ME3 = origin only...

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yup origin is in and steam is out
Steam is totally 2011 anyway

 

Even if just announced it is hardly a surprise ...

 

Oh well, guess I won't be playing ME3 for a while if not ever.

Time to cancel STWOR subscription as well. (Getting tired of it anyway.)

 

Doesn't bother me at all, and 213 of my 214 DD purchases are on Steam.

The "no Steam = no Buy" crew is kinda sad, and it's getting worse.

 

The problem is not with origin itself, but with what comes after it...


Soon there will only be valve and indie games on steam, because each publisher will have its own origin equivalent...

 

Steam and Origin are just two competing for-profit companies offering the same service (digital game distribution and DRM therefore). It's not like one is Mother Teresa and one is Benito Mussolini. This doesn't bother me one bit.

 

This should be surprising to literally no one.

 

First game i've purchased through Origin has been BF3. And it actually works , I've more than 70 games purchased on steam but i see no problem on purchasing something somewhere else

 

Blizzard's been doing that for years. Can't get WoW or SC2 through Steam. Microsoft has some exclusives on Games for Windows Live (the Gears of War port and the Halo 2 port spring to mind). It's not like EA is the first to do this.

It's the same game whether you're logging on through Steam or Origin or Battle.net. I don't see what the big deal is.

 

Right. That's my concern. It's not that I love Steam so much that I have to buy through them (although usually do because of rock bottom costs), it's just that you have to start juggling multiple clients not to mention more crap installed on your PC that you really shouldn't need. Even now I sometimes forget where I bought a game when I decide I want to play it, if it's not in my Steam account, I freak.

So now you have Steam, Blizzard, Origin, what's next? UbiSoft, EIDOS/Square Enix, Activision, CAPCOM, ...

Someone will have to make a freeware client to manage all your publisher's clients.

 

I doubt it's going to get that bad. Activision seems to be pretty well entrenched with Steam, and the others really aren't big enough to bother with their own.

 

The problem with Origin is that it sucks. The interface is poor compared to Steam. According to EA, Origin is still in "beta". My copy of Crysis Warhead still cannot be played due to Origin not being able to enable my key. I am going to call them again, but this issue has been ongoing for 6+ months. Steam has handled all my issues quickly and effectively.

I have no problem with multiple service providers, but EA is not investing in making Origin better, they are just using as a lever over customers.

 

Or you could just put a shortcut to each game in the "games" folder of your start menu. Problem solved.

 

I've got no problems with Origin, either with purchasing or launching games. No, the interface isn't remarkably polished, but it's never gotten buggy on me. Steam, on the other hand, slows down game loading (I don't have the client running full-time in the background), slows down my computer shutting down (unless I manually close the client first), and generally has been pretty buggy for me. It's far from perfect.

 

Really? Valve CS takes like a week plus to get back to everyone I know, while Origin customer service handles things in a matter of hours.

 

Here's my main beef with Origin:

* They still won't allow you to opt-out of data collection programs that scan your entire hard drive.
* The Origin forum account is linked with the Origin game account. If you get banned in their forum *you lose access to your purchases for good.* This has already happened to several people and one of them was even banned my mistake.

Plus they claim that they want to have a competitive market and have competitors to Steam, yet they're locking their competition out of selling their games merely to try and get a stranglehold on market share. You can't claim to want peace in the kindergarten playground when you're the one doing all the bullying.

 

I think it's awesome it's Origin exclusive. That's just smart business.

Why give profit shares to Valve when you don't have to? Said it before, I'm still amazed THQ, Activision and Ubisoft haven't followed.

 

ya Valve Customer Service is horrible. The last time I wrote a ticket it took a week for them to get back to me. Tho I hate this Origin \ Steam crap.

 

Umm, how am I supposed to do that if the game isn't even INSTALLED?

It's not good business sense, it's just maximizing profit at the expense of disappointing customers. Good business sense would include giving customers options, what they ask for. I'm sick of hearing people supporting businesses because they're maximizing profits by sticking it to the customer. That shows complete and utter ignorance about "good business sense".

 

For me it was the opposite. Steam took one chain of emails over 4 days (which I thought was good considering it was right after the holiday sale and they were probably swamped, and they offered an excellent solution to my problem (a complete refund, which I didn't ask for). Origin has taken a dozen phone calls, many over an hour long, multiple emails, several chat sessions, and they STILL CANNOT fix it.

 

All of this has been done for years with the world's most popular MMO and the world's most popular RTS. Why is it suddenly controversial now? ME3, while an exciting game, isn't remotely on the same scale as WoW or SC2. Is it just that Origin is more hated than Battle.net? Or what?

