Give Origin a Chance
By insanejedi 37 Comments
With the recent furvor over the whole Crysis 2 and Alice off of steam and misguided blaming to EA. I feel like I have to say something about this to clarify the situation and help give Origin service a chance at competition. I'm not saying this like I'm a viral marketer for EA or Origin or I'm being paid by EA, I'm simply saying this as a gamer and a consumer that it would be a good idea to let Origin have a chance.
Origin=/=EA Download Manager (sorta)
Remember the terrible EA Download Manager service? Yes it was terrible, when your purchased the game you only had a limited number of downloads for a limited amount of time (1 Year I think), but you had the option to purchase "download insurance" which would allow you to download the game for a little bit longer of a time (3 Years I think). It sucked... This is not it. Origin allows you to download a game as many times as you like so long as Origin exist. In fact on a legal and objective level, Origin's download terms are actually better than Steam's! Crazy?
From Origin:
Q: Will my game download ever expire?
A: Digital download rights remain available for at least one year after purchase. Origin typically doesn’t retire games, and we’ve only retired around 10 of the 150 games we sell, and these have generally been because of the expiration of licensing rights. If you come across an issue, simply contact Origin Help and we'll reconfigure things for you.
From Valve:
C. Termination by Valve.
1. In the case of a recurring payment Subscription (e.g., a monthly subscription), in the event that Valve terminates or cancels your Account or a particular Subscription for convenience, Valve may, but is not obligated to, provide a prorated refund of any prepaid Subscription fees paid to Valve.
2. In the case of a one-time purchase of a product license (e.g., purchase of a single game) from Valve, Valve may choose to terminate or cancel your Subscription in its entirety or may terminate or cancel only a portion of the Subscription (e.g., access to the software via Steam) and Valve may, but is not obligated to, provide access (for a limited period of time) to the download of a stand-alone version of the software and content associated with such one-time purchase.
3. In the case of a free Subscription, Valve may choose to terminate or amend the terms of the Subscription as provided in the "Amendments to this Agreement" section above.
You see here? Origin guarantees that your games are viable for at least 1 year after your purchased it. Meaning nothing can possibly happen to your download until after 1 year you've purchased it. Steam on the other hand says they have the right and no obligation to terminate your game purchase AT ANY TIME. It does not matter if you bought the game tomorrow and the next hour it was pulled. They have the right and no legal obligation to guarantee your purchase of the game.
Don't trust EA or Origin? Then you still have reason to use it.
Have a physical box copy or even a steam copy of Dragon Age? Medal of Honor? Need For Speed? Then why don't you add it to Origin download service? You can redeem game codes just like on steam. (EVEN IF YOUR COPY IS A STEAM COPY!) Hey, now you don't have to put in a disc for Dragon Age or any other physical copy of EA's games to play it! Isn't that worth it? And why on earth would you ever add steam copies onto origin? Well if Steam decides to go kaput tomorrow forever and none of your games work you at least have a backup at Origin. It's better than nothing and why not have two digital copies at two different company locations in case either goes south? There's no hurt in doing that.
Just be sure it's not in this list of games that cannot be redeemed.
Yes it's a big list but EA is working to get it's back catalog working onto Origin's download service which will mean in the future your copy of Battlefield 2 will no longer require a disk.
And this doesn't detract from anything of your physical copy, your physical copy will work just like the physical copy, even after you added it to Origin. So if you don't trust EA or Origin, just buy a physical copy of the game and why don't you just add it to Origin anyways? Or even then buy a steam copy of the game and just add it to Origin for the heck of it, there's no harm in doing and it's a free insurance policy.
Competition=Good
I'm sorry to sound so cliche but it's true. There's nothing wrong with this.
The more places there are the more frequency for sales and the more there is to getting your game for the cheaper dollar. And for all the people crying about a doomsday future where every publisher has their own download client and you have to have a zillion things open to play your games.... It's not going to happen unless you let it happen...
Companies like money, and so they will throw all possible viable channels of Steam, Impulse, GOG, Brick and Mortor. To make as much money as possible to get the greatest sales possible. The only time where it makes any sense for a publisher to make their game exclusive to their service is if the number of people they would lose to make it exclusive out weighs the amount of money gained by keeping it exclusive and cutting out the middle man. That's a fine line and that doesn't include the relational implications that perhaps it doesn't work out or Valve decides to say no to EA publishing their games to Brick and Mortor any more. And at the same time it's a hard thing to judge without you willfully saying to the question "Would you still buy this game if it was only on Origin?" and saying "Yes." So if there's any time where EA is doing a powerplay to make something exclusive to Origin, don't play by their rules and send them a message by voting with your dollar. If you do that, we will live in a PC gaming era where we have choices galore of competitive, inexpensive online retail outlets.
So please give Origin a chance.