f13.net

Let's split this off from the SWTOR thread and discuss the ramifications of this new thang.

www.origin.com

By default, people can find you via your real name(!) on the system regardless of their own setting, and the EULA clearly states that your habits, system usage and platform details will be shared with advertisers for marketing purposes.

While the ladder isn't really anything new (Steam does it, though you are asked before it collect and sends your info if it's ok), but the former?  Hello RealID 2.0  :ye_gods:

So it's what people were incorrectly afraid RealID was going to be? Figures it would be EA.  :oh_i_see:

Hell, I don't even allow my rl friends access to my f13 steam info. What about this Origin doesn't scream OUTCAST UNCLEAN? Serious question.

I don't think its going to steal any of Steams thunder. They are mixing PC and console stuff, and you know how PC people don't like to mix with their unwashed console playing inbred cousins.

Well, thats that then.  Is this tied to Battlefield 3 as well(I assume it is)?  If so they've managed to fuck up the opening Activision created with their sub fee thing.  That didn't take long.

This is, in fact, EA's 4th attempt/rebranding of its download service.  The first two, EA Downloader and EA Link, were the ones responsible for "download insurance", to which one could pay extra money in order to download the game again for up to 18 months post-purchase.   :uhrr:

From what I can see, starting with the last and now current generation, you can download the games you buy as often as you want.  It also has Facebook, XBL and PSN integration.

Yep, I'm never buying anything I have to associate my real name to publically.

The entire reason I use steam, is because steam has managed to gain my trust. I'm not worried that a year from now Steam will be gone and all my shit will be useless or whatever.


EA has consistently done the exact opposite of that.  :why_so_serious:

"Why does everyone use steam?"
"Must be all the social aspects of it! Quick, let's out social network that rival digital distribution company!"

I want meeting minutes of all the companies who have decided that the next leap in online marketing will be instead of selling customer data, just flat out displaying it.

Maybe this is just a reaction to sony. "Oh yeah? We don't have anything to steal, hackers! We made it all public already!"

Steam wins because I can just buy something. They do nifty sales. They aren't going to up and cancel stuff I bought 3 years ago on another computer simply because I haven't played it in a while. I mean hell I load up stuff from the past and replay it all the time.

But will you use free things that show your real name, Ben?

I get your point, assuming you actually found his personal info, but still very creepy.

Sure. That doesn't bother me. My gaming is about escaping reality, not craming more of it down my throat by making real life connections with other dorks.

EDIT: And by that I should say if you're working at it, my online handle is very unique. I'm not hard to track down if people wanted to try.

Don't look out the window, it's just the wind rustling the bushes.

fakedit: It's just interesting to me how people choose what to and what not to provide their personal information for.

I'm more concerned about the download service itself.   If the privacy is fucked up they will get raked over the coals about it eventually.   I'm having visions of running some crappy Origin client and it screwing with my computer though.  It will probably force itself to start at startup and disabling/closing it will be like trying to remove a virus.   Not to mention it'll probably cause SWTOR to crash left and right.

That said I can't exactly blame them.  For game devs Steam is an extremely scary thing right now.  

On a related note, terrible name. When I saw the thread title I thought of Origin Systems which ended up getting owned and dissolved by EA.

I did as well, but most game players today probably never heard of Origin nor played Ultima, while many of us here played UO as well as other previous Ultima games.

If this is the only place to download SWTOR, I'll probably get a physical copy.  If they wind up providing a good service, good and all, but I'm not going to be an early adopter on this sort of thing, just like I didn't touch Steam for a very long time until they made it good and lots of people thought it was good.

You may be stuck with it for login/patching/whatever, of course.

That's really the thing that a lot of the fanbois on the TOR forums aren't getting.  So what if we can get a physical box?  If the gateway to logging on to the service requires an Origin account, or worse yet the patcher system is integrated, we're all boned. 

