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I thought I would put up a post as I am curious as to peoples thoughts on the EA Origin DRM service roughly one year after launch (I think). My own thoughts on it are below
Where I am coming from:
Full disclosure, I come at this as someone who is fairly new to the PC gaming space. Only in the last 2 or so years have I really invested myself into the PC gaming community and all that entails. Before that, when I wasnt studying, I played a fair amount of WoW and some light strategy games like Civilization and Rome: TW. I only found out about Steam back in the summer of 2011, but I have already purchased more than 250 games on it through various sales and bundles. I bought BF3 on day one because of the visuals and the tech, played about 30 hours of it through late 2011, really enjoyed it, but have never gone back to it. Since then, I have not purchased or played anything else on Origin.
Throughout my limited experience with Origin, I did not have any issues as far as bugs go or problems with playing BF3. Nevertheless, my opinion on it has evolved over the last year from essentially neutral to fairly hostile to the point now that even though there are several games coming out that I would definitely want to play that seem destined to be Origin exclusives (SimCity, DA3: Inquisition, etc), I am very unlikely to pick them up at nearly any price.
Before I begin my reasons why my opinion has changed, I will state that I currently hold the view that Steam is a better service than Origin in nearly every way. Part of that is because Steam has been around longer and has a significantly larger audience, so in some ways, it may be an unfair comparison, but fairness is ultimately immaterial to the fact that Steam is currently the superior service. Furthermore, while Origin may be improving (dont really know as I havent heard anything), it seems to me if anything that Steam is improving faster with Steam Big Picture Mode (which is quite nice), Steam Greenlight, increasing numbers of excellent games with Steam Workshop support, Steam on Linux, etc.
Clearly there are DRM purists who will say that all DRM methods are bad and should all be treated as such. Personally, I wish Steam and others would abandon the DRM parts of their service (decent off-line mode for Steam at least please) as I view it as anti-consumer and counterproductive, but I view Steam specifically as providing enough value to me that I am willing to put up with occasional minor inconveniences because of their DRM.
Anyway, here are my reasons why I have come to dislike Origin:
My Preferred Solution:
Its easy to point out all of Origins problems, but what is the solution? No problem, eliminate the Origin exclusives. Origin doesnt need to close up shop or give up. Just give customers real competition by actually competing with Steam on services or else on price. EA wants 100% of the cut? Fine, then they should do something to make me want to give it to them*. I don't think I am unique in this, but I have already personally demonstrated (with Dragon Age: Origins and Need for Speed among others) that I am willing to pay more for the same game on Steam than I could have on Origin just so I can play it on the platform of my choice the one that all of my friends are already on. Give me that option on other games (like Dragon Age 2), and I would as well. But simply give customers options. Worried that you wont get me to pay for your overpriced DLC? Do what Crytek did with Crysis 2, and come out with an Ultimate/Maximum edition with the DLC wrapped in automatically. Just give me the option to buy your game the way I want to, and I will more likely than not give you some of my money when the price is right for me. Refuse to give me the options I want, and I will be more than happy to dig into my 150 game Steam backlog.
*Note: I recognize that I am giving Steam a bit of a pass on exclusives even though they also have several exclusive games in large part because they are tying their exclusives to the superior service of Steam. In all likelihood, this would mean that Steam is where customers would have bought those games anyway, so it isnt as anticompetitive as forcing someone onto the inferior service. However, if their service was as inferior as Origins, they would not and should not get such a pass.
Where I am coming from:
Full disclosure, I come at this as someone who is fairly new to the PC gaming space. Only in the last 2 or so years have I really invested myself into the PC gaming community and all that entails. Before that, when I wasnt studying, I played a fair amount of WoW and some light strategy games like Civilization and Rome: TW. I only found out about Steam back in the summer of 2011, but I have already purchased more than 250 games on it through various sales and bundles. I bought BF3 on day one because of the visuals and the tech, played about 30 hours of it through late 2011, really enjoyed it, but have never gone back to it. Since then, I have not purchased or played anything else on Origin.
Throughout my limited experience with Origin, I did not have any issues as far as bugs go or problems with playing BF3. Nevertheless, my opinion on it has evolved over the last year from essentially neutral to fairly hostile to the point now that even though there are several games coming out that I would definitely want to play that seem destined to be Origin exclusives (SimCity, DA3: Inquisition, etc), I am very unlikely to pick them up at nearly any price.
Before I begin my reasons why my opinion has changed, I will state that I currently hold the view that Steam is a better service than Origin in nearly every way. Part of that is because Steam has been around longer and has a significantly larger audience, so in some ways, it may be an unfair comparison, but fairness is ultimately immaterial to the fact that Steam is currently the superior service. Furthermore, while Origin may be improving (dont really know as I havent heard anything), it seems to me if anything that Steam is improving faster with Steam Big Picture Mode (which is quite nice), Steam Greenlight, increasing numbers of excellent games with Steam Workshop support, Steam on Linux, etc.
Clearly there are DRM purists who will say that all DRM methods are bad and should all be treated as such. Personally, I wish Steam and others would abandon the DRM parts of their service (decent off-line mode for Steam at least please) as I view it as anti-consumer and counterproductive, but I view Steam specifically as providing enough value to me that I am willing to put up with occasional minor inconveniences because of their DRM.
