It sometimes amazes me how people tend to forget that this is a business. Battlefield 3 is a big enough game for EA to slap Origin on it and to test out the service. They develop and publish a lot of games. It makes sense for them to develop a platform for distribution all of them and that gives them an opportunity for better distribution of their Partner Program games. If you were the head of a big publish as EA and you had a choice of relying on third parties to handle your digital sales or make software of your own for that task? Witch would you choose? Again, they publish a lot of games. And if, at the end, Origin will suck, then it will just die off and we will forget it. Okey, maybe EA will still keep it, but I think it is healthy for the industry that Steam will have an competitor from another game developing company.

looks like i won't be playing battlefield 3 then.

Lemme guess, EA decided they had to run patches and shit through Origin rather than you know, the game, like with BC2? Those lying profit-hungry fucks should be taken to a dark alleyway

@iAmJohn said:

@Buck_Sexington said:

@Twisted_Scot said:

SWEET! It'll be nice to see "The Origin servers are not available at this time, please try again later" for a change.

They could take a shit in a box and mail it to me with my game inside the shit and it would still be a better experience than the first month of playing BC2, hell the server browser still doesn't work properly on that game and the stats syncing breaks all the time.

Didn't you hear, though? Origin's not that bad, and the only people who hate it are people who've never used it. I mean, never mind the fact that EA's authentication servers are shit and constantly going down so good luck trying to play online Battlefield or Hot Pursuit or whatever with any of your stats or unlocks or whatever, nor the fact that EA has one of the shittiest online stores ever. Origin is just not that bad!

Also, we need it because otherwise Steam will have a monopoly! They'll be the only digital distributor around!... well, aside from Impulse... and Direct2Drive... and IGN Games... and Amazon... and GamersGate...

To be honest, I couldn't careless who I buy it from or what service I need to go through to use it I just want to play this game. Origin could be powered using the tears of orphaned slave children and I'd still use it to play Battlefield 3

@CosmicQueso said:

The number of people who are screaming for Steam to have a full monopoly on digital distribution can't really know the full implications of what they're asking for, can they?

A monopoly is always bad for the consumer. Competition is a very good thing.

True. But when I actively decide to use steam, I should be able to get BF3 with all the Steam features like achievements and cloud support. Now I would be forced to use Origin (well i probably end up using it whit SWTOR). This just opens up the floodgates to even more publisher specific services, one more more terribly implemented then the over.

Just for the simple reason that I want Origin to fail miserably, I won't be buying this game and I recommend that you don't either.

Mmm well this makes me feel like a dumbass for defending Origin, Mostly because it's getting clear this is the real reason for BF3 not being on steam.

This is actually turning into a deal breaker for me, I need to check other options.

So apparently... the obvious is happening.

I don't remember going from rock hard to wilted about a game so fast before.

@CosmicQueso said:

The number of people who are screaming for Steam to have a full monopoly on digital distribution can't really know the full implications of what they're asking for, can they?

A monopoly is always bad for the consumer. Competition is a very good thing.

You act like Steam is trying to force everyone out of the market. No one is competing. Not because Steam is jerkish, but because no one offers the excellent experience Steam offers. The REASON Steam is so good and therefore so popular is because it was competitive. Yes, there should be competition, but I'd take a monopoly over publisher run stores ANNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNY DAY. EA shouldn't be competing with the biggest DD provider out there.

@MattyFTM said:

That doesn't necessarily mean you'll have to use the separate origin client. EA have re-branded pretty much all of their account stuff to Origin too. It most likely just means you'll have to login to your "Origin" account within the game itself to access all of the online features. That was always going to happen. You were always going to have to login to your EA account inside the game. I doubt the separate client will be involved, since the client is pretty much just a download manager and store.

My thoughts exactly.

I really don't mind that it is Origin only. I would rather see it on Steam, yes, but if the friend list isn't integrated anyway it really does not matter to me.