THAT'S what we need clarification on, and if they can't give us an answer before or during E3, many bothans are gonna die...

That's funny, my first thought was "radioactive spider".

Or they just don't give a fuck cause they know the entire internet full of neckbeards will still buy it cause of the SW license, crappy launcher or not. Really, its moot. Having to use this Origins thing even if its the worst crap in the world wont effect sales of SWTOR more than like 0.2%.

I've already sacrificed a throwaway email address to EA so I'm assuming this Origin thing will probably use the same one I've already used for Spore, Dragon Age and Mass Effect.

Game devs? I would've thought they would love steam, it's the publishers that I'd assume would be scared.

Steam seems like a Godsend for all those little indy houses. Games I would never know existed I buy up for 5 dollars on steam.

We're not boned at all. Unless this service turns out far better than I expect and has massive positive rep before SWTOR launches, if I have to set up a specific download service for SWTOR it just means I won't try SWTOR. I don't see how that makes me the guy who is boned.

Playing the odds, it probably means the opposite.


But you're working with no real info here. EA are going to need your credit card and personal info here no matter what. Assuming you can acquire SWTOR through other means, the only thing thing EA/Origin has to sell is 'this throwaway email address plays SWTOR' and I don't really see what nefarious bullshit you think EA can do with that.

Steam basically is the PC gaming market, given the strength of its distribution network. If you are EA or Activision or similar, and want to remain in the PC space, you either have to kowtow to Valve or spend the time and effort trying to take them on.

I don't understand, please explain to me how "real name" garbage gets brought out time and time again? Is it not clear that people DO NOT want to share real identities and gaming? Sure, some 12 year old might not mind, but all adults (with real spending power) would have none of that. It has _clear_ potential do real harm.

So why pushing this worth so much to execs? Are they getting that much money out of blasting our identities all over the web?

I don't trust EA and won't use their product unless I have no other choice and somehow by some miracle their product is not some buggy piece of shit that I will have access to for as long as I want.

Which doesn't describe EA currently.

If EA were to ask me why I didn't want my real name as my gaming identity, I'd have two answers for them.

1) I have a gaming identity. It's called "tgr".
2) Sony.

Exactly tgr, when I finally become King of New California I don't want anyone to know that before shit hit the fan I spent lots of time in online simulators preparing for that day.

Yes. 

In a word: Facebook.

The funny thing is that people consider Facebook to be a social networking site, but if you look at its revenue sources it is really a personal data aggregator and advertising platform. It's important to note that even Zuckerberg doesn't get the whole 'anonymous on the net' thing either, which is why Facebook can be so slow on its own privacy issues.

There's probably been 1000s of words written on why Facebook is so successful, and I'm sure some of them say, "because people like to connect with people they know / used to know". That's a little bit true, but it isn't as important as some people think it is (imo).

Has Valve taken a stab at a true social network thing for gamers? I think (as much as I resist their stranglehold on the PC gaming industry) that they'd probably do it mostly right.

Pretty much what UnSub said.

Facebook is and always has been about making money off of selling consumer information to the highest bidder. Everyone with a Facebook account is the product. All "social networking" in general does is give advertisers "better data" to use in pitching their product (advertising) to their customers (companies paying for advertising). Any company on the web that does not sell a product or a service but gives you a lot of stuff "free" is using you as part of a product to sell to someone else.

With stuff like this, it is just the companies that do sell something directly to consumers seeing that they might be able to get into the "turn joe public into a product to be sold" game as an added benefit.

This is very clearly bullshit, plenty of adults have their names and info all over the internet without caring at all.

It's a godsend until Steam denies approving your indie studio title over and over, usually citing too many similar games. They're still one of the biggest, best supporters of the indie scene on the PC, but they're far from the perfect.

My sole experience with EA's download services is through my friend, to whom I gifted the free ME2 I got from DA2. The download corrupted itself and to date he's been unable to play the game, because every new d/l attempt stops at the same point. Even if you remove everything and reinstall EADM.

