What's the Beef With Origin?

[Gaianus]

Okay, so, I'm trying to stay strictly neutral- I'm asking this question because I honestly don't know. I'm not out to defend EA, which has done some pretty stupid things to spite consumers, but, I'm genuinely curious- what's everyone's beef with Origin?

First of all, I know it was set up as a competitor for Steam. I like Steam. Almost all my games are from Steam. But I also have Origin, because I actually found it helpful. When I lost the CD for a game I really enjoyed, I was able to call Origin, talked to some very helpful and friendly EA staff, get the CD-code, and I was back playing the game in minutes with a digital download from Origin. So, happy ending there. I haven't encountered any real problems with Origin, though it may be that I'm just unaware of any issues because I don't have enough information. So, I'm hoping ya'll can help me out and give me the details about Origin and why it's so maligned.

 

[DoPo]

In short, it had a very rocky start, competed with Steam, and it's EA.

Let's start with sort of chronological order - it's EA. They aren't well liked and by the time they announced Origin, they weren't the most confidence inspiring company. Particularly with Spore's release which bombed badly due to DRM. And now they wanted to introduce even more intrusive, potentially more error prone, harsher DRM for every new game - forever and ever. Whether or not it would be bad was actually to be seen, but as I said, EA weren't well liked, so there was more negativity than not on the issue.

Next - it was to directly compete with Steam. People like Steam. I know, big surprise there but the fact stands - it had been on for several years now and even though it started out...less than perfect, it was now accepted. However, with the coming of Origin there were concerns coming from more or less two positions: 1. newcomers to Steam (i.e., have used it for, say, a couple of years when it was already "good") - they plain didn't want to switch to another DD service. Some of it was whining, other not as much but there was that. 2. Old users - one who knew how bad Steam was in the beginning - they feared and predicted that Origin would be just as bad and that there was no point competing with Steam after they've picked up...umm, steam. Valve ironed out (at least most of) the bad bugs and issues but it took a while, and competing against it with a most probably broken alternative was stupid. Well, there was also concerns that this would divide the the DD market and good Steam prices would be gone for any EA games. Which happened more or less.

And finally, Origin tried to compete with Steam using a broken product. It wasn't unexpected but it was present - bugs, issues (similar to Steams own back in the day) were present. And there was a very low amount of actual games, too. Also, it was EA in charge. Now, let me make something clear - I don't hate EA. I don't. They displease me but I won't call that "hate" it's more of "annoyance". However, what I do think about them is that they are incompetent. Seriously. I don't need to hate them over it but they've repeatedly took stupid decisions and actions so that's what my view of them was. And they did some major screwing up there, where I actually started to consider malevolence not plain idiocy. Some of the more (in)famous examples was closing people's entire account, cutting them off from the games they purchased and all that over something they've said on the forums. "Sorry, don't have a potty mouth (or in at least one occasion "don't disagree with a mod") - you're grounded and no games for you." People have also had their accounts banned for installing mods to a single player game. But there were more fiascos - "Origin is spying on you" for example, and the rather ambiguous legal language they've used on their TOS and some other errors on EA's part, all fueled by the two factors above - it's not Steam and it's EA's property.

I think that suffices for an overview.

 

[TehCookie]

It's DRM and I despise any form of it. I don't have a beef with Origin particularly.

I'm a big girl I can take care of my things so I don't need a corporation breathing down my neck holding my games away from me and only letting me play them how and when they allow me to.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

The big thing about Origin is that it isn't steam. People have steam, people like steam, steam works really well these days, has really good customer service, and has amazing sales and deals on games. Origin on the other hand is new, sometimes buggy, with rather poor customer service at times, and has none of the awesome sales that steam does (in fact, EA was openly opposed to sales saying that they "devalued the product.") So part of the reason that people don't like Origin is that they aren't getting steam prices for EA's games anymore.

Another thing is that Origin snoops on your computer and collects your information for EA to use. Now steam does this as well, but steam ASKS whether you're ok with that, and you can decline giving steam detailed information about your computer, something that you can't do with Origin. This is of course coming from one of the least trusted companies in America, so you can see why people have problems with it.