@MordeaniisChaos said:

@CosmicQueso said:

The number of people who are screaming for Steam to have a full monopoly on digital distribution can't really know the full implications of what they're asking for, can they?

A monopoly is always bad for the consumer. Competition is a very good thing.

You act like Steam is trying to force everyone out of the market. No one is competing. Not because Steam is jerkish, but because no one offers the excellent experience Steam offers. The REASON Steam is so good and therefore so popular is because it was competitive. Yes, there should be competition, but I'd take a monopoly over publisher run stores ANNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNY DAY. EA shouldn't be competing with the biggest DD provider out there

But... but... Steam IS a publisher run store.

EA, as a public corporation, has a moral obligation to deliver value to its shareholders. If they think they can drive more profit by doing this then they absolutely have to do it. If, after a time, it proves to be a failed experiment, they will stop doing this and try something else.

Steam started because Valve wanted to self publish Half-Life 2. This whole Origin thing is a bit of a repeat in that sense. It's not evil and the company owes you nothing, and you owe nothing to them. It's business.

And competitive download services fighting for your dollars will provide better and better deals over time, regardless if games are only on one platform or the other. Think bigger party people.

@CosmicQueso said:

@MordeaniisChaos said:

@CosmicQueso said:

The number of people who are screaming for Steam to have a full monopoly on digital distribution can't really know the full implications of what they're asking for, can they?

A monopoly is always bad for the consumer. Competition is a very good thing.

You act like Steam is trying to force everyone out of the market. No one is competing. Not because Steam is jerkish, but because no one offers the excellent experience Steam offers. The REASON Steam is so good and therefore so popular is because it was competitive. Yes, there should be competition, but I'd take a monopoly over publisher run stores ANNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNY DAY. EA shouldn't be competing with the biggest DD provider out there

But... but... Steam IS a publisher run store.

EA, as a public corporation, has a moral obligation to deliver value to its shareholders. If they think they can drive more profit by doing this then they absolutely have to do it. If, after a time, it proves to be a failed experiment, they will stop doing this and try something else.

Steam started because Valve wanted to self publish Half-Life 2. This whole Origin thing is a bit of a repeat in that sense. It's not evil and the company owes you nothing, and you owe nothing to them. It's business.

And competitive download services fighting for your dollars will provide better and better deals over time, regardless if games are only on one platform or the other. Think bigger party people.

That last part is bulllshit but the rest I can sort of agree with it. Origin means that if EA wants to price freeze they can and that's really what this has always been about - EA doesn't like the way VALVe runs its sales.

@SeriouslyNow said:

@CosmicQueso said:

@MordeaniisChaos said:

@CosmicQueso said:

The number of people who are screaming for Steam to have a full monopoly on digital distribution can't really know the full implications of what they're asking for, can they?

A monopoly is always bad for the consumer. Competition is a very good thing.

You act like Steam is trying to force everyone out of the market. No one is competing. Not because Steam is jerkish, but because no one offers the excellent experience Steam offers. The REASON Steam is so good and therefore so popular is because it was competitive. Yes, there should be competition, but I'd take a monopoly over publisher run stores ANNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNY DAY. EA shouldn't be competing with the biggest DD provider out there

But... but... Steam IS a publisher run store.

EA, as a public corporation, has a moral obligation to deliver value to its shareholders. If they think they can drive more profit by doing this then they absolutely have to do it. If, after a time, it proves to be a failed experiment, they will stop doing this and try something else.

Steam started because Valve wanted to self publish Half-Life 2. This whole Origin thing is a bit of a repeat in that sense. It's not evil and the company owes you nothing, and you owe nothing to them. It's business.

And competitive download services fighting for your dollars will provide better and better deals over time, regardless if games are only on one platform or the other. Think bigger party people.

That last part is bulllshit but the rest I can sort of agree with it. Origin means that if EA wants to price freeze they can and that's really what this has always been about - EA doesn't like the way VALVe runs its sales.

