear and make it badass with all the lovely niceties steam has. You can bet you

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[alostpacket]

Yeah but this is EA we're talking about here. It's like saying "if only the big-evil-money-sucking-conglomerate would get in the game, we'd see some competition!"

Origin != Origin?

[MrEricSir]

The summary confused the hell out of me. Apparently it's talking about some service called Origin, which has nothing to do with the game developer company named Origin that EA acquired.

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[Hsien-Ko]

The other "Origin" going mobile was cut. Crusader for PSP was cancelled a long time ago. :(

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[demonbug]

The summary confused the hell out of me. Apparently it's talking about some service called Origin, which has nothing to do with the game developer company named Origin that EA acquired.

Origin as an internal development team was disbanded years ago, early 2000's I think.

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[gl4ss]

the origin that created worlds was effectively disbanded mid '90s. big money(ea) somehow made them do closets, not worlds.

Valve has a foothold

[trunicated]

and it's going to take some killer features for EA to be able to get people to not only use their service, but to pick it over Steam. The problem is, I can't think of anything that EA can offer me outside of "Only on Origin" games that would lead me to actually use it over Steam. I don't have any real gripes over Steam, and I don't know anyone that really does.

EA is just trying to get a piece of the digital distribution pie, but they haven't brought anything new or better to the table. It feels like this

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[perlchild]

I feel I just HAVE to correct you.
Apple's app store and steam ARE competing. EA isn't competing, EA is asking you to load some bloat onto your pc to send you to a web site on their server so you can load third parties of various dubious quality to buy DLC and downloadable game, and has seperate, incomptatible lobbies for each game, on top of that.

Steam and Apple understand the new reality of downloading content and online multiplayer. EA would have trouble finding it if it bit them in the ass.

To ea I sugg

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[Krazy Kanuck]

If it gets to the point of EA exclusives being only through their services, or not on steam, or not all features/DLC on steam, then EA can keep their games. I may be a bit of a Steam/Valve fanboi, but in the 3+ years I've been a customer they've never made me feel like some peasant serf that EA has proven to do so many times in the past. In my book EA is right up there with Sony.

EA will fail

[rahvin112]

EA will as always fail. They will put this quarters revenue above the customer. They will likely engage is borderline illegal behavior (probably electronic surveillance of their customers, including maybe even keyloggers). They will terminate any service that isn't making money, even after promising at sale that it will remain as long as customers want. They will deliberately shut down games when new versions come out to force purchases. And if successful they will probably charge a monthly fee after promising the service will remain free. They will charge for reinstall. They will limit the service in every way possible to increase revenue. They will soak the customer at every opportunity, including I can see them charging extra for things like steam community.

EA is run by MBA's who are only in the game for this quarters profit and bonus. Valve is a company run by game players and developers for the same.

Personally I will no longer buy EA or UbiSoft titles. The BS (Safedisc5 with limited reinstalls) they have been pulling lately along with all their anti-consumer policies has completely evaporated any desire I have to play a single one of their games, regardless or title or quality. I've been burned one too many times by these terrible companies and I will not EVER give them another dollar again. I'd prefer if they abandon the PC entirely instead of fostering half ass console ports on the PC world. Let them leave the PC space to Valve and other companies that can competently produce PC games. I have several hundred games on Steam, I'm in their ideal target age range and have a disposable income that allows me to buy games that hit my fancy and they will never ever see another dime from me.

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[twocows]

Mod parent up. EA's customer service is horrible. I decided to give Origin a preliminary try because I wanted to get Battlefield 2142 (one of the few BF games I haven't played the full version of; I loved the demo). I tried to register BF2, which the support documents led me to believe could be registered with the service if I had a physical copy.

I talked to a customer service rep for about two hours after about three searching for how I could possibly do this with their broken links and various other prob

Waiting for the Origin Summer Sale!

[TheRedDuke]

Then I'll be able to buy some extra activations for my copy of Spore cheap!

redundant comment to undo moderation slip

[MrHanky]

yarr, EA sucks.

Not even for BF3

[fevi]

As much as I want Battlefield 3... EA's going to lose at least a few sales if they abandon Steam like they are. Between myself and my seven housemates, none of us have bought a PC game disc in years... All we need, we get digitally (console games being another story, of course). Hell, my gaming rig doesn't even have a CD/DVD drive at all.

I sure don't trust EA's digital distribution platform, so unless the game comes to Steam, EA's losing up to 8 sales from myself and my housemates, per game! None of us boug

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[spire3661]

Things change. Im sure that Crytek thought they would still be on Steam.

Bobby Kotick up to his usual self-destruction

[billcopc]

Going against Steam, at this point in time when they're extremely well established, is suicide. People already hate EA for a dozen reasons, what makes them think we are going to gleefully hand over all our PII and credit card numbers just to play the latest DLC operating system ? Because that's what their games are rapidly becoming: a vehicles to sell add-ons. The damn DLC is planned before the first line of code is ever written, before the first storyboard is sketched, before half the damn staff is even

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[Dutch Gun]

Kotick is Activition/Blizzard, not EA. It takes someone pretty special to be even MORE hated than EA, but he's somehow managed it.

Origin and Steam

[MBraynard]

Steam isn't anything special and Origin is similarly nothing special. Just another way to buy games (or apps) digitally. I have both and have bought games from both. Nothing special.

It makes sense for each publisher to have their own digital storefront and cut out the middleman.

Be a fan boy about games, not about, uhm, digital commerce distribution platforms.