 

Data collection of your hard drive and banning your forum account results in banning your game account or vice versa? Show me proof this exists, because it doesn't, especially with Blizzard games.

 

EA has done it...


EA Origin Bans: Update Edition | Rock, Paper, Shotgun

 

I was talking about the "monopoly"--distribution exclusively through the publisher's own service instead of third-party services like Steam. THAT is what has been going on for years with Blizzard.

Are you saying that if Origin fixed those two issues, you'd be okay with EA games being distributed exclusively through Origin?

 

I know, that's what I'm (well, Greg is) saying about EA/Origin. Just looking for evidence that other companies do the same (that Mitlov claims happens).

Well you weren't specific in your response, and no I didn't say that I would be okay. To be honest I don't care, it's just convenience. End up with a half dozen or more clients with a half dozen or more EULA's, logins, more issues. I use two desktops at home, a laptop, and occasionally my parents computer to log in to Steam. I have to log in and update passwords for four computers, more clients means more time spent managing and troubleshooting. It's not uncommon for people to have two or more PC's these days.

 

For the THIRD time, I was talking about exclusive distribution through the company's own services, not third-party services like Steam. I was responding to the last paragraph of what I quoted. Maybe I should have edited everything but that paragraph out of the quote field, but that's what I've been talking about since the first moment I mentioned Battle.net.

You said you couldn't remember which game came from which service when you wanted to launch them. I said put shortcuts to all the games into one place. Problem solved.

That was not in response to someone complaining that one Origin game didn't work for them. That sucks. But the Steam version of KOTOR doesn't work for me. Steam ain't perfect either.

 

Maybe edit appropriately next time. From what I read were to dot points standing out in the post. Just delete that, takes all of one second.

No I did NOT say when I wanted to launch them, I said: " Even now I sometimes forget where I bought a game when I decide I want to play it, if it's not in my Steam account, I freak."

And DUH about putting shortcuts, that's not the issue. The issue locating the game you want to play. I don't know about you, but I used to keep all my game CD's/DVD's/Floppies in one spot, so I could easily locate them if I wanted to play. Having multiple clients is like storing some disks one place, a few more somewhere else in your house, yet a few more in your basement, a few more that you can't remember where you put them. Inefficient and hard to find.

I never said Steam was perfect, nor did I say I prefer Steam. There's a lot I don't like about Steam. My issue is each publisher having their own client to buy, download, and launch games. Did you ever read about Netflix and the backlash they received because of splitting up into TWO entities, requiring users to have two separate accounts and queues? That's the same issue here, but could be significantly worse. Hell, they could even charge a premium on Steam by 5-10% if that meant keeping everything consolidated to one client.

 

Blizzard is hardly comparable to Steam/Origin. It's just an online store, it's not used to launch/manage games, it doesn't carry other publisher's games, and it's not their main method of distribution.

 

No, good business sense would be releasing ME3 on all available channels (steam, d2d, origin, whatever) and then giving some (large) incentive to purchase it on Origin over the other choices. Could be done in any number of ways, from offering free dlc (like bf3 did with karkand preorders) to simply marking the price down on Origin or marking the price up slightly on steam. Some people would gladly pay an extra $10 or something to have it in their steam library and not have to deal with origin, and EA is foolish to not capitalize on that.

Instead, they've (arguably) wasted millions on a second-rate client that customers generally do not like, all in an effort to monopolize certain game titles and try to take market share away from steam. The market share thing I can understand, but you gain share by providing a BETTER service, not an inferior one.

 

Really? My questions get answered within 24 hours, haven't had bad experience with Steam CS.

Also I read this on their site:
" Has the Origin EULA been updated following recent questions in Germany?
The German Origin EULA has been updated. For more information, please review the Origin EULA here: http://www.ea.com/1/product-eulas."
Anyone got idea what was wrong with it in the first place?

 

Never had problems with Origin myself, i only bring the hate on Battlelog. >.>
Support is very helpful as long as i get local help (10am to 4pm), not some outsourced crap.

All my EA games activated without issues, and i had my Mass Effect 3 N7 Digital Deluxe Edition on preorder for a very long time.

But i can understand some users might not want to use more than 1 digital platform.

 

I am not even able to use origin because i live in Thailand, so when i enter their store everything is on Thai and there is nothing you can do to change it, i even mailed the support.

So i am unable to use it for anything since i cant understand Thai and even if i could i not want the Thai version of the game.

 

Just like Valve does with Valve games?

 

This is very disappointing for me, as EA's regionalization is indeed horrible. It's the same story in Korea - no English-language access. Steam on the other hand lets me use English, view prices in CDN dollars, and purchase games on my CDN credit card all from Korea.

