Origin Download Service

If it will sell only EA games (which is a likely possibility, I admit) it will become just a glorified DRM with some extra tricks, and will turn into just another unremarkable failure in the long run.

However considering that Steam began in a same way- as a store exclusively for Valve games and developed from that, I am willing to not damn Origin just yet.

edited 22nd Jun '11 3:40:14 PM by Drakovicz

The difference is that people like Valve games.

And they treat gamers good (EA Has a bad record on that) and encourage the indie game scene, and are not obstructive to other companies that sell on Steam.

EA has no idea what its doing. It is just going to be glorified DRM more people need to be installed (The Old Republic will not be sold digitally anywhere else. Idiots.)

"Has its own ideas" doesn't necessarily mean "doesn't know what it's doing", outside the minds of anti-EA crusaders.

edited 22nd Jun '11 4:08:23 PM by Nohbody

So it comes down to "Steam > Origin cuz EA suckz and Valve Rockz!!!"? Really?

edited 22nd Jun '11 4:11:38 PM by Drakovicz

Pretty much, yeah.

Lets just say Valve has had better PR than EA.

And no, it has to do with the fact Steam has the sales and the majority of games, and the userbase.

I'm just gonna point out that EA publishes way, way many more games than Valve does. Yes, Valve's games are consistently great, but EA has a ton of games in its portfolio. The Old Republic and Battlefield 3 don't begin to cover it. Origin may not be the best competitor to Steam, but I sincerely doubt it will be lacking for content.

Orgin will (thankfully fail) IMO. Really, competing with Steam (or any other established competitor) is fully possible with some common business sense. Establish something that sets you apart from Steam and retail.

Go G does well enough by marketing itself as 1:DRM free 2:Cheep on all games all the time 3:A library that is mostly quality and old titles.

Lower prices is a possible option for EA, they are only paying for bandwith (As far as I can tell, that costs pennies a GB as far as I can find) with no cost taken by retailer's cut, shipping or storage and own the "star" games, getting rid of most price requirements set by publishers, so they could easily cut say... 10 bucks off retail or Steam's cost on a permanent basis. No DRM is also an option that would set you apart, though the big publishers have a hardon for it because they don't realize it doesn't work.

edited 22nd Jun '11 4:16:55 PM by deuxhero

^^Yeah, but considering that at least three of EA's franchises have been in a slump, that narrows down the content that could spell success.

Plus, there's also the fact that Valve hosts Indie games and recently hosts some Free-to-Play games as well. EA has less in that regard.

edited 22nd Jun '11 6:44:40 PM by RocketDude

This doesn't need to compete with Steam to be a success for EA. It just needs to sell games that Steam doesn't, presumably EA games. In that sense, it's just cutting out the middleman so Valve doesn't siphon a portion of their profits from online sales. At the cost of having to run such a service themselves.

Blizzard already has their own online store that works kinda like Steam, but no one cares because they didn't give it a name and it only sells Blizzard games.

edited 22nd Jun '11 6:51:46 PM by Clarste

So Devolver Digital (of Serious Sam fame) took an amusing potshot at this.

^Heh, I know where the name "Krundle" came from: The Serious Sam HD advert-thing.

edited 29th Jul '11 8:06:21 PM by RocketDude