Blogs Why We Need Origin

Since its announcement and subsequent inclusion as a pre-requisite to play Battlefield 3, EA’s re-branded online store, Origin, has been causing plenty of discussion. Opponents argue that Steam already serves as an online digital distribution service, as well as a match-making system, day-one DRM system and game browser; with Steam already providing these services, why must EA force Origin on us?

http://www.bit-tech.net/blog/gaming/2011/10/06/why-we-need-origin/

 

When you have 8gb of ram you can have alot of junk open and still play games just fine

 

"The result is a service that, unchecked, is speeding towards a monopoly of the PC gaming digital distribution market, and it’s one that needs competition."

The big problem is that compilation only cuts prices where they're competing with the same goods. If EA and Valve are both selling the same games, then great, I'll buy whoever has it cheaper and so will 90% of the population. But if there is no overlap, say if EA games are not on Steam and non-EA games are not on Origin, there's no competition.

 

I play on 4GB of ram, with steam open ( to run the overlay) running origin in the background ( a requirement of bf3) while having the memory sink hole that is chrome (to run the BF3 battlog / server browser) and i manage just fine.

I agree origin can coexist with steam - but they need to have a restructure of their pricing before they see any major increase in digital sales through their service.

Why would I pay more for a digital copy, when I can get the disc delivered to my door for £10 less?

Digital stores should be matching online physical copies and then they will see the benifits of increased sales and adpotion!

Valve /Steam know what they are doing, take some lessons and pointers from Portal 2 for example; £30 game - pre order and save 10%, few months later run an offer for £20, then release some FREE DLC and charge £10. You encompass all types of customers, the pre-orderer's, the early adopters, the 'waiting for the first sale' and the £10 budget bin.

Not to mention how cheap they will go afterwards, taking onboard those that maybe even pirated the game (not a lost sale) when they reduce it to <£5.

 

I wouldn't mind Origin if it worked anything like as well as Steam. Unfortunately, it doesn't and given how long it's been available (as EADM) there's no indication that it ever will. Awful platform.

 

Fair play for EA for trying - still not interested. As soon as I heard that BF3 required it, I cancelled my pre-order. EA's only product I wanted was the BF series, so I am not missing much by skipping origin.

 

People are taught to fear a monopoly. As if such things are inherently corrupt. But if anything a monopoly will give you the best possible solution, provided it is handled well. Steam has shown no signs of turning it's power against the gaming community, in fact with all the sales and special offers they are doing more to help us than ever. Trying to compete with Steam head on is somewhat foolish given their headstart. You need to come from another angle, offering the same end result to the consumer which providing it in a strategically different way. Thus i would argue something like OnLive is more likely to eat into Steams market share. Not in it's current format perhaps, but as the technology improves certainly. If fact i wrote about such things on my blog: http://playtogetherstaytogether.co.uk/?p=488

 

Origin isn't that bad, however the problem is that Origin doesn't offer any compelling or reasonable imrovement over steam.

 

I agree with the article wholeheartedly - everyone regards Valve as a god who can do no wrong, when they themselves lock Valve games to be Steam only - plenty of people don't actually like Steam, but they're stuck with it. How is EA somehow evil because they've done the same thing?

As for the subject of pricing, Steam's sales are good, but even then you'll often find the games cheaper elsewhere (IE: physical copy). Normal pricing is poor as well though - basically charging RRP, much like EA. It remains to be seen what EA will do with Origin to try and gain a huge following like Steam, probably in sales, but they've had good offers in the past, discount vouchers and so on (I bought Shift 2 from Origin/EA Store for £19.99 when it was only a couple of quid cheaper elsewhere, but I had a £10 voucher (had to spend over a certain amount), so I essentially got Bad Company 2: Vietnam for free. Those games on Steam at the time equated to £15 more total. (IE, I spent £20 on Origin, would be looking at £35 on Steam).

EA have done well with the servers (Steam sale downloads anyone? "Nooo, you can't download that foolish mortal, there are too many people downloading"), and I reach a higher download speed (and consistently) on them than on Steam (Steam's not exactly slow, but it's rare that it fully saturates my 50Mb connection, especially for any period of time).

 

I grabbed Origin for FIFA 12 and it's okay. I can't be arsed with the social side of it, I think Steam completely stole the march there, but can't really blame EA for trying.

Much as I use steam and actually like it I've always resented the prices, which are ridiculously high, coupled with the sales tactics (massive discounts on games for a short duration that ought really to have a budget price point by default). More competition can't hurt too much.

 

WOW that's so sad!