So no, I will not trust this Origins thing without having a bunch of SW fans impale themselves on the inevitable traps first.

Why do you hate Bothans so much?  :sad_red_panda:

I read on Tom's Hardware that SWOTOR will be Origin-exclusive.

I await the river of tears...

You do not need to give Origin your real name. I use it and I never have. The option of allowing people to find me by searching for my real name was not ticked by default in my client, although that may be because I never gave them my name.


Where is this EULA? I'm pretty sure that's illegal in the UK unless they give you an obvious box to tick (not hidden away, right there when you sign up) to opt out.

Posting the same thing in multiple threads doesn't make you any cooler.  Esp. since the info is days old.  And if Tom's Hardware is your primary source of information, you really are living in the past.

In the Origin Setup (http://www.origin.com/download)


Section 3 is also terribad

I found info interesting and it will affect my gaming purchases/decisions. If you don't like it, feel free to go fuck yourself.

That is a horrible EULA but personally I don't care if EA tells people they have a customer with this type of computer who plays Sims3 a lot. I was under the impression the EULA said they would send details about me along with it (eg name, country, IP address, motherboard number). It doesn't.

I have good news on the name front

(http://www.frogfear.com/images/origin2.jpg)

Just don't give it to them.

By the way, if anyone wants to friend me up on Steam, my username is palmer_eldritch. I'm not blanking my name out in this image to avoid you all :)

Okay, so my initial concern about Origin, that they were completely scrapping the current EA Download Manager as a result, wasn't the case.  The beta is just a rename so far (they added all the friends list stuff like a month ago) so I assume the EADM guts are still in there which means it's a perfectly fine downloader/installer/thing to download manuals from.

Your post, is now canceled.

I used the EADM a few months back to get my free copy of ME2...everything seems to work fine, except that I have to manually login to the Cerberus Network each time I run the game.

It is illegal in most of civilised world unless the data cannot be used to identify you, in which case they can do anything they damn well please.

'some guy 5763893' has bought these games, runs this system and plays x hours per week, wouldn't count as personal information in any jurisdiction I know of, but would be more than enough for marketing.

The real risk to you is that EA will disclaim all responsibility when they get hacked, or when an insider inevitably sells blocks of actual personal info. But this is no different to the position with steam, or SOE.

Privacy concerns aside, is there any reason for me to bother with this?

Unless EA starts to only sell the digital copy of their games via Origin from TOR onward, no.  Any 'exclusive' content would only come in the form of trailers, screencaps, and/or cheap addon content that's easily leaked out.

Good news! You can buy a game, take the CD Key, download an ISO and do things that way.

http://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/ij0hd/eas_new_origin_store_has_great_support/

Hardly compelling evidence against Origin, but I laughed.

That CS person was in full reverse.

Sounds like he was being very evasive.

So... I have 2 games on Origin. Free copy of ME2 I got for buying DA2 and my SW:ToR pre-order. I finish ME2 last night and decide I want to check out ME1 , check price on steam and then go to check on Origin and can't log in. Can't log in anywhere on EA's site except @ www.swtor.com. Try changing password get this:



So I want to give EA money but since they fucked up their login/master account/whatever I can't.  :uhrr:

Seriously, someone at EA actually hates money. Deep down.

I think they hate games, too.

My faith in a clean launch for ToR is diminishing greatly. this is straight up clown shoes, I'd post in their support forums.... but I can't log in. I'd post in the only place I can log on, on the swtor.com site, but it would get drowned on lore arguments and polls about entertainer being a playable class after launch. 

If you didn't buy a box, you only have yourself to blame.

As for EA: "The only thing saving us from their evil is their incompetence." - Jon Stewart

I did... when you do you get your code that you enter into origin for presumably early access.

So this:


Source: http://forum.ea.com/eaforum/posts/list/7475617.page

Anyone else here having issues?

