EA Listens #2: Making Origin more "gamer-focused"

[Xuphor]

EA's somewhat maligned digital download games service, which has several of its games on it exclusively, is apparently getting some tweaks to the way it all works from the legal/purchase perspective. The service has previously drawn criticism for a number of reasons including its terms of use and banning users from forums which in turn banned them from games. More criticism usually seems to come from EA being the occasional villain of the week in games world and because it keeps some of its games off the near dominant digital games platform "Steam", a move we shall dub "that's called business".

We get it. We understand it. We have heard, we have made some changes already in terms of how we do things, and we're looking at more changes that we'll talk about over the coming months that really are gamer-focused.

http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/06/27/ea-changing-origin-to-focus-on-gamers
Gamesindustry.biz article that saw this stuff said

Don't use Origin myself (nor Steam), so I can't say what's good/bad here, but their other change was a huge hit (removing online-passes entirely form games), so I'm assuming this is too.

 

[Gahars]

I don't know, can EA be redeemed for its Origin-al sin?

Seriously, though, I love Valve, but the last thing I want is for Steam to completely dominate the market. Companies and services need competition to keep them from complacency. The better a competitor Origin is, the better Steam will be for it.

 

[Rydian]

So what the hell was it before!?!?

 

[The Catboy]

So what the hell was it before!?!?

EA's bullshit bloatware that they forced on you just to enjoy your games.

 

[BORTZ]

uh, why do I feel like it should have been this way all along?

 

[Minox]

I believe it when I see it.

EA has a known track-record for saying nice and lovely things only to do something less nice instead later on.

 

[geishroy]

I don't know, can EA be redeemed for its Origin-al sin?

Seriously, though, I love Valve, but the last thing I want is for Steam to completely dominate the market. Companies and services need competition to keep them from complacency. The better a competitor Origin is, the better Steam will be for it.

steam hasn't had any competition since it launched, they are just fair.

 

[Law]

What? Sure they do. GreenManGaming, Amazon Digital, Good Old Games, GamersGate. Just because some games are Steamworks and have Steam Keys doesn't mean Steam isn't losing a slice of that money pie.*

I wouldn't trust anything Origin wise. I'm fairly certain they still ban you for complaining about poor service on their forums, which then locks you out of all of your games.


*As an example, Mortal Kombat 9 Komplete is releasing on PC soon. It isn't on the Steam store at all, yet GreenManGaming are selling pre-orders with a 25% discount code. It's a Steamworks game, and Steam are losing sales to their competition.

 

[jacksprat1990]

Get fucked EA. You're pathetic.

 

[The Milkman]

So what the hell was it before!?!?

An online cookbook. God damn Rydain, get on the ball.

 

[raulpica]

Please EA, just drop Origin and get all your games back on Steam, since nobody will ever care about Origin.

Thanks,
Everyone

 

[nukeboy95]

Please EA, just drop Origin and get all your games back on Steam, since nobody will ever care about Origin.

Thanks,
Everyone

I second this

 

[Gahars]

steam hasn't had any competition since it launched, they are just fair.

I wouldn't say that. Beyond indirectly competing with retail locations, they contend with services like GoG (which has equally strong deals and no DRM whatsoever) and even Amazon (Amazon actually had better deals than Steam during its last big sale - seriously, you could get Bioshock 1 and 2 and Spec Ops: The Line for under $10). There's plenty of others out there as well. Steam dominates, sure, but it's domination is not completely unquestioned.

A serious rival, one that could actually go toe-to-toe with Steam, would be even better. EA has the capitol to produce such a service, if they can get their shit together first.

 

[Rydian]

I got Bioshock 1+2 for $5 each on Steam. But then again this is during the summer/halloween sales, which are amazing.

But yeah people don't want to compete with Steam too hard because saying "lower the prices" to an average company triggers a defense mechanism that involves them shitting somebody else's pants and nobody wants to deal with that.