Free Dead Space Launches Origin's "On the House" Program
- Thread starter Andy Chalk
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Meh. I already have Dead Space so I can't say I care, though it is funny to see people get mad at EA about this.
Team Fortress 2 and Portal were very marketable IP's and were worth their purchase price at any given time, regardless of both given a free treatment at a later period.JediMB said:
Dead Space is a pretty limited IP with a niche appeal and a very low replay value.
Free games are a great way to get people to your store front, and that's exactly what this is. EA has invested millions into Origin and they banked on their AAA titles forcing people into their market front...and in some cases that has worked but their overall concurrency is the issue. Steam just recently topped six million concurrent users as an average now in 2014, Origin's statistical data is not openly traded with the public. But a cursory search of the internet with your search engine of choice will show that the last time EA decided their concurrent user numbers were worth making a news release about was during Sim City's launch in 2013 where they recorded 1.3 million concurrent users.
The market share average between Steam and Origin is not evenly split at all, while the total users registered between either only varies by about 10 million users (Steam at 60 million and Origin at 50 million), Steam is retaining at least 10% of its registered user base at their peak concurrency...every day. Origin on the other hand barely retains 1% of its registered user base during its daily concurrency and it can be assumed that it may not even be breaking the 1 million user mark in daily concurrency except when a particularly hyped IP is just about to release or has just released. But it can also be assumed that these spikes aren't very large because EA hasn't really bothered to say much about how great their Origin numbers were with the launch of BF4 and of course just recently Titanfall.
Simple facts are is you can't sell people games if you can't get them to your store, and most people that use a digital content delivery service for their PC's aren't generally very prone to having more than one of them running at any given time. Free games are a way to get people to keep the store open on their desktops...and thats pretty much it.
From a personal standpoint...I've been using Steam since its earliest inceptions, its been sitting on my computer since it first came out and has been in my system start up for years now and I don't find it intrusive, problematic, or even annoying, it has a deep content base, and I can find almost anything I want on it at any given time without having to check some other source and buy elsewhere. Origin's problem, to me, is that I have to install a second piece of software to access their games, which isn't in their favor because I'm less likely to impulse buy an EA product...simply cause their products aren't being marketed to me directly without me consciously choosing to install their delivery platform.
If EA was still hand in glove with Steam, they'd likely be selling me a lot more games and most of the EA backed games I have...are games I got on Steam. By and large if its locked behind Origin...it has to be something pretty special for me to bother, and so far ME3 was really the only thing they've done recently that pushed me towards Origin....I won't say thats the average but I will say that if you're depending on exclusives to get people into your store at all, then you're not going to have a very busy store in the long run.
Eh. Hm. No real complaints here. As someone who doesn't have the game, this is actually quite nice of them. *high-fives origin staff*. *sanitizes hand, burns clothes*
1. The guy's been around almost as long as me.Nazulu said:
2. That avatar is automatically applied to all the user's posts when they're banned. It's not their real avatar. I'm amazed you haven't noticed that.
Steam has never had me require to manually patch a game with an official patch to get it to run and then that patch invalidate my key, and then require me to get in line to chat with a tech support rep, get a key from them that required me to have an account on their older online activation system for the game to finally work.lacktheknack said:
Oh did I say work? Yeah I still had to dig in the ini files to make the mouse support vaguely resembling usable, though it still had mouse accelleration.
That was my experience with Mass Effect on Origin.
While some shitty ports have made me need to dig in ini files and such with steam games too, I've never had a problem with patching or invalidated key activations.
I got Spore(75% off on Steam) last week.
That depleted my goodwill towards EA for the year.
Unless there's a game from them I need to live, I'm not touching Origin.
Though I will admit it 's beginning looking quite attractive when you take a look at the shovelware piling up on Steams front yard.
That depleted my goodwill towards EA for the year.
Unless there's a game from them I need to live, I'm not touching Origin.
Though I will admit it 's beginning looking quite attractive when you take a look at the shovelware piling up on Steams front yard.
I don't get what youre saying here...you don't think Dead Space is as good a game so their attempt to give it away for free is some foolish farce? Portal could be considered less replayable than Dead Space depending on who you ask, I'm not even sure I'd call it that Niche, its pretty standard sci fi which is popular and while it does pretend to be a survival horror game its really just a slightly different action game.Pr0 said:
Speak for yourself. I've played through the first Dead Space three times now, and I probably will again at some point in the future.Pr0 said:
OT: People, people... it's just a free game. Honestly, no matter how you look at it, this can't be a negative. It's either positive if you want the game, or neutral if you don't.
Worst case scenario: You don't want to bother with Origin or don't want the game, so you are utterly unaffected by this.
What exactly is the problem?
Um... yay!Cerebrawl said:
...What do you expect me to do with this information? Origin went poorly for you, it's been nothing but sunshine and lollipops and rainbows on my end, while Steam's support is so bad that I had to wait until I bought new computer parts and reinstalled the OS a year after buying Arkham Asylum before I could even play it.
I don't know if it's been said prior to this post, but if not, I have this to add:
I got Dead Space on Origin when it was offered alongside Dead Space 3, Mirror's Edge and some others as a Humble Bundle. It plays fine, but the mouse controls can make aiming awkward, and I couldn't play the basketball minigame for beans.
And if they ever offer it again, Dead Space 3 was absolute garbage in the 3 hours I could stomach it. The only joy I had in that time was learning that Isaac now swears and grumbles under his breath when stomping. Would not recommend, even for free.
But mainly the basketball minigame thing.
I got Dead Space on Origin when it was offered alongside Dead Space 3, Mirror's Edge and some others as a Humble Bundle. It plays fine, but the mouse controls can make aiming awkward, and I couldn't play the basketball minigame for beans.
And if they ever offer it again, Dead Space 3 was absolute garbage in the 3 hours I could stomach it. The only joy I had in that time was learning that Isaac now swears and grumbles under his breath when stomping. Would not recommend, even for free.
But mainly the basketball minigame thing.
Well that sounds like the problem was on your end. I couldn't play Fallout: New Vegas until I replaced my RAM, the old one had a few corrupted sectors. Similarly sounds like you had a hardware issue, or just plain didn't meet specs.lacktheknack said:
Heck my old computer couldn't run Bastion because it required 500mb VRAM and I only had 320MB on my GeForce 8800GTS and some newer games required me to have a newer OS than windows XP. That's not steam's fault.
That doesn't change the fact that I submitted a ticket and it took them over a week to collectively shrug their shoulders and say "good luck" without even a suggestion.Cerebrawl said:
And I once tried to get DLC deleted off my account, since I didn't want it and couldn't turn it off. It took them three weeks. That is Steam's fault. Ergo, I like Origin better.