Opening a can of worms here, but anyway: the publishers set the Steam sale prices. Not Valve.

@CosmicQueso: @MrKlorox: This, and also Steam doesn't sell just Valve stuff. When it did, it was pretty fuckin annoying and stupid. SInce then, it's become awesome, between software updates and gettinga huge awesome catalog and a shit ton of deals. It also lets them do really awesome stuff with their own properties (like eventually giving most of their games away for free or next to nothing). It's a completely different monster with Origin and saying it's the same thing is just fucking ignorant of the situation.

@MordeaniisChaos said:

@CosmicQueso: @MrKlorox: This, and also Steam doesn't sell just Valve stuff. When it did, it was pretty fuckin annoying and stupid. SInce then, it's become awesome, between software updates and gettinga huge awesome catalog and a shit ton of deals. It also lets them do really awesome stuff with their own properties (like eventually giving most of their games away for free or next to nothing). It's a completely different monster with Origin and saying it's the same thing is just fucking ignorant of the situation.

It's early, they have to start somewhere. And when you look at their strategy "Origin Launch Roadmap" http://torwars.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/EA_Expected_Launch_Roadmap.png they are looking to do the exact same updates, deals etc etc. Perhaps they will get a larger catalog at some point. They're already offering some great deals via their Facebook stuff and the $4.99 weekend they just had. Better deals than they ever let Steam run. So, who loses, exactly?

P.S. Thanks for letting me know how f*%(ing ignorant I am. Appreciated.

Here's the rub.  I already use steam, it took them many years to make me use Steam as a permanent platform.  Even when HL2 was Steam required, I played HL2 and then uninstalled the game and Steam.  In the last few years steam has become a great platform.  It's non-intrusive, easy to use, has great sales (from lots and lots of publishers), is an excellent platform for indie games, and all of my friends use it so my friend lists are consolidated to 2 areas.   I tolerate Bnet from blizzard for WoW when I'm playing it, but MMOs inherently need that type of system, the fact that they spun their MMO platform into something required for all of their games is alright by me, I'll buy D3 and use it, they've proven they can run a competent system.  
 
I wont buy BF3 in the current model.  EA has done nothing but prove they cannot run a user friendly online service, period.  I love a lot of EA produced games, but I don't need them.  I don't have to buy BF3, it was going to be a bit of a last minute decision anyhow for me.  If I saw it on steam and my friends were playing it, I'd probably go get it.  But there's *plenty* of other shit coming out this fall for me to not even notice I missed it.  I'm a really big BF fan, but I don't like how this is being handled, and it's not coming to my service of choice, so I'll ignore it until such a time as one of those things changes.  Dollars will speak to the success of the Origin experiment. 
 
EA thinks they have PC gamers by the balls with BF3 the way Valve did with HL2.  I don't think they realize a lot of us begrudgingly used the system only as long as absolutely necessary until pretty recently (last 3 years ish).  

I guarantee you it will work just like Bad Company 2 did. You had to log in to the EA system (within the game) even if you were playing through Steam. So it's nothing new except now the login system has a name you will remember, which was the whole point of the re-branding in the first place.

Considering that EA can't even admit that I own their fucking game when it's right in my list of owned games, I have absolutely no faith in this. They've done nothing to prove their competence in the years they've done this and I'll wait until it's actually something worth downloading. As it is it'll just be something that takes up space on my hard drive and I already have enough of that.

fuck

I think the worst part is the web interface, if it is in the final version.  It's one thing to login via Origin... it's another to login via Origin and THEN login to battlelog.... so stupid.
 
In the Alpha you had to login to Origin and then login to Battlelog. You enter Origin, click to run the game and doing so would open up a web page where you had to login AGAIN! WTF?
 
If they want to use a web interface, while in-game; no problem. I don't like the out of game web interface to start the game.
 
