Glancing through their webpage looks like you can get a bunch of THQ/Nordic stuff, lots of Lego games, SteamWorld Dig 2. I don’t see how it matters that Steam and Origin’s libraries aren’t 1 for 1, for many games I have a choice between the two. And if I have choice then they’re in competition for my money.
Even that sounds high to me, to be honest. I am not sure they even have a hundred third party titles.
That’s technically true, but I don’t think many folks consider Origin a real Steam competitor. The reality is in fact that nothing is a serious competitor to Steam, and frankly, that’s a problem. It’s not healthy for the market. But I doubt Kongregates Kartridge will be the one to do it.
I feel like they aren’t in serious competition unless they have enough selection that they are a reasonable place to check anytime you are shopping for a game. I don’t think that’s true of Origin. But there is also the question I asked earlier, which is “why would I buy from Origin and not Steam, if they’re on both?” I don’t mean ideology or whatever, I mean what does Origin offer as a selling point over Steam?
Yeah, maybe, I don’t know. I just have a hard time with the thought of shooting down a new client and any games they may carry just because it’s not Steam.
Origin Access
I feel like this is cutting closer to the heart of the problem. For me, I really truly don’t care where a game exists. If I can get it cheaper on Origin sure, I’ll play it there, I don’t care. I guess the corollary to this is that I don’t much care if my gaming library is somewhat fragmented, and I guess I could shortcut them in the Steam client if that bugged me. To me, the client is pretty much a commodity, I don’t feel any particular loyalty to any, I just care about the games. I’m guessing a bunch of you feel differently.
The problem is at this point so many people have extensive libraries on Steam. So unless Kartrdige can really incentivize folks to their side, no one is going to want to jump ship just to have yet another client installed on their desktop (which will, like all of them, constantly want updates, another thing you will want two-factor authentication with, another thing you have to wiggle around when it stops behaving the way you are used to and play with settings, etc.). Let alone the fact that (like with consoles) it can sometimes be a problem to play games with your friends if everyone is on different platforms.
I know I do - I hate all the clients I do have, and if I can only have to maintain and launch one that’s how I do it. Plus all the people I play games with are on Steam already, and I have yet to find something cheaper on Steam than Origin/uPlay (at the time I go to buy something, at any rate). If something is $5 cheaper on Origin but is also on Steam (that hasn’t happened yet, that I know of, but if it was so) I’d still get it on Steam just to be consistent with where I’m looking for my games, plus stuff like screenshots, streaming/broadcasts, and all the other stuff I know how to use “off the top of my head” and don’t really care to learn how to do in other clients (when such options are even available - I don’t think Origins still has a dedicated Screenshot feature).
I already hate it because of the name. Cartridge with a K? Really?
I don’t disagree that Origin Access is a potential reason to use the client, but I didn’t think it covered third party games and it’s also something you do instead of buying games on the Origin store, not a reason to buy games on that store.
I’m not sure why people have to ‘jump ship’ or ‘abandon steam’. I have steam and origin. Every day I launch origin to play BF1 or SWBF with my buddies, or sometimes even launch the thing overwatch runs from (I’m new to it). Other times I launch steam games. The fact that 3 different game clients may be installed on my terabyte hard drive is not worrisome.
Competition is good, really good. Ask anyone with only one choice of ISP how things end up when there is no competition.
It does boggle my mind origin is so shit at supporting indie games. I’d add my games to origin tomorrow if they asked me.
It’s not loyalty. At this point, honestly it comes down to the annoyance of trying to remember where I bought what. The other week I was looking for The Witcher 2, knowing I owned it, and not finding it on any of the 5 clients I have installed. I finally remembered I had bought it on Amazon’s digital service, which doesn’t even really have a client.
Someone needs to develop a meta-client, where you can launch from any client.
Well if we narrowly define a Steam competitor by the sole metric of “units in store” then of course Steam always wins. If we look at other aspects I think Uplay and Origin are perfectly adequate peers to Steam. In recent months I have personally spent more time with Origin and Uplay than Steam for a number of reasons including Origin Access Vault titles/trials and the exclusives those stores have. Uplay’s store has had some really amazing sales that have easily bested Steam’s recent sales and Ubisoft’s support has been extremely helpful on numerous occasions lately; actually bending over backwards to resolve minor issues I was having. That easily surpasses the shitty automated Valve-time support with Steam.
“Competition is good” and “ugh, I don’t want more than one of these, or to have to switch back and forth” are not incompatible positions. ISPs aren’t really a great comparison, but since it’s your example, sure competition is good. How many ISPs do you subscribe to?
I would just like to say that it still pains me a bit to see the name of one of the greatest developers in videogame history recycled as the label of an EA online vendor service.
Competition is good, but I’m not sure weak competition is necessarily better than no competition.
Anyway, as we’ve established, Steam has plenty of competition. The question remains, what is this digital service going to offer consumers that doesn’t already exist elsewhere? I’d say the last thing we need is more “social” platforms for gamers.
I don’t have to, I want to. I don’t want to jump everywhere and use a dozen clients to get to my games. Movies Anywhere is one of the best approaches the movie arena has come up with to date. You know what happens when I buy a MA movie on Amazon, Walmart, in some random store… I get to use a code and it stores it on my MA account which I can access from any client that supports it. I can buy from anywhere and use it on any platform I want. This means I get to start the application I like to use and buy from anyone I choose too. It’s awesome. The little walled gardens games are using today sucks.
I like Origin because they give me free games. I imagine the bulk of stuff I own there was a giveaway, that or Bioware stuff.
sure, so developers should be encouraged to have their games in every garden then? and then you can pick which garden you like best. Its nuts that EA dont want to take 30% of my income from Democracy 3 for adding the game to their store. I have no idea why they keep their list of games so short.
People keep saying that competition is good. Cool. I agree. But why is it good? To me, it’s good because it makes businesses court consumers, actually work for their money instead of having all the power in the relationship. So when I hear people celebrate uPlay or Origin for being competition for the juggernaut of Steam, I just cannot agree. Because they’re not doing that. They’re just dodging Valve’s cut on their games and offering consumers little to no benefit (rather the opposite, imo) in exchange.