How is Origin a Form of Competition?

[Vausch]

I've heard the argument from some that EA was attempting to create competition with Valve by making Origin, but when I look at it I can't see it.

Origin is almost all EA games, they won't let their games be sold on other platforms unless they were created pre-origin, and they never have to hold sales because of exclusivity with the platform.

If they wanted it to be competitive, wouldn't it make more sense to allow the games to be sold and without using Origin, then try to convince people Origin is the better platform? I know that's not possible given it's EA (mandatory EA bash) but isn't this more like withholding and monopolising?

I dunno, just something I've been wondering ever since it was made. I won't put Origin on my PC despite wanting to play a lot of games from EA and I rarely buy console games since I tend to only get exclusives for it.

 

[Michel Henzel]

It isn't, it never has been and so far they have shown no inclination to want to. I do not believe that origin was created for the purpose of competing directly with steam in any way. If it was, they failed miserably.

They only thing I see is them cutting Valve out so they don't have to them a cut of the sales.

 

[Elfgore]

Origin has sales, just not as often as Steam. Just a few weeks ago they had a massive sale on the Sims Series. Previous to that I remember Titanfall being half-off multiple times.

Origin is still relatively new. It hasn't even been out four years yet. Remember how long Steam took to get where it is now? Yes, the service is still rather basic, browsing it can be a pain, and their library is limited. But compared to Steam, they've given me excellent customer support and a free game every month. I've even gotten discounts for no reason what-so-ever. Origin is not able to compete with Steam yet, but I imagine sometime in the future they will be able to.

And a question for you OP. Why won't you put Origin on your PC? Is it a moral choice, like you don't want to support EA? Or one based on the rumors that floated around in its early days?

 

[Prince of Ales]

It's not competition. Competition is having the same title sold by two different stores, so they can have their little price wars going on. Two different titles aren't usually in proper competition. If they're different genres then they have different target audiences to begin with. If they're the same genre, then, well, people aren't restricted to buying just one game. With two very similar games, you'll probably get a good chunk of the market that ends up buying them both.

 

[mad825]

Origin is still relatively new. It hasn't even been out four years yet.?

Erm, it has and it's been 6 years at most from memory...My first game, My first free game was in 2010 on "Origin" was burnout: paradise as a christmas gift. Before, it was called EA download manger which also used to be a small update service but then got upgraded into a Steam clone. Origin is a mere rebranding or gold version as such of the same service .

I agree, Steam had some serious technical and anti-competitive issues when it was first launched. Some of which still exists to this day such as the offline feature.

 

[SlumlordThanatos]

Origin has sales, just not as often as Steam. Just a few weeks ago they had a massive sale on the Sims Series. Previous to that I remember Titanfall being half-off multiple times.

Origin is still relatively new. It hasn't even been out four years yet. Remember how long Steam took to get where it is now? Yes, the service is still rather basic, browsing it can be a pain, and their library is limited. But compared to Steam, they've given me excellent customer support and a free game every month. I've even gotten discounts for no reason what-so-ever. Origin is not able to compete with Steam yet, but I imagine sometime in the future they will be able to.

And a question for you OP. Why won't you put Origin on your PC? Is it a moral choice, like you don't want to support EA? Or one based on the rumors that floated around in its early days?

The difference between Origin and Steam is that Steam has all the games (mostly) while Origin only has EA's games. This, to me, comes across as an attempt by EA to cut Valve completely out of their sales, which I think is incredibly petty.

Technical issues aside, it will only ever be viewed as an annoyance to people who use Steam. Hence why people like me refuse to have it on their computer any longer than necessary. Bioware is the only EA development house I support, so Origin goes up for Bioware's games, and is then promptly uninstalled when I'm done with them.

The rest of their recent library doesn't justify keeping this abomination on my laptop for any longer than necessary.