Anyway, here are my reasons why I have come to dislike Origin:
- The existence of Origin only marginally improves competitiveness in the digital downloading marketplace and does so in the worst possible way. From my reading of the situation, many people seem to start from the opinion that Origin is a competitor to Steam and so it is therefore clearly increasing competitiveness in the digital downloading space. While this is true along a few margins, it is far from the complete story. Origin primarily entices customers through the sale of its exclusives only on Origin. This is actually a monopolistic practice and the opposite of increasing competitiveness of the market*. Increasing competitiveness means providing a better service at a similar price or a similar service at a lower price. Exclusivity is a way to circumvent having to offer a better value proposition. Since Origin is unable (or more likely unwilling) to compete with Steam on service, it can only claim to compete on price. While Origin has had some decent sales in the last year, it has been at best mimicking what Steam has already been doing for some time and on a much larger library. Consequently, Origin is at best only marginally increasing competition, but
- Origin further fractures the PC gaming market and therefore hurts overall PC gaming. This is the crux of my distaste for Origin. Before Origin, Steam was nearly the only player in digital distribution. Clearly, this situation typically has its drawbacks due to lack of competitiveness, but one benefit was that because Steam was so large, the vast majority of the games and the vast majority of PC gamers were a part of Steam. This phenomenon was self-reinforcing as more gamers joined Steam because lots of games and gamers were already on Steam, and more games were rolled out on Steam because of the large user base. By forcing gamers to move to Origin to play their exclusive games, EA has reduced that reinforcing momentum that I think was at least partly responsible for the increased attractiveness of PC gaming of late to developers and publishers. Whats worse is they are doing it in the worst way by forcibly tying Origin exclusivity to their blockbuster titles. It would be one thing (and a healthy thing) if they were competing by making Origin the better place to play PC games or even the cheapest place to get the games people want, but they are instead going about it in the most anti-competitive way possible. One of my favorite features of Steam is that I can get on and immediately know who of my friends is on and playing, whether or not there are opportunities to play together, etc. Fortunately for me, most of my friends are more or less only on Steam, but if a significant portion of my friends were playing games on Origin, I would be much less likely to find out on any given night who was on and would miss chances to play with them more often reducing the overall value of PC gaming to me as a pastime. I think that is now being repeated many times over as EA forces PC gamers to split their attention onto Origin if they want to play EA's games and thereby decreasing the overall value of PC gaming and reducing the value PC gaming has to offer to gamers.
- EA has questionable resolve when it comes to PC gaming. Fortunately, I have never fallen victim to having a server shutdown on a game I wanted to play, but I have heard the stories of EA and others doing that on numerous occasions. Whats more is it doesnt take more than perusing a couple of articles on EA to recognize the kind of company they are. Sure, PC gaming is hot right now at least in part because the current consoles are ancient (and also in no small part because of Steam making it easier to get into PC gaming for people like me), but next year when the new consoles come out and there is renewed interest and increasing sales in those platforms, how much confidence does anyone have in EA continuing to focus resources on PC games? Sure, it could happen, but I place a lot more stock in Valve focusing on the PC than EA. No company is trustworthy, but some have been proven untrustworthy, and given EAs track record, they are a company that should be viewed with the utmost of distrust.
- My friends arent on Origin, most dont know what it is, I have already persuaded them to try out Steam, and I resent the idea that I need to now convince them to get another service for one or two games we could play together. I dont want to have to do that again. Of all my friends, I am by far the most engaged gaming consumer. I am writing this post after all, but my friends (the ones that even game at all) consist of mostly former console gamers who like how simple Steam is, my wife (God love her and her addiction to Defense Grid) who plays casually, and some of my extended family who were either PC gamers from many years ago or never had a PC powerful enough to play anything fun (and now even their laptop can). Over the course of the last year, I have convinced about 5 such people to join Steam. As the most technically literate one of the bunch, there would have to be one freaking amazing game to make me go through the effort of getting them all signed up for another service. Its just not going to happen.
My Preferred Solution:
Its easy to point out all of Origins problems, but what is the solution? No problem, eliminate the Origin exclusives. Origin doesnt need to close up shop or give up. Just give customers real competition by actually competing with Steam on services or else on price. EA wants 100% of the cut? Fine, then they should do something to make me want to give it to them*. I don't think I am unique in this, but I have already personally demonstrated (with Dragon Age: Origins and Need for Speed among others) that I am willing to pay more for the same game on Steam than I could have on Origin just so I can play it on the platform of my choice the one that all of my friends are already on. Give me that option on other games (like Dragon Age 2), and I would as well. But simply give customers options. Worried that you wont get me to pay for your overpriced DLC? Do what Crytek did with Crysis 2, and come out with an Ultimate/Maximum edition with the DLC wrapped in automatically. Just give me the option to buy your game the way I want to, and I will more likely than not give you some of my money when the price is right for me. Refuse to give me the options I want, and I will be more than happy to dig into my 150 game Steam backlog.
*Note: I recognize that I am giving Steam a bit of a pass on exclusives even though they also have several exclusive games in large part because they are tying their exclusives to the superior service of Steam. In all likelihood, this would mean that Steam is where customers would have bought those games anyway, so it isnt as anticompetitive as forcing someone onto the inferior service. However, if their service was as inferior as Origins, they would not and should not get such a pass.
