News Origin looted with infinite voucher

Of course I don't have to buy them, I've not played any EA Game that requires Origin.

What I want is a digital distribution system for pc games that sells all games. You know, just like game or amazon do with physical games, but instead of physical media with digital distribution, if I want to buy a physical copy of Mass Effect 3 I can choose from various shops, why does that not apply for digital distribution other than plain greed and preventing competition?

 

Must say I've had nothing but problems with steam. The downloads are slow, the games just plain break (I have no clue why but I have to keep repairing the files) and offline mode doesn't work at all for me. I'm currently without Internet at home until next week, I've found that Steam naturally can't connect (well there isn't a connection...) so asks if I want to play offline. I click yes and boom it tells me that it can't connect to the server... Always been fond of an OFFLINE system that requires you to be ONLINE to use it. Interesting to see that EA realised it would be a good PR move to uphold the purchases.

 

Misinformation about Origin is big business for teh fanboys.

 

You get 30-40Mb out of steam and you're bitching about it?! Cry me a river dude, I wish I had the option of ordering and paying for even half of your 100Mb connection! You should be stoked that you get 30-40Mb! And besides, hours to download a game on 30-40Mb is something I'd like to see, I just bought War of The Roses last night and it took ONE hour to download at between 2-3Mb! Where I live 25 Mb is the max, and that's what I have. I never see that speed unless I'm doing a speed test though lol. They have just started rolling out 50 Mb "Wideband" in areas around me so maybe soon!


On a side note, people seem to forget how long it has taken Valve to get steam to this point. It's been out what, 5-6 years? Origin is pretty new in comparison, so of course there will be problems.

 

Took me less than 10 minutes to download boarderlands 2 on release day with steam. Origin won't see a download for a few years at least on my pc, installed it for bf3, played through the problems for as long as I could stand (82 hours). Of my six friends that got pc bf3, no one plays bf3 or has origin installed anymore.

 

I absolutely loved everything about BF3 the game, I didn't even mind Origin really. What really pissed me off was the poor excuse for a server browser / match maker that was battlelog. I would either have to dig through servers and wait 5-10 minutes for the game to load up (i7, 12 GB RAM, GTX 570 = no excuse for long load times), or I would have it find me a match automatically and still have to wait 5-10 minutes only to be stuck into a dead or dying server half the time. If BF3 had the same server browser system as Bad Company 2 I would STILL be playing it! As of right now I have Bad Company 2 and the Vietnam DLC install, but no BF3 installed.

 

It shouldn't be taken as good will, or PR that EA are "letting" user keep the products. I expect the real situation to be that they simply do not have any legal escape to recover their losses. A contract was made to the "lucky XXXXXXXs people", and I don't see how it can be broken. Also the E-Commerce is ran by Digital River, a familiar name to me for some reason.

 

We're really not THAT far away from not being able to buy physical copies at all. Jump forward 10 years, when you're all sporting Gigabit connections at home, will you even WANT a physical copy? Digital delivery is the future and naturally businesses will want to capture the biggest portion of that market as they can.

If you were a chief exec at EA who was losing, say, 20% of the revenue from every purchase to a competing company, would you not want to bring that in-house? Why do people think that the likes of EA are in business to be anything other than money-hungry business? Maybe EA (who have lost A LOT of money in recent years) need that extra % to stay afloat, keep people in jobs etc. Maybe if they went under and we didn't get any more Dragon Ages, Mass Effects or Battlefields you'll be happier somehow?

PS:- Game is possibly the worst example you could have ever used, considering the exclusivity deals they pull ON companies like EA to make sure you couldn't buy certain versions from anyone other than themselves....

 

I just like the way people don't appear to be making a feature comparison in the Origin vs Steam battle. I'm a Steam user and wouldn't think of buying a game on Origin. Why would I want to use an inferior product? Where is the community integration? Where are my screenshots? Where are my videos? Where are the game hubs? Where is the true community driven indie support? Where are my achievements? Where is my backup and restore feature? Where is the controller driven, console beating and incredibly responsive dashboard that is The Big Picture? Where is my huge game catalog and most important of all, where is the company I actually trust? The answer is Valve's Steam.

Not for one second would I trust EA with all of those things, nevermind the fact that they don't offer most of them. Yes Steam has problems sometimes but it remains a superior service. If EA actually caught up and shown signs that they are actually concentrating on that service as a real means to enhance the gaming experience on PCs as well as supporting indie developers so much then I would be able to consider it but there are no signs of that happening yet and it most likely won't for a while.

I will be losing out on EA games but to be honest I'm not that fussed, they don't really offer anything I'm that bothered about these days, I still have my account with BF3 on it but I haven't played in months. I won't even pirate their games as some sort of signal like some silly people do, I'll just be happy without them

 

I've been out of the loop for a while, so can someone tell me if the story of Origin scanning through your folders and reporting it back to EA is true or just scaremongering?

 

EA probably did this on purpose to get people to actually use Origin.

 

I have to ask...*what* Origin vs Steam battle? They're not mutually exclusive...you can run both...you don't have to choose one or the other. This "battle" exists only in the minds of the people who want to take a side to make some kind of ill-conceived point about what publishers/distributors should or should not be doing.

The winning side is the one that chose both sides.

 

I don't know if anybody has pointed this out, but they deactivated the entire coupon, meaning those who didn't go and whore the store and wanted to take their time over how they spend their money, did NOT get the voucher.

Those who exploited it, triumphed. Those who did not, lost out.

 

What Happened.

Oh it's such a shame that these people got a handful of free games they can only use on our locked in platform. I know, we'll let them KEEP them, out of the goodness of our hearts, it was our mistake after all.

What Really Happened.

Marketing Droid 1: Let's accidentally let people download unlimited games by not capping this voucher. Even with the fastest downloads they won't get a lot - and let's face it they wouldn't have bought them anyway so we lose no money. What we do get is a few hundred thousand more Origin users, who will be more inclined to see our production placements on our annual <Insert Sport Game Name Here> versions, Command & Conquer 17 and all the other repeated IP with a bit of extra chrome we churn out. They'll buy SOME of it and that's all that matters.

Marketing Droid 2: Two days of free games should be about enough. Let's do it.

Marketing Droid 3: The news sites will be talking about it for a week. Forum users all over the world will be upset they missed out. SOME OF THEM WILL ACTUALLY INSTALL ORIGIN TO SEE WHAT THE FUSS IS, AND BUY OUR GAMES. Marketing Droid 1, you deserve a pint. Heck, make that half a pint. We're not made of money. *sits on gold-plated airondack chair*

 

I think Zoon is spot on.

 

What REALLY Happened:

I missed out

 

Consult the previous comments that are putting Steam against Origin.

 

*facepalms*

Yes..thank you, I can read. It was a rhetorical question.

 

I felt like giving an unhelpful reply to an unhelpful reply.