 

[MysticSlayer]

Origin is almost all EA games

This is more of a problem of EA making it harder to find non-EA games on Origin than it is possible to find non-Valve games Steam. Now, EA can actually pull this off, considering they are constantly releasing games (something Valve doesn't do) and add-on content for those games, so it is rather easy to keep themselves at the center of attention. However, if you spent less than a minute's worth of work, you can find dozens of games that aren't EA-made.

The other problem might be due to the popularity (or lack thereof) of the platform. Most people go to Steam, which makes it hard to justify placing your game on Origin. It also means that if content is set up based on popularity (I don't know if it is, this is just an alternate to EA purposely giving their content preference), then EA games will be pushed to the top, since most other games will be getting all their sales through Steam.

, they won't let their games be sold on other platforms unless they were created pre-origin,

I don't have UPlay on this computer, but the last time I was on it, they had some recent EA games. They've just chosen to keep their content off of Steam, and it'll be very hard to get their content on GOG since I believe they still use DRM.

Besides, this is sort of a two-way issue. EA doesn't make their games available on Steam, and Valve doesn't make their games available on Origin (or anywhere but Steam for that matter). If you want a company that doesn't mind making their games available on a distribution service other than their own, look to Ubisoft or CD Projekt. Don't look to EA, and especially don't look to Valve.

That said, exclusivity is not a sign that they aren't competing. That's like saying Apple isn't competing with Google or Microsoft because most of their apps are exclusive to Mac and/or iOS. That exclusivity is actually part of the way they compete.

and they never have to hold sales because of exclusivity with the platform.

Yet they do, but no one ever talks about them. At the time of writing, this, though, they currently have 7 games 50% off, including Titanfall, the Mass Effect trilogy collection, and Battlefield 3 Premium. They also offer some games for free (currently Theme Hopsital is free).

I know that's not possible given it's EA (mandatory EA bash) but isn't this more like withholding and monopolising?

I'll be sure to call Valve a monopoly from now on.

Jokes aside, I know we all love to play loosely with words (censorship being the favorite one to do so with now), but let's try to avoid playing too loosely with the term monopoly. EA is not the only developer of games out there nor is Origin the only platform you can get games on. They only have control over their own products, which is standard for any company. As a result, they sort of fail at being monopoly.

 

[Elfgore]

snip

I was completely unaware of that. Makes it look worse for EA that they've yet to do anything about adding more games to their library and not trying to create a community within Origin.

snip

I find it very hard to fault a company for wanting to sell their own products on their own service. Cutting out the middle-man is usually better for a consumer, better customer service and the like. Now EA has done a few things to piss me off about their abandonment of Steam, they've effectively abandoned a few titles that are currently unplayable. Which I find unacceptable, I also get a little peeved when their only answer to an issue on Steam is to move the game to Origin.

That just sounds... needlessly tedious. I doubt Origin takes up that much room on your PC with no games installed. Just seems to waste your time having to download it every time you want a new game.

 

[Homey C-Dawg]

I never saw Origin as a competitor to steam. I've always seen it as EA's version of UPlay.

 

[lacktheknack]

I like Origin better than Steam on a usability level, so there's that.

Beyond that, though, there's not much in the way of "competition", as Origin doesn't have any non-EA games on it, so it's really more like a much, much better version of UPlay.

 

[Ticklefist]

Origin doesn't make me feel like I'm playing my games in the store. I like that.

 

[SlumlordThanatos]

That just sounds... needlessly tedious. I doubt Origin takes up that much room on your PC with no games installed. Just seems to waste your time having to download it every time you want a new game.

Mercifully Bioware titles are few and far between. Once every couple of years isn't that big a deal.

Homey C-Dawg also makes a good point: it really does feel like EA's slightly better version of Uplay. But that's like saying a pile of garbage is slightly better than a pool of sewage.

 

[Rolaoi]

It's not competition. It just creates an environment for myriad little monopolies with each client a potential false positive on another's anti-cheating software and each a potential source for your personal information to leak. Sony and Valve have both shown that large publishers aren't immune to having their servers compromised by Russians looking for paypal accounts and credit card numbers.

