Its been quite a hectic few weeks, spending way too much on gamefly, greenman gaming, and steam. Although I feel as if I got a great deal on everything I bought. Winter sale hasn't even started either! Oh Lord my wallet.

One constant though was always being flabbergasted by Origin prices, and sales. All of the Origin sales were a utter joke when compared to any other service, and you could get a better deal on greenman at the same time on most games. Origin seems like that way overpriced gaming boutique, that magically stays a float due to consumer self-hate.

The only 3 titles I own on Origin (By obligation) are BF3, BF3 Premium, ME3 ,and each was purchased on greenman for major discounts. While the titles I own on steam are about 170+ , and greenman is at about 25+ (Recent discovery!). Oh and I forgot about Desura, I probably own more games on Desura then Origin. I don't have any friends on Origin, I don't like the platform,and the prices are ridiculous. Oh and Bioware DLC is still on Bioware points?????? How is this service relevant? Why would I invest in a service making zero attempts to grab me as a consumer.

This service seems like some kind of console holdover, where the stores are backed by closed ecosystems. Its also probably EA's goal, to have a closed store platform for all its software. Every time I look at Origin's store I'm dumb founded ,and hope that no other publisher attempts a similar strategy. Its bad for consumers and its bad for business. I known personally I've purchased way fewer EA games since EA's cock fight with steam.

What do you guys think of Origin's current state?

Oh and for real? Fucking Bioware Points? Is this 2002?

I think Origin is fine in that it's a game client and download box for me to throw EA's games into. I agree that their own website/client doesn't come close to Steam, or even other digital download services', bullish pricing but that's why I don't shop directly from them anyway. I don't see the problem if you can get those games that require Origin cheaper elsewhere, dump them into Origin, and it works as intended. This would be a whole different story if their games were locked up tight and never went on sale (you hear me Blizzard you fucking assholes! actually they're starting to get better but still) but at that point I just wouldn't buy them.

Maybe it's me but I don't see what's the issue, at least from a consumer perspective. In fact, I think it's super cool the way Origin automatically detects EA games you've installed in Steam and also authenticates them for your Origin account.

Oh EA hasn't understood anything but greed for decades, its long been the primary source of peoples disgust of them. Origin is a perfect reflection of where they stand in understanding the modern games consumer.

One thing Origin has going for it over Steam is that Origin doesn't need to be loaded to play your games. I like that.

One thing Origin has going for it over Steam is Battlefield 3. 
 
 Not much else.

Playing games using Origin is an okay experience.

Any time I've tried to redeem a product code, buy points, buy games, pay for games, or download DLC it's been pretty useless.

I think I tried to buy fucking Bioware points for 3 or 4 non consecutive days before I was actually able to get to the screen where you supply payment details, otherwise it would just throw up a "general error" or time out.

I use it exclusively to play games that I can only play there on the PC. It's not half-bad. I've seen a good few promotions, but I don't think anything Steam level. Aside from that cross-platform progress-saving thing NFS: Most Wanted has it doesn't justify it's own existence, as Jeff pointed out in his review of that game.

Origin the software is fine. Origin the online store is forgettable. I think the only game i bought on Origin was Mass Effect 3 and i paid taxes. Only online platform i ever paid taxes on. Everything else i own on Origin are EA games bought on Steam and that i was able to redeem on Origin with the CD key and also others bought on GMG.

Since you can buy Origin games elsewhere often at better prices then i really don't care all that much. I'd start to care if every single publishers starts having their own unique platform that needs to run in the background and requires a login as this would just become tedious but right now it's only down to two of them, Steam and Origin. I don't count stuff like the Rockstar Social Club or GFWL that runs when you boot the game through Steam of whatever. I use GMG only to buy games i can redeem on Steam or Origin and GOG doesn't need to run in the background so it's fine.

I'll have to look into Desura. I've heard about it but never used it.

@Lazyaza said:

Oh EA hasn't understood anything but greed for decades, its long been the primary source of peoples disgust of them. Origin is a perfect reflection of where they stand in understanding the modern games consumer.

this made me laugh, but is pretty accurate.

@dekkadekkadekka said:

One thing Origin has going for it over Steam is that Origin doesn't need to be loaded to play your games. I like that.

this is something I wish steam had, nothing worse than when I lose my internet connection and can't play Crusader Kings 2 (A single player game for the most part)

Origin works fine.

It's not anywhere near as fully-featured as Steam (what is?), and its prices are nowhere near as good as Amazon or GMG or Steam, but then you can still get Battlefield 3 and ME3 and pretty much anything that needs Origin from those sites. The program itself has never hindered my gaming so its existence doesn't bother me.

And you can start most things without even having Origin on. Can't say that for Steam.

Origin is over priced with some of its games and as far as sales goes they seem non existent. Download servers are really fast for me, even more so than Steam's but for some reason I feel loading into the games takes longer and the store page also takes awhile to load. I think what bums me the most though is EA is clearly keeping away from Steam with all its new releases which is dividing up my libraries instead of all in the one place.