And the last thing is that Origin is basically always on DRM. You have to have Origin on in order to validate your game, even if you just want to play the single player portion of it. Of course Origin isn't as bad as always on DRM, because it just validates your game when you start the game, and doesn't require you to have a perfectly stable internet connection at all times, but that still doesn't ingratiate it to people who don't want to have to have an internet connection to play a single player game.

 

[Auron]

It's EA, we all need to hate on EA did you miss the memo?

It works pretty well and other than the fact I was using Steam first and would like to concentrate every one of my games on it I actually like it. I resisted too, thought taking crysis 2 out of steam was a dick move(and it was.) so I only got bf3 a few months after I saw the gameplay by myself and decided I really wanted it.

Their cloud saving feature is eons ahead of Steam in general, of course it's way easier when every game's made by them. Their store however until very recently completely sucked and all my Origin games came from Amazon and Steam(you can use the keys there funnily enough and due to the fact my email was linked to them it automatically registered when I did.

One thing I really liked is that they added quite a bunch of games from my old EA catalog into Origin for no charge at all after I talked to support and got them the keys(and in 2 cases actually sent pictures from the manuals.) so now I have my entire EA library sans battle for middle earth(damn licensing issues.) online and the disks can all burn.

Origin's offline mode works fine in my experience by the way. Overall I like it, but I'm hoping the downloadable clients will keep to a minimum in the future, don't want to soon have to open 5 different clients in fact I'd still have all my games on Steam if EA didn't force me to go to Origin for some of their games.



PS - I also use GOG but it's non-DRMish nature makes it easy to just add a shortcut on Steam and use the community features in game.

 

[ResonanceSD]

It's DRM and I despise any form of it. I don't have a beef with Origin particularly.

I'm a big girl I can take care of my things so I don't need a corporation breathing down my neck holding my games away from me and only letting me play them how and when they allow me to.

Yeah but so is Steam?


OT: I have no problem with origin, it's the least offensive thing EA has done.

 

[TehCookie]

It's DRM and I despise any form of it. I don't have a beef with Origin particularly.

I'm a big girl I can take care of my things so I don't need a corporation breathing down my neck holding my games away from me and only letting me play them how and when they allow me to.

Yeah but so is Steam?


OT: I have no problem with origin, it's the least offensive thing EA has done.

Steam is a steaming pile of shit as well.

 

[The Madman]

I really, really, really don't need yet more damned 'services' clogging my computer with their idiocy just because every other publisher out there feels the need to try and copy Valve's success with Steam. I don't care who it is or why it exists, I'm getting sick of them.

Hell I haven't bought a single new Ubisoft game in years despite them having released some games that I honestly think look fantastic? Why? Because I don't want to support yet another useless piece of bloated software that watches over my shoulder as I play their damned game. STEAM is already annoying enough, I don't need a different service for every game I play.

Ug.

 

[VanQ]

My beef with Origin comes with the invasion of privacy you must agree on in order to install it. It tried to actively search and send my browser history, for example. And it was stated in the EULA if I remember correctly that EA had the intention collecting and releasing such data into the hands of unrelated parties at EA's discretion.

When I bought Battlefield 3, I made sure to install it in a sandbox on a separate hard drive I installed specifically to keep it away from the rest of my computer. No, I am not kidding. This is how much confidence EA inspires in me. I literally do not trust them to have any games installed on my computer. Then, even though it had its own drive free of clutter it was still a slow, buggy and bloated mess of a program.

I uninstalled it after I beat the campaign of BF3 and tried to play some of the underwhelming multiplayer matches and decided I would never install it again. Thus, I have not bought or played any games released by EA since BF3. And as it would appear, my choice was a good one and I'll stand by it until such time that Origin stops being shit or I don't have to install it to play EA games.

To be fair, I also boycott U-Play and -ever since Bioshock 2- GFWL. I just don't need more than one of these ridiculous platforms on my computer at any given time.

 

[ThriKreen]

Another thing is that Origin snoops on your computer and collects your information for EA to use. Now steam does this as well, but steam ASKS whether you're ok with that, and you can decline giving steam detailed information about your computer, something that you can't do with Origin. This is of course coming from one of the least trusted companies in America, so you can see why people have problems with it.

Uh... so I checked my client and saw this in the settings:

Seems you can do that with Origin too, one can just check those boxes off.

The link itself goes to their FAQ [http://www.origin.com/US/faq] - The section on details of what is collected is at the bottom.