Steam isn't great, but the alternative should not be a bunch of little clients from each publisher selling their own games while excluding or conditionally selling their products on the others.

 

[Vausch]

Origin is almost all EA games

This is more of a problem of EA making it harder to find non-EA games on Origin than it is possible to find non-Valve games Steam. Now, EA can actually pull this off, considering they are constantly releasing games (something Valve doesn't do) and add-on content for those games, so it is rather easy to keep themselves at the center of attention. However, if you spent less than a minute's worth of work, you can find dozens of games that aren't EA-made.

The other problem might be due to the popularity (or lack thereof) of the platform. Most people go to Steam, which makes it hard to justify placing your game on Origin. It also means that if content is set up based on popularity (I don't know if it is, this is just an alternate to EA purposely giving their content preference), then EA games will be pushed to the top, since most other games will be getting all their sales through Steam.

, they won't let their games be sold on other platforms unless they were created pre-origin,

I don't have UPlay on this computer, but the last time I was on it, they had some recent EA games. They've just chosen to keep their content off of Steam, and it'll be very hard to get their content on GOG since I believe they still use DRM.

Besides, this is sort of a two-way issue. EA doesn't make their games available on Steam, and Valve doesn't make their games available on Origin (or anywhere but Steam for that matter). If you want a company that doesn't mind making their games available on a distribution service other than their own, look to Ubisoft or CD Projekt. Don't look to EA, and especially don't look to Valve.

That said, exclusivity is not a sign that they aren't competing. That's like saying Apple isn't competing with Google or Microsoft because most of their apps are exclusive to Mac and/or iOS. That exclusivity is actually part of the way they compete.

and they never have to hold sales because of exclusivity with the platform.

Yet they do, but no one ever talks about them. At the time of writing, this, though, they currently have 7 games 50% off, including Titanfall, the Mass Effect trilogy collection, and Battlefield 3 Premium. They also offer some games for free (currently Theme Hopsital is free).

I know that's not possible given it's EA (mandatory EA bash) but isn't this more like withholding and monopolising?

I'll be sure to call Valve a monopoly from now on.

Jokes aside, I know we all love to play loosely with words (censorship being the favorite one to do so with now), but let's try to avoid playing too loosely with the term monopoly. EA is not the only developer of games out there nor is Origin the only platform you can get games on. They only have control over their own products, which is standard for any company. As a result, they sort of fail at being monopoly.

Didn't say they don't hold sales, said they don't HAVE TO. You can't tell me I'm wrong that it took them, what, almost a year to realise people actually LIKE sales?

Also I know that's not the right word for describing a monopoly, I just genuinely couldn't think of the right one. The thing is, if a company has complete control over where their products are sold then doesn't that create the situation where others may start doing the same? I mean if they do that, then Ubisoft starts making it so you can only get their games via that buggy piece of shit Uplay, then what? Do we end up with the EA Access situation where content is withheld unless you sign on with them?

 

[gigastar]

Origin and Steam are sort of like the GameCube and PS2 in one respect.

One gets loads of first party exclusives, the other gets damn near everything else under the sun.

Though of course both are free to get anyway, so its not a perfect comparison.

 

[MysticSlayer]

Didn't say they don't hold sales, said they don't HAVE TO. You can't tell me I'm wrong that it took them, what, almost a year to realise people actually LIKE sales?

But saying they don't "HAVE TO" is irrelevant unless they actually don't have sales, so the fact that they are means that any problems regarding sales and Origin are moot.

And we're not talking about the Origin of the past. We're talking about it as it stands today, and today, Origin doesn't have much of a problem with sales. Besides, I don't think it is even possible to go back and see when EA decided to start having sales, if there was ever a point when they didn't do so.

Also I know that's not the right word for describing a monopoly, I just genuinely couldn't think of the right one.

Then don't use the term "monopoly". There was no need to use it, and it all it really did was add confusion as to what you actually mean. And don't worry if it is a little long-winded. I'm sure most people here don't mind.

But like I said, we already have enough of people misusing such words as a way to get a negative emotional response, so doing so really bugs me.

