Not exactly, it’s in D2D, Impulse, etc.
Though i wonder about the next blockbusters like BF3. Will be exclusive of Origin?
Well, the Origin service is the same as before. Origin is the old EA Store renamed and reskinned and with a new social feature added. I have 4 games there and the download*, installation and activation worked without problems.
*: download speed better than Steam, which never max out my connection, don’t know why.
That’s good to hear. The worst “professional” download speeds I’ve seen are on Apple iTunes. Those are just horrible. It literally takes all night to download a TV season – say roughly 20-30 gigabytes – even on a super-fast university connection.
PD: And i have changed in Steam several times the download area trying different countries and deleted the .blob file or reinstalled the entire Steam. Nothing, it’s goes up to 350k/s, 400k/s maximum, while Impulse, Gamersgate and EA Stores reach 600/650 k/s with a maximum of 700 k/s.
I was going to say “I don’t like the idea of publishers making their games exclusive to their own Digital Download site”. Then I realize: can you buy Portal 2 (digitally) anywhere else other than Steam? Its hard to view Valve as “The good guys” if they use the same anti-competitive practices.
On the other hand, I’m quite willing to buy indie games direct, to help support the developer. So why can’t the AAA guys ask for the same?
My thoughts are really mixed up on this one. What I’m saying is that I want fierce competition for cheap games, but I want the developers to get the money. Is that possible?
Tony
The thing is, monopolies are so convenient…
Well, on one hand, having all the publishers with their own online store makes Steam a less attractive target for LulzSec to hack (as in theory, it will have less users), on the other hand, now your information is stored in 10 more databases that have to be secured and can be hacked.
Working on getting Keepass up and running in this post-Sony era.
@Tony: I saw SPAZ opened up for sale directly now. I wonder how much money Impulse/Gamespot took for having it available in theirs.
This is disappointing. We’ve had nothing but problems with the EA store with the Sims 3. I have no faith that EA can pull off a good user experience.
No desire here to use webpages hosted in /cgi-bin/ directories, written in COBOL.
If Origin can provide a full experience, that is smooth, is ok to me. But If I have to resort to some crappily programmed webpage for stuff, that work poorly, and are butt ugly. I… I will actively avoid Origin.
They don’t want sales, they want profits. Don’t confuse the two.
I would have thought doing something like giving away the next Crysis 2 DLC, but only via Origin might be an idea for getting people over the hurdle of acceptance, creating an account etc. More so than actually taking something back from Steam, which seems like a negative move.
I average about 2Mbs with Steam. Location, location, location.
Yeah, like this one time.
Everybody is saying right now “lol, they lost a unit, i am not going to buy it if it isn’t in Steam”. But am i going to believe that gamers are going to skip Battlefield 3, the most hyped game from the E3? And Mass Effect 3? And The Old Republic? And need for speed series, and Dead Space series, and The Sims series, and the next Mirror’s Edge, and etc etc etc??
I bought the spore creature creator a couple of years ago directly from EA. Last year I got DA GOTY for my birthday and had to register an account to activate the DLC. problem is, EA’s account are tied to an email address (if I’m wrong please correct me). The old address was provided by an old ISP and I don’t have access to it anymore (lesson learned - never use ISP’s emails).
Short story - there is no way to move games from the old account to the new one. A ticket sent to them was promptly ignored. Bottom line is I’m not going to buy anything from them until they change this system.
I lost my old email address last year. I opened a ticket on steam and they took care of it in an hour or two.
You can force people to buy a game in a horrible system (Origin don’t seems horrible, but is forced), but if is not the system that use daily, will not see the announcements for new DLC’s, so this will have a effect on sales of DLC’s.
Is a obvious direct effect on hidding your stuff, that less people is going to buy it.
If EA wanted to be really slimy they could just cut out something from their games during development and offer it up as exclusive content on Origin. They will have to get some third-party publishers (or indies) on board with them, however, if they ever intend to rival Steam. Somehow that doesn’t seem likely to me.
Every DD retailer will let you change your email address easily. When I changed emails I had Steam, GG and D2D update my address with no issues. EA uses the email address as the username, so it can’t be changed.
Oh that will absolutely happen. Much like Steamworks titles, even if you purchased the game retail, you will be required to login to your Origin account to play all EA PC titles, including singleplayer games. All “day 1 DLC”, patches, real DLC, multiplayer, etc, will come through Origin. That’s why EA did this, they saw Steam as leaving money on the table.
All they have to do now is build up a solid foundation of goodwill by offering a competitive high quality service(1), and Origin will do fine.
(1): LOL
So does Blizzard, and it can be changed.