Okay, so, I'm trying to stay strictly neutral- I'm asking this question because I honestly don't know. I'm not out to defend EA, which has done some pretty stupid things to spite consumers, but, I'm genuinely curious- what's everyone's beef with Origin?

No major beef here for me either, but I tend to look at things objectively. As an actual service, it's about the same as Steam - buy game, download game, install and run.

Pros:
- I love the fact I can input EA published game serial keys into Origin and get a digital version, even if I got it on Steam, Amazon, retail.
- their content servers appear to be faster when downloading games (might just be an issue of load though, less people hogging the bandwidth)
- Integrated Twitch.TV support if you're into streaming, no need to run another program.
- With the above about submitting system information, I actually DON'T like how Steam always has to ask you, I'd like to be able to just set it to do it automatically and forget about it (ideally only alert me or toggle off automaitc if the EULA on it changed).
- Store: can buy for other platforms and I guess the physical media will get delivered to your address, so it is not limited to digital download games only. Never used it though, so I can't comment on delivery times and such.
- Store: coupons for discounts (Not aware of Steam having that feature).

Cons:
- Yet another program sucking up resources. Ever have both Steam and Origin update a game each at the same time? Or not realize you're playing a multiplayer game on the other client and getting network lag.
- UI sucks, I tend to be a minimalist and I can do without the over-sized UI, like the big stupid box cover art icons for the library - just give me a list.
- no snapping the window to the edges of the monitor
- Same goes for the friends list, and let me toggle the avatars off, I don't care about that.
- Not groups, or chat groups.
- 100 friend limit (I think). Seriously. Then again, Steam has a 300 friend limit.
- No community stuff like sharing of screenshots and such.
- Store: no wishlist
- Store: no gifting
- Store: Not as frequent sales or low prices compared to Steam.

Main complaint one could say is that it's not as mature as Steam, given the head start Valve has on it. We'll have to see how Origin compares in several years.

 

[Arbi Trax]

Take a seat, my lad. Let me tell you of the time that I tried to buy Spore from EA...

Day 1: Hope
I watched a funny Let's Play of Spore, that was so entertaining I felt like giving the game another shot. I no longer had my disc, and I don't pirate, so I went online to purchase. My first stop was Steam, as I had an account, and I have found the process of buying games quick, easy and convenient. Naturally, as the game is published by EA it was nowhere to be found. A quick Google search showed that the only way to buy the game was to register with Origin. Fair enough. The registration process was relatively painless, and before I knew it I had ordered my copy of Spore.

But hang on...something wasn't quite right. The game wasn't downloading...or even showing up in my Origin client.

Normally, when you order a game from Origin, they supposedly email you a code in the purchase receipt, which you then have to input on the website, so they can approve your download. And they didn't send me a code. In their automated purchase receipt. It was Sunday lunchtime, and their Customer Service agents don't work on Sundays.

So I waited.


Day 2: Disappointment
I called Customer Services on Monday lunchtime while I was on a break. After 30 minutes on hold I speak to a sullen Northern Irish guy who tells me that I need to check my email again, because the code is sent with every email. When I politely insist that he at least checks my account, he harrumphs, and says that something went wrong with my purchase.

Staggered by his insight, I go on to ask, if it's not too much trouble, if he could let me download the game I ordered for digital download 24 hours ago. He said no.

I asked again. He said no again.

Apparently, the only way an issue like this can be resolved, is by submitting a ticket through a form on the EA website, and a Customer Service agent will respond within 72 hours. At this point I made it known that if my issue was not resolved, I would be requesting a refund (which they are obliged to provide to people who live in the EU).

So I submitted my ticket. And I waited.


Day 3: And waited...


Day 4: And waited some more...


Day 5: Tension

Still nothing. No response within 72 hours. Well, guess I'll give them one more call, and if they can't sort it out there and then, I will send for my refund.

So, after 40 minutes on hold this time, I get through to another Call Centre agent in Northern Ireland. This chap is far more personal, if a little over-friendly. He insists on using my first name in every sentence, which leaves me feeling slightly violated.

After explaining all my issues to him, he looks at my Origin account. He identifies the problem, and generates a download code for me, which appears instantly.

...

