Origin Devs respond with Why Origin is not optional for ME 3

[Lunar Templar]

Some individuals are apparently still a bit too dense to know the difference between Steam and Origin. The two i can recall off the top of my head (DRM wise)

1: Steam has an offline mode, once a game is authenticated you don't need to go online with it, but you may aswell (if your net drops, your game doesn't boot you); Origin does. As does some Ubisoft games actually...

2: Origin takes data from browsing history, components and peripherals. Iphone, anything that requires drivers, that porn folder. They know about it too. Steam takes things involved with steam. So bandwidth going through it, games activated with steam, graphics settings, for games set on steam. So one is a piece of Spyware, one monitors itself.

3: Steam is run by people who still know what customer service means, Origin is run by EA, who would rather rip you off then answer a simple question

We clear?

K
hows that?

 

[Clive Howlitzer]

It is weird how many people in this thread have their lips wrapped around EAs cock. Anyway, I already knew about this, that guy has been posting in the Bioware forums for awhile, and he doesn't know the difference between his ass and a hole in the ground.
I will be skipping ME3 myself. I was looking forward to it but I just can't bring myself to give EA any more of my money until they shape up and fly right. This has to do with a lot more than just Origin though. That is just the icing on the cake.

 

[Athinira]

Right, but I don't have to restart steam 3 times before I can load my game. Steam also doesn't require a browser plugin to run my game. <insert the rest of the tired rant about how origins is nothing but a steaming pile of shit here, I'm too lazy to retype the rest again>

I'd just like to point out, that's BF3. That has nothing to do with origin.

Honestly, if you use, and approve of, steam, then you have no justification for hating origin. It's not a religion, you are not confined to just one or the other.

So if you invite your best friend into your home, then you have no justification for not inviting me in either. Is that the logic we are using here?

Origin gets the hate it gets while Valve gets all the love because people don't trust EA, but do trust Valve. And it's understandable. EA does very little to MAKE their customers trust them.

Nobody wants to be forced into a service they don't trust, especially not to play the games they like.

 

[Vegosiux]

To continue the tinfoil hat brigade...

"The protection and confidentiality of your data is very important to EA. Origin would never sell your personal information, nor will it share your personal information without your express consent unless compelled by law. Origin is not spyware, and does not use or install spyware on user machines.

Origin wouldn't, but would EA?

Now you can say that EA will go against this agreement, but you can say that about any service and any company.
Facts straightened.

Well, might be just my fixation on little details but there's nothing in there that would assure me of EA not submitting the gathered information to third parties. I gather that Origin will not forward it, yes, but that's just it. Origin gathers and submits the data to EA, and there's nothing in there that says EA can't do as they please with it. The only thing guaranteed is that Origin isn't going to submit that information to a third party.

Note, I'm not the tinfoil hat wearing type, but I am the the always read the fine print carefully type. Origin is also not the reason for my skipping of ME3, just a piece of the jigsaw, the other being disappointment in how the franchise got butchered to "appeal to a wider audience". Call me pretentious, I am, but seriously, I really don't like what they're doing to it.

 

[RatRace123]

Huh, I just expected the answer to be:

"Because we're publishing the game and we say so. Nyeh nah nah nyeh nah nah."

 

[enzilewulf]

Crap, messed up my quotes.
Why doesn't the escapist have a proper post editor? And if it does, how do you activate it?

Anyway, I don't have patience to discuss every little misinformed accusation against origin, and, those two in particular, have been thoroughly myth-busted already.

As for the prices, I guess if you live in a country that doesn't have the Euro or dollar as its national currency, the price differences apply - since, as a guy above wrote, origin will charge in your local currency while steam charges in euros/dollars.

I got origin for BF3 and ended up re-downloading ME2 & DA2 through origin. Worked flawlessly. Atleast origin doesn't try to become the facebook-equivalent(track ALL THE THINGS!) of the digital distribution market.

This man has it. I use Origin and Steam and see no difference. For those who are crying foul over "WELL THEY MAKE ME DOWNLOAD ORIGIN AND I DON'T WANT IT" I had to download steam for Civ5. I hate EA with a passion but the hate on Origin is a little over stretched. I don't understand the whole spyware thing so I don't really have a opinion on it, all I know is that I am sure there is other software we use that tracks what we do. Heck, anyone remember the whole thing with the tracking programs on IOS devices and how long it took for that to actually get discovered?

 

[Darkmantle]

Well Steam does the exact same thing for games, including Skyrim and Shogun 2. I see no difference between the two. Why are you not complaining for this? Oh, right. Because Valve owns Steam and Valve can do no wrong.

or maybe because valve offers more features? I can play offline on steam, The *TOS of Origin* is so bad it's been banned in Germany (while steams hasn't mind you), Valve scans for hardware, and you can opt out of that if you feel it necessary. And it's outlined in their privacy policy what they do with it, unlike Origin which just says "fuck you we'll use it for whatever we want" (why Germany banned it BTW).

those are only the reasons I know for sure.

 

[Vigormortis]

Why are people still defending a company that doesn't give a fuck about them and uses bully tactics to force needless & useless DRM down their throat?
Why are they defending a company that stifles creativity and abuses their employees?
Why are they defending a company that is trying to waste their time, harddrive space, and destroy their privacy rights, just to appease their stockholders?

Why are people so keen to jump to the defense of the bad guy, and throw all their self respect out the window?
Even if other people do it, it doesn't justify EA doing it.
For the record, I don't support Activision either, I agree, people should take a stance on those knobs as well.

Ohh. Heh. Thought you were talking about steam.
Because. You know.
They do the same thing. Except they also take all your game stats and publish them for the world to see.

So many months after origin was released, the blatant hipocrisy is still oh-so-entertaining.