The thing is, if a company has complete control over where their products are sold then doesn't that create the situation where others may start doing the same?

But companies already have near absolute control about where their products are sold. There is nothing preventing EA from letting their game be sold at Gamestop while not being sold at Walmart.

I mean if they do that, then Ubisoft starts making it so you can only get their games via that buggy piece of shit Uplay,

How do you figure that? Valve has kept their games exclusive to their platform for over a decade now, and it hasn't cause other companies like CD Projekt, Ubisoft, or even EA from keeping their games off of all other platforms.

 

[Vivi22]

Origin is still relatively new. It hasn't even been out four years yet. Remember how long Steam took to get where it is now? Yes, the service is still rather basic, browsing it can be a pain, and their library is limited.

Origin being younger than Steam isn't an excuse for its various failings considering we're talking about it being owned and managed by one of the biggest publishers in the industry. They have more money and resources than Valve and they're still years behind them.

And a question for you OP. Why won't you put Origin on your PC? Is it a moral choice, like you don't want to support EA? Or one based on the rumors that floated around in its early days?

Those weren't rumours. There was a lot of shady shit that they implemented in Origin in the early days, and even worse stuff in their EULA. I don't know how much has changed since then, in part because other companies followed their lead, and because no one is in a hurry to report when EA does something right given all they do wrong. Regardless, Their behaviour in the early days of Origin made it pretty clear that they didn't have the best interests of the consumer at heart at all. Valve occasionally fucks up too, but I've never got the sense from them that they do it intentionally to screw over customers. I have zero doubt that EA does shady stuff purposefully in the hope they can get away with it though. Their history of being an awful company on many different levels just spans too many decades now.

As to the question of Origin being competition: it's not. It really cannot make the claim that it is credible competition for services like Steam and gog right now. The fact is that they're a few years in and somehow they only have 47 games from publishers other than EA on there. Everything else is published by EA. Origin is still just a platform to sell their own games primarily. And occasional sales aside, they've still got nothing on Steam in that regard and simply aren't making a serious effort to compete.

Right now they're barely more successful as a game distribution platform than Games for Windows Live. If it weren't for the fact that their library alone is probably enough to justify the investment I'd expect it to be dead in a year or two if it wasn't already.

 

[Kingjackl]

I caved in when they started giving away games for free. So I guess that's one way to compete.

 

[votemarvel]

I think a big part of Origin not becoming competition is that people wont use it simply because it is not Steam. Hand on heart, how many times have you heard someone say "I wont buy that game because it isn't on Steam."

Personally I don't blame EA for pulling their games from Steam. Why when they have a suitable distribution system themselves, should they pay Valve a slice of digital sales? If you want your Origin games on Steam then disable the Origin overlay and add the game to your Steam library.

Interface wise I also think that Origin has Steam beat and EA customer service is far and beyond that which Valve offers.

Origin had a bad start, I don't think anyone can argue against that but it is getting better and I hope it thrives because I'd hate a future where Steam is the only online marketplace.

 

[Pr0]

I think Origin is one of the greatest ways EA ever came up with to ensure I never accidentally buy any of their games.

Seriously, since all EA titles went Origin exclusive my total EA product consumption has gone WAY down. Like maybe one game a year, as compared to pre-Origin where I'd occasionally impulse buy an EA title off Steam just cause it looked interesting. Which admittedly was around 6 - 8 purchases a year pre-Origin, depending on studio release schedules.

Seriously with EA having pretty much all its stuff being Origin exclusive now....unless they heavily market a title and its expressly a title I'm willing to give a pass because it might actually be good (which doesn't include much from EA these days, I only really gave Dragon Age: Inquisition a chance because I was interested to see if BioWare had learned anything from their five year hiatus of pretending their own shit didn't stink).

Effectively Origin has been a key factor in excluding EA's product base from the general digital content consumption market..at least for me, and I consider myself something of a stereotypical hardcore life long gamer/PC gamer...so it probably holds true for a lot of people.