I take a deep breath, and CALMLY AND POLITELY ask why his dunderheaded colleague was so unfamiliar with the operation of a mouse. By way of an apology, he offers me a copy of Darkspore for free, as it's "Basically the same game as Spore." I accept the free game and start my download running that evening, ready to run tomorrow.


Day 6: Despair, then resolution

My download finished overnight, and the following evening, I settled down for a evening of Spore. So I fired up Origin, and went to My Games.

The download had completed, but I wasn't out of the woods yet. Oh no.

"Enter Registration Code"

I tried the download code they sent me. It didn't work. I scoured the emails they sent me. No other codes.

I clenched my teeth and picked up the phone.

After a positively brisk 20 minutes on hold, and another long chat with a chap from Northern Ireland, I was told, "We don't deal with those issues here. I'll need to put you on hold."

10 more minutes on hold. I began to eat random items off my desk, in a bid to keep my strength up. Receipts, coins, whatever I could find.

I was then joined on the line by a very confused Crystal from Minnesota. Apparently our Gaelic friend had transferred me to the American EA. However, after a dozen or more probing questions about my gaming habits, the weather in England and what I had for dinner that day, she was able to resolve my issue. Some kind of "Permission Issue" that she managed to sort my end. I had Spore, and was able to play.

And I didn't. And I won't. Why?

BECAUSE IT TOOK ME A GOD DAMN WEEK TO ORDER A GAME BY DIGITAL DOWNLOAD. STANDARD BUSINESS POST TAKES LESS TIME AND COSTS LESS THAN TWO HOURS OF CALLS TO PREMIUM RATE NUMBERS FOR CHRIST'S SAKE.

I'll be damned if I'm going to let me playing Spore give any indication to EA's metrics that I enjoy using their services. I don't. It was one long headache, made longer by under-trained and badly motivated staff, circuitous customer journeys for no reason, over-zealous and poorly-designed registration procedures and inept programmers failing to automate the process correctly in the first place.

I deleted Origin, and will never download it again. I will also do my best to get people who feel the same way, to delete their accounts, and warn any who might think of purchasing a game on Origin.

Seriously, don't bother. I had a crap experience, and you will too.

 

[Auron]

It's DRM and I despise any form of it. I don't have a beef with Origin particularly.

I'm a big girl I can take care of my things so I don't need a corporation breathing down my neck holding my games away from me and only letting me play them how and when they allow me to.

Yeah but so is Steam?


OT: I have no problem with origin, it's the least offensive thing EA has done.

Steam is a steaming pile of shit as well.

Yeah it's criminal how it allows us to download our games anywhere, has easy to use in-game chat, diminished piracy in a lot of places due to the lower prices and the high sales frequency, has a good(albeit not fast) customer service, allowed Valve to develop some of it's games in the last years without worrying about budgets or another lawsuit from greedy publishers, helped revitalize PC gaming and lower the retail market's influence by pioneering the digital game sales model among other things, just criminal.

 

[TehCookie]

It's DRM and I despise any form of it. I don't have a beef with Origin particularly.

I'm a big girl I can take care of my things so I don't need a corporation breathing down my neck holding my games away from me and only letting me play them how and when they allow me to.

Yeah but so is Steam?


OT: I have no problem with origin, it's the least offensive thing EA has done.

Steam is a steaming pile of shit as well.

Yeah it's criminal how it allows us to download our games anywhere, has easy to use in-game chat, diminished piracy in a lot of places due to the lower prices and the high sales frequency, has a good(albeit not fast) customer service, allowed Valve to develop some of it's games in the last years without worrying about budgets or another lawsuit from greedy publishers, helped revitalize PC gaming and lower the retail market's influence by pioneering the digital game sales model among other things, just criminal.

My issue is the fact the first statement is completely false, you can't download your games everywhere and even if you have them downloaded you can't play them anytime. Which is the most important aspect of games, being able to play them.

 

[trollnystan]

I used to have a potential problem with Orgin; that was when I still bought games published by them and when Origin was still pretty new and all the hoolabaloo was going around the 'net.

Now days I don't care one way or another about it. I have no personal experience with it from within the last two years but I haven't heard about anything bad that doesn't happen on Steam as well. If people are having good experiences with Origin then I'm happy! It's gonna take a bit more however to get me to want to buy their games again.