Origin is like Steam. They want you to be a part of their business cloud. Can you play TF2 without Steam? Can you play HL2 without Steam?  Isn't Activision working on their own Steam thing? Activision has a massive library, why would they want to give Valve a cut of the profits?   RO2 is using Steam even with the retail version, if I recall. 
 
People seem more accepting of Steam/Origin type of DRM and I think these companies like it too because it's one copy per account. Can you sell these games? When you buy BF3 retail will you be able to sell it to someone else? Maybe EA will enable logic that when the serial is entered once, it cannot be entered again; so there can be no used copies. Who knows. This DRM gives a lot of control, a lot of restriction power to the publisher. 

For some reason I don't remember Blizzard getting all of this heat when Starcraft 2 wasn't available on Steam and requires you to go through battle.net.  That game seemed to do ok, i guess. 
 
Also, as part of my willingness to give Origin a shot, I was able to preorder BF3 for 45$, and for doing so I was rewarded with a free copy of Dead Space 2 (Mass Effect 2 and Medal of Honor were my other two available choices I could have made). 
 
All of you saying that after hearing this you aren't going to play the game you were so looking forward to, you are simply coming off as children throwing a temper tantrum.  Fine by me, you won't be missed come October.

@MrKlorox said:

@SeriouslyNow said:

@CosmicQueso said:

@MordeaniisChaos said:

@CosmicQueso said:

The number of people who are screaming for Steam to have a full monopoly on digital distribution can't really know the full implications of what they're asking for, can they?

A monopoly is always bad for the consumer. Competition is a very good thing.

You act like Steam is trying to force everyone out of the market. No one is competing. Not because Steam is jerkish, but because no one offers the excellent experience Steam offers. The REASON Steam is so good and therefore so popular is because it was competitive. Yes, there should be competition, but I'd take a monopoly over publisher run stores ANNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNY DAY. EA shouldn't be competing with the biggest DD provider out there

But... but... Steam IS a publisher run store.

EA, as a public corporation, has a moral obligation to deliver value to its shareholders. If they think they can drive more profit by doing this then they absolutely have to do it. If, after a time, it proves to be a failed experiment, they will stop doing this and try something else.

Steam started because Valve wanted to self publish Half-Life 2. This whole Origin thing is a bit of a repeat in that sense. It's not evil and the company owes you nothing, and you owe nothing to them. It's business.

And competitive download services fighting for your dollars will provide better and better deals over time, regardless if games are only on one platform or the other. Think bigger party people.

That last part is bulllshit but the rest I can sort of agree with it. Origin means that if EA wants to price freeze they can and that's really what this has always been about - EA doesn't like the way VALVe runs its sales.

Opening a can of worms here, but anyway: the publishers set the Steam sale prices. Not Valve.

The publishers set the prices locally per region - which has been Steam's boilerplate excuse for expensive price differences between the US and the rest of the world - this has little to do with pricing during sales because VALVe would be indicating to their partner vendor and publishers what they would expect items to be discounted towards based on sales targets and projections which had or had not been met; a certain number of units have to move through each channel, which is the basic nature of mass scale retail.

That roadmap doesn't show Origin selling any other publisher's products. Pogo is an EA brand, as is Playfish and both will be supplying the service its 'casual games'.

Origin isn't like Steam though it does use a similar content delivery and direct marketing strategy on the surface.

Origin is solely a way for EA to finally (and hopefully - they've had many MANY hiccups) launch a proper online presence to sell games and gaming related services and media to a captive audience. It's called ORIGIN in reference to Origin Games who launched the first proper MMO - Ultima Online.

@TheSeductiveMoose said:

fuck

I agree with this handsome fella.

@Duckbutter said:

What are you babies bitching about? Your bottles not warm enough? Fuck that shit. Competition is a good thing. Even when the competition sucks ass-meat like Origin does. You dont want Steam having a monopoly. You want the world filled with thimbles and hats and race cars and shit? Fuck that shit.

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