 

I don't dislike Origin, but at the same time, I don't think the way they've intergrated BF3 into it is that good. Even if you ignore Battlelog, why do we have two sets of friends, one for Origin and one for BF3? This could be excused if it was a 3rd party game - e.g. Company of Heroes on my steam does this - but it's not. It's the game that's supposed to push Origin.

It's not really competitive either. Games being more expensive than retail counterparts is just silly, especially when they need to gain some market share. Yes steam does this too, but steam is established, and works 90% of the time, it's not trying to break into the market and has a friends system that actually updates when people are Online/Offline/In-game, and

Last but not least, the controversy over EA considering banning people over joining the hacked servers for BF3 is worrying. Fair enough, you don't want 3rd party servers. i don't agree but fair enough. What isn't fair is that fact you are considering banning people who join these servers when they are available in Battlelog and can be joined with the Quickmatch Button.

 

to be honest, as an application, origin is fine. Works OK and has a good layout, however at the moment, it does still suffer from EA pricing.

 

I like competition. it always benefits the consumer. But as post #2 says, this doesn't looks like competition as this is the only platform on which you will be able to play EA PC games. Perhaps you will be able to pay for them elsewhere but it won't drive the development of the plat form forward and Development is what the platform desperately needs.

When you compare the Steam distribution model to the Origin model, Origin is woefully lacking. A couple of bugbears that I have with Origin are that patches are downloaded and then installed in a rather noisy fashion that requires user interaction, unlike Steam which will silently keep my games up to date in the background. Also, no option to start minimized means that I don't launch Origin on Windows start up.

I'm sure the latter can be changed but will they ever have a smooth patching process? That's a big piece of development and I'm, thinking they probably won't ever bother.

If Origin embraces titles from other publishers, then we'll have worthwhile competition. I hope the service improves and does well for all our sakes.

 

I had no problem with the requirement to have origin. I had no problem with Origin's own social aspects. But the BF3 beta friends system is the single worst implemented social networking client I have ever encountered. That is not hyperbole, it is worse than every iteration of facebook chat. It is worse than myspace. It is worse than GFWL. It is hideous on a level that makes me genuinely angry.

 

But Dicebook chat has VOIP! Not that we care......

 

I was very opposed to it, but it seems to work, as much as I like steam it does need competition, but this is certainly not near to competing fully...

Only if steam could sell games @£25/29 new like on Amazon etc!

 

Origin is owned by EA, I wouldn't trust EA with anything - they will screw you over the first chance they get. We are just a source of income and hence a way of getting their share price up. EA traditionally have been viewed as a nasty company, the only reason we forget that is Activision is even worse.

Steam is owned by Valve who have over the years proved much more interested in gamers (see endless TF2 updates). They are privately owned so don't even have any shareholders to placate.

 

I think its great that Steam is getting some more heavy weight competition but am disappointed that EA have gone the full steam DRM integration route instead of the more customer fair GOG.COM route of no DRM.

What we really need is for these services to be optional so if people want to play single player or in a lan then an external client is not required.

 

I agree with the point that competition is always good for digital distribution, but it feels like Origin is much more intrusive compared to Steam. If you read Origin Terms of Service, you'll find that the agreement you have to sign is a bit vague:

You agree that EA may collect, use, store and transmit technical and related information that identifies your computer (including the Internet Protocol Address), operating system, Application usage (including but not limited to successful installation and/or removal), software, software usage and peripheral hardware, that may be gathered periodically to facilitate the provision of software updates, dynamically served content, product support and other services to you, including online services. EA may also use this information combined with personal information for marketing purposes and to improve our products and services. We may also share that data with our third party service providers in a form that does not personally identify you.

Also:

EA reserves the right to monitor communications on the Application and disclose any information EA deems necessary to (i) ensure your compliance with this License; (ii) satisfy any applicable law, regulation or legal process; (iii) protect the rights, property and interests of EA, its employees or the public. EA also reserves the right to edit, refuse to transfer and/or to remove any information or materials, in whole or in part, in EA’s sole discretion.

It seems to me that EA is more interested in gathering information for marketing purposes, plus the bit about editing information is a cause for concern. Why should I agree with letting EA alter my files without asking for my permission first?

I'm not sure, but I think that EA intentionally left its TOS slightly vague so that it can get away with gathering as much information as possible.

Moreover, Valve is a private company with years of reputation as a reliable and caring organisation. Meanwhile, EA has been criticised over the years with its shoddy management practices, poor treatment of employees, and restrictive DRM. Since EA is a public company, it's much more 'corporate' and constantly under pressure by the shareholders to create maximum potential profits. Not saying that there's anything wrong with that, but that means some of their plans may not be in our best interest.