 

Yeah, I'd rather not have some programs scanning my HDD in the background. Probably not going to get ME3.

 

Considering ME3 is a flagship title for EA why would anyone be suprised that it is an origin exclusive?

 

I have two stances on this, while I don't have any disagreement with using a different client and I can see why a company would like to push their own, I equally don't want to have multiple clients for all my games, especially when the alternative scans my hard drive and has ridiculous rules. Steam has its faults which I would like to see corrected, but I still believe it is the better service, if I had to pay and extra pound or so to buy a game from steam then I would (and have in some cases). The way I see it, the only reason why they flat out aren't selling it on steam is because they know that even if they did something like I mentioned above then the majority would still buy it on steam.

Alternatively I could say this. "Hi, my name is Luke. I fully support anything that's new because old stuff is worse by definition, if you don't embrace anything new then you're just being old fashioned and stubborn. I just bought the iPhone 4S. Embrace the new age without any thought as to whether what's new is actually better, even if it has appaling policies!"

AM I HIPSTER ENOUGH NOW?

Seriously, I'll support change if the new item is actually better than the old one, but going along with something merely because it's new is just naive. You see it all the time on youtube, all the top comments on new tech projects are along those lines, whether they're right or not is just a matter of opinion. However, if for example we ended up having a totalitatian system (which we would all agree to be a bad thing), I can guarantee that there would still be the same top comment on youtube saying something about embracing the new. If you're rational, then you would say "Yes, I see this product, I can see that it has many advantages over what I'm using currently and comparitively few disadvantages, therefore I will purchase this product", however you would also still have the option of saying "Yes, I see this product. I see that it's moronic and that it offers few advantages over any existing product, at the cost of reduced functionality and freedom. Therefore I come to the conclusion that this is a product is not something I support".

As for steam support being worse, that's mainly because they don't make 95% of the games on there. If origin does end up being a major contender and has the same amount of games as steam, you can expect the same service, it's just inherant given the size of steam.

 

I knew that ME3 was going to be Origins-required for a long time and quite frankly, it will be my last BioWare and EA game for the long run. I want to definitely see how the storyline pans out. However, I am totally not a fan of Origins and due to how BioWare is even pushing for it with their future products, I am more and more inching away from EA.

Also for the people who are stuck in forced regions, can't you just somehow acquire a boxed English copy of the game and just enter the code like so? You don't need to sell your money on the forced digital edition.

 

Also, could you not use a VPN to buy games from a less restricted region? You might get better prices too.

 

I'll probably give the VPN route a try when the time comes - thanks! Do you think that might muck with the inevitable DRM.

As for the boxed English copy, I wouldn't trust it to activate an English copy online, and the EA support I've received so far has been ty enough that I don't think they'd give me a clear answer in advance. As it stands, there is absolutely no way to access an English store with a Korean IP.

 

wont use origin, so it looks like im renting it for my xbox until it hits steam.

 

Guess you'll be renting it for forever, then. It's never coming to Steam.

 

I knew it was going to be origin only when BF3 was origin only. I would still be playing it because I loved the second so much. I would only buy on origin if I can't get it anywhere else.

I would prefer to purchase only on steam because of their reliability and I know origin is just starting out, but for some reason I don't trust EA with digital downloads. Maybe because one day I booted up Origins and found out it said I did not own any games at all when I have like 300+ hours in battlefield 3...

 

You dont own any games you buy on steam either you simple subscribe to them. Steam can close your account at any time for any reason.

 

you don't own games when you buy a boxed copy either, you just purchase a license to be able to play it. Very similar to steam.

 

Nope because when you have the game on a CD you mostly cant get banned from playing it. STeam can ban you for any reason at any time, so if u have 100 games on steam and ur account get banned for any reason you cannot play any of the games again.

 

EA's being a baby about it and, last I checked, Valve doesn't proclaim to want a true competition. They want to dominate the market .

In all seriousness though, I'm fine with EA deciding they want to make it exclusive to a platform. But Origin has clear anti-consumer features built in (again, being locked out of games because you get banned on a forum, being forced to let them scan your computer and gain information about you that has zero relevance to the game that you cannot opt out of); it's those practices that make it pretty clear EA is not a good guy.

Steam has built up a lot of trust over the years. EA has not.

 

well, if your boxed CD game accounts are banned, you also lose access to your games. it's possible for your CD key to be blacklisted. it's also possible to lose or break your CD.

 

I guess you're not one of the many people who bought KOTOR on Steam and found that it doesn't work.