EA's New Direct Download Service - Origin. 50% Sale

[Hack&Lube]

EA's started it's new direct download service called Origin to compete with the likes of Steam. There are a pile of top EA titles at half off:

http://store.origin.com/store/ea/en_...spktn0vwwwwsrn

[Hemi-Cuda]

this pisses me off. i couldn't pre-order Battlefield 3 on steam because of EA trying to bring everything in house, so to get the limited edition pre-order i had to use Origin. but i don't want to have another gaming network that i need to be logged into. Steam is so great because almost everyone is on it, now if more companies start following EA's route it's going to fragment things

[Mazrim]

Originally Posted by Hemi-Cuda

this pisses me off. i couldn't pre-order Battlefield 3 on steam because of EA trying to bring everything in house, so to get the limited edition pre-order i had to use Origin. but i don't want to have another gaming network that i need to be logged into. Steam is so great because almost everyone is on it, now if more companies start following EA's route it's going to fragment things

Yeah, and if it's anything like EA's user account system for their games, it's going to be annoying as hell.

[WilsonFourTwo]

Are you suggesting that the "Origin" system will be required to play BF3?

[Azure]

Neither system should be required to play any game. No problem being able to purchase games online, but I shouldn't have to be logged in order to play.

[Byrns]

I'm sticking to Steam and Impulse. I'll only buy from EA if I can activate on Steam...

I can wait it out.

[photon]

Or just buy it in the store.

[Rathji]

Originally Posted by photon

Or just buy it in the store.

That's just crazy talk.

(not to mention more expensive in almost all cases)

[Bob]

I believe Origin limits the amount of time you can re-download titles after they are released. It used to be 1 year (IIRC), but now I think they bumped it up to 2 years.

[SebC]

Originally Posted by Bob

I believe Origin limits the amount of time you can re-download titles after they are released. It used to be 1 year (IIRC), but now I think they bumped it up to 2 years.

That's really, really lame.

[Rathji]

^
I agree. One of the reasons I love Steam is I dont have to have everything installed at one time. Disk space is cheap, but that would be borderline absurd, and I dont have that many games.

[Hack&Lube]

I love Steam as much as everyone else but doesn't it bother people when one company has a virtual monopoly on a certain market? More competition is always a good thing to drive prices down for consumers.

[Rathji]

Originally Posted by Hack&Lube

I love Steam as much as everyone else but doesn't it bother people when one company has a virtual monopoly on a certain market? More competition is always a good thing to drive prices down for consumers.

Steam most certainly doesn't have a monopoly on game sales.

Even if you considered it a semi-monopoly due to the medium, I am far less concerned about the pricing in the current system than about features and flexibility. For example: The ability to download games again, or ability to easily backup games to reduce the need to re-download them.

If anything, I am more concerned that EA will dictate terms, despite being the new player in online sales, due to the stranglehold they have on certain titles and genres.

[photon]

Originally Posted by Rathji

That's just crazy talk.

(not to mention more expensive in almost all cases)

That's true, though in this case it's the same (well Origin will be in $US and no GST but after CC fees it'll probably be a wash, or a few $ cheaper).

Originally Posted by Hack&Lube

I love Steam as much as everyone else but doesn't it bother people when one company has a virtual monopoly on a certain market? More competition is always a good thing to drive prices down for consumers.

Steam delivers games from other studios and producers though, not just Valve, and Steam itself is free, so is it really a monopoly? I guess Valve might have some power over those who want to put their products on Steam.

It's a double edged sword I guess. On one hand competition is good, but on the other hand it's more convenient for the user to have a single system.

It's like IM, I'd rather just have one installed rather than having MSN and Yahoo and Skype and ICQ and Google Talk and all the other ones installed. One can be more innovative, but that usually doesn't outweigh the cost of switching (you have to give your new contact info to your dozens or hundreds of contacts, they all have to install the new one if they have it, etc).

I will literally order BF3 from the store rather than install EA Origin and have yet another content delivery system installed, a new login to maintain, a new place to maintain a friends list (of likely the same people).

It'd be like having Email be different for each client, I can't email you because you use outlook and I use thunderbird, so I have to install both to email all my friends.

I wish they'd get together and establish a shared protocol or gateways or whatever so they could still all do their own stuff, but the IDs and achievements and whatever would get shared across the different systems. That defeats the whole purpose of having separate systems though, they want to lock you into their stuff.

[ComixZone]

I snagged Bulletstorm. Origin seems like a pretty solid game client...not that we needed another one, but oh well - it doesn't get in the way of anything.