 

[Genocidicles]

I already have Steam. I shouldn't have to have more than one client clogging up my computer in order to play games.

Of course this applies to Uplay and GFWL and all that other crap too.

 

[Ymbirtt]

OK, sure, I'll tell this story again.

I really like the Mass Effect series - I picked up the first two games off Amazon for cheap so I got the boxes with them and everything, and I thoroughly loved both of them. I generally do this with games - buy them after the hype and pay £5 for them rather than £40, and also get a box with some cool cover art on it that I can put on a shelf and show off, and ME3 was no exception. I picked it up off Amazon and got it delivered to my parents' house, where I'd be spending a couple of weeks after I'd finished the various things I needed to do at university. My parents' internet is patchy at best, but ME3 is single player, so that's not a problem. When I got there, I unpacked my computer, stuck the disk in, and started installing.

Origin was needed, so I signed up for an account (though for some reason the username Ymbirtt was already taken) and installed the service. Once the service ran, it prompted me for the CD key. Once I'd filled that in, a picture of the cover art appeared in my library with a progress bar underneath it saying "Downloading, approx 10 hours remaining". Er, wait, no, I have two DVDs here, they don't just contain Origin, and it doesn't take 10 hours to dump the contents of a DVD onto a hard drive. I cancelled the download, opened the CD tray, put it back in, and still it tried to download the game. I emailed customer support, and they told me that I had registered a download-only copy of the game. I emailed back saying that there must have been some sort of mistake - I had two DVDs filled with data in front of me. Their response was that I should take the problem up with the retailer.

That's right, the company who run the distribution service which controls whether I can access my game or not, and who produced and printed the disk that I bought, think that it must be Amazon's fault that I was sold a bad disk - Amazon's entire involvement being putting the disk in a warehouse and then sending it out to me some number of weeks later. Crass idiocy aside, I then Googled around found that it was possible to hoik the data from the disks as a pair of RARs and then inflate them into Origin's download folder - from here I was basically manually doing Origin's job for it, spoonfeeding files into folders that it should have been more than capable of finding and decompressing itself. The digital distribution service had proven incapable of installing a game from a disk by unpacking a 2-part RAR to a particular destination - something which has been possible since 1993.

But whatever, the game's installed now, right? Let's pick up Olaf Shepard from ME2 and finish off some Reapers! So I played for a bit, and found that there was some free DLC. OK, so let's download that - my parents' internet could just about handle it, and I got a bit of bonus content out of it, as well as the extended cut which apparently meant I wouldn't have to witness the hideous ending - excellent! After the download finished, I carried on playing, then my parents' internet dropped. The game ended and I was kicked back to the menu because it couldn't validate my DLC. It doesn't matter that it had already validated the free DLC that everyone has access to anyway when I started the game, it couldn't continue to validate it, so it was now magically invalid and I must stop playing immediately. I couldn't reload my save, because the save had been made from a game containing the DLC, and since I couldn't validate this free DLC that everyone with the game is allowed to use, I couldn't get at my save.

At least, that's what I thought. When I shut down Origin and restarted it, it restarted in offline mode. When I started up ME3 from offline mode, it assumed that any DLC that is installed is valid. I was then allowed to carry on with my game. That's right, if you lose connection part way through playing, you're clearly some kind of pirate hacker wizard or whatever, but if you never had an internet connection to begin with, then you're completely fine.

This absurd breed of moon-logic is why I dislike Origin and I refuse to buy any games through it. It's not just invasive and overpriced, it's literally non-functional, incapable of doing the very things for which it was designed.

 

[AT God]

Origin can exist, no one thinks it shouldn't. It shouldn't be required to play EA's games.

In all honesty, Steam shouldn't be required for Valve games either but we are way past that. If EA wants to show Valve up, it would allow their own games to be played straight off disk. Or be the bigger man and let Steam sell their games.

Also, Origin, which I haven't used in a while, didn't work properly for many months when it first became required to run Battlefield 3. It might work now but it was a night mare back then

 

[SecondPrize]

Here's my problem with Origin. I go to their store and see the price they want for Kingdoms of Amalur. Then I get extremely upset that they think I'm that much of a sucker that I'd pay $50 for that when I can find it anyplace with a pc bargain bin for about 12 cents. Then I get upset thinking about all the suckers that may actually buy that from them, now, at that price.