Okay wait...
You're saying Valve "stifles creativity and abuses their employees" and they "waste your time, hard-drive space, and destroy privacy rights to appease their stockholders"?

Oh my. People and their lack of knowledge on something can be...how did you put it? "Oh-so-entertaining"

Say what you will about their games and services, but if there's one thing they don't do it's invade your privacy or stifle creativity. For God's sake, pretty much ever project they've ever done since Half-Life 1 was born out of some team member saying, "Hey. I have this idea." And they went to work on it. (or hired the makers of a mod and gave them free reight to do what they wanted. still confounds me why people say that's a bad thing.)

No employee has a set "role" or "position". They operate under a cabal system. Anyone can start up a project as they want and others can join in if they feel they can contribute. Hell, all of the desks in the building have wheels so they can roll them where ever they need to be.

As for "invading privacy", here's the thing. While Origin only now claims to collect the same level of information as Steam; i.e. hardware profile, Steam software usage, play stats; the point of contention people have is it doesn't ASK you for any of it. Steam gives you the option to opt out every time it wants to collect some data. Origin just says, "Either give us free reign to peek around your machine or you can't use this software." That's the difference. It's not hypocrisy to be okay with Steam's methods of data collection and not okay with Origins.

As for the DRM aspect of all of this, Origin isn't that much different than Steam. (though one could argue it's actually easier to access your software via Steam than Origin, but that's something that may change over time.) However, I fail to see how anyone can claim Valve "doesn't give a fuck about their customers". All they do is keep an ear to the community. They're one of the few companies that will actually make big, sweeping changes to a game or service because the community spoke up and showed them their initial idea was a bad one.

Oh, a few side notes before I go. Valve is privately owned, so they have no stock holders. Therefore, they can't do anything to "appease their stock holders". Also, give these articles from Penny Arcade a read:
http://penny-arcade.com/report/editorial-article/where-the-science-happens-the-penny-arcade-report-goes-for-a-tour-though-th

http://penny-arcade.com/report/editorial-article/valves-gabe-newell-talks-wearable-computers-rewarding-players-and-whether-w
Seems to me Valve employees are anything but "abused".

[edit] For the record, while I still think it's a poorly programmed pile of shit, I don't have an issue with Origin as a service. I really don't. It's everything else about it that bothers me. EA's policies, the invasiveness (which is still there, despite what some people will tell you), the arbitrary rules that will get you perma-banned from your account for someone else posting something bad in the forums, etc, etc. Not to mention EA's rather obnoxious and blatant smear campaign against Steam and anything else to drum up attention for Origin.

If none of that were happening, I'd be perfectly fine with Origin. You'd even hear me defend it as a much needed competitor in the DD service industry. But as it stands, it and EA offend me.

 

[Flailing Escapist]

Its an unnecessary extra step inbetween me and enjoying myself. Please go away

 

[octafish]

Well Steam does the exact same thing for games, including Skyrim and Shogun 2. I see no difference between the two. Why are you not complaining for this? Oh, right. Because Valve owns Steam and Valve can do no wrong.

or maybe because valve offers more features? I can play offline on steam, The *TOS of Origin* is so bad it's been banned in Germany (while steams hasn't mind you), Valve scans for hardware, and you can opt out of that if you feel it necessary. And it's outlined in their privacy policy what they do with it, unlike Origin which just says "fuck you we'll use it for whatever we want" (why Germany banned it BTW).

those are only the reasons I know for sure.

You need to be online to start Steam's offline mode, Origin just starts in offline mode if you aren't connected. That is better than Steam's convoluted BS. Oh and read the current ToS for what Origin want to do with information gathered. They re-wrote the ToS, get over it.

 

[Darkmantle]

Well Steam does the exact same thing for games, including Skyrim and Shogun 2. I see no difference between the two. Why are you not complaining for this? Oh, right. Because Valve owns Steam and Valve can do no wrong.

or maybe because valve offers more features? I can play offline on steam, The *TOS of Origin* is so bad it's been banned in Germany (while steams hasn't mind you), Valve scans for hardware, and you can opt out of that if you feel it necessary. And it's outlined in their privacy policy what they do with it, unlike Origin which just says "fuck you we'll use it for whatever we want" (why Germany banned it BTW).

those are only the reasons I know for sure.

You need to be online to start Steam's offline mode, Origin just starts in offline mode if you aren't connected. That is better than Steam's convoluted BS. Oh and read the current ToS for what Origin want to do with information gathered. They re-wrote the ToS, get over it.

If my laptop isn't online, it just says "hey you don;t have an internet connection, do u want to start offline?" then I click yes and I'm offline, hurrahs were had for all.

Your second point is somewhat inconsequential, it's something called buyer faith. I won't buy ea games on origin because of how hard they screwed the pooch before. It's an issue of intentions. they were perfectly happy to let that BS happen until someone caught them, I'm not going to be the sucker that gets their products only to be screwed because I didn't read the fine print. Not to mention the horrible customer service.

When EA fucks up and bans people, they say "tough shit". When Valve fucks up and bans people, they hand out free copies of games in a "man we fucked up, sorry" kind of way. Additionally the forum bans affecting your access to games, etc etc. In steam the forum account is separate from your steam account, so that shit doesn't happen.

 

[BaronIveagh]

You need to be online to start Steam's offline mode, Origin just starts in offline mode if you aren't connected. That is better than Steam's convoluted BS. Oh and read the current ToS for what Origin want to do with information gathered. They re-wrote the ToS, get over it.

And, why did they have to re-write it? Oh, because it did allow all those things, which was illegal in some places and the current ToS is still written so that they can change it back anytime they want...

Oh, and I hate to break this to you, but you don't have to be online to start steams offline mode.