I had issues logging into the SWTOR site before, yes.

I haven't had any problems with my EA accounts but I've never done anything with Origin specifically yet. DA2 is logging in fine, and I just logged in to the SWTOR site with no problem as well.

Same for me as for Ingmar, tho it's ME2 not DA2.

I haven't had any issues, thankfully. I haven't actually bought anything on Origin, but I need to use it to patch the Sims, so I have it all set up anyway. :P

Well the only reason I had it installed was because the bribed me with free Mass Effect 2.

Seems like EA's screwup regarding pre-release availability was truly a blessing in disguise. Now I can just comment from the peanut gallery.

And suddenly without any intervention on my part I can log into origin again.

Parody commercial for EA Origin
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aR6LqhIf_s8

That's a terrible baby neckbeard.

I was just given this link regarding EA's origin and the collection of data that it does:

http://bf3blog.com/2011/08/origin-license-agreement-gives-ea-right-to-collect-and-share-your-data/

Out of curiosity (and because I'm a bit lazy at the moment), how does this compare to Steam? I know steam collects some data on hardware and OS etc.

I'm pretty sure EA will hawk my details to the sleaziest marketing firm it can find, while Valve seems a bit more trustworthy. Probably both just as bad, but that's the power of PR for you.

At the very brief glance it seems very similar with the warden thing Blizzard installs with WoW.

Necroing to say that everyone who signed up for Origin no longer have the power to class action sue or jury trial EA.  (http://www.ngohq.com/news/20584-eas-new-user-agreement-bans-lawsuits.html)

 :why_so_serious:

The question is: would that clause be accepted by a judge as binding?

Supreme's said it would, so for now it seems likely. I'll miss playing Origin exclusive games, but fuck EA for this bullshit.

I just saw that my BC2 account has been turned into an origin account. I guess I can't sue EA now. :(

You didn't agree to their terms though.

I just installed the Sims3 on my new computer, and the Sims Medieval, and now Origin wants to install. I don't want Origin to install.

I fucking hate EA.

Origin wants to install because it's the EADM.  If you don't want it, uninstall whatever old version of it that TS3 installed and just patch the game manually.

Certainly wouldn't be in the UK.

Microsoft's EA's Peter Moore: Origin is no different now than when Steam was this old. (http://kotaku.com/5885077/pc-gamer-vitriol-subsiding-ea-promises-origin-will-be-excellent-within-two-years)

I think he means monopoly where you can't resale what you own.

This just in: Six out of 10 The Old Republic players avoid using Origin!

The excuse that Steam sucked when it was launched so it is ok for Origin to suck is all kinds of fucked up. 

1) Valve was breaking new ground and high speed internet was just starting.
2) Valve was a game company.  EA is a multi-billion dollar distributior, publisher and designer.
3) EA can look at Steam and how it was launched to see what worked and what didn't and then - OMFG revelation! - avoid the bad and adopt the good.

How many game downloading interfaces are there out there now? For EA to launch such a crappy product is just par for the course, but certainly not excusable.

Fuck Origin in its earhole. I only use it when I have to. I still have been unable to patch (and thus can't play) my version of Battlefield 3 on my work PC despite having completely removed it multiple times, gone through an hour with their online chat, removed all my firewall and AV software and had my sysadmin open the specificed UDP ports. It's slow, ugly and is almost nothing like Steam. With EA's money, they have no excuses for a product this badly built and supported.

He misses the big point anyway. It's not a technical argument. It's that if one company is going to end up being a major force in online PC game retail you want to trust that they won't screw over customers or competitors in favor of their own interests.

It's a question of trust.

So EA is competing with the Steam of 10 years ago?

Heh. EA is precisely the single most important reason I will probably never, ever, touch Origin.

Worst thing is, EA games require Origin to be installed. I thought I was clever by stuffing it into a VM and mount a SMB share of my games folder into it, to use as install target, and then just manually create the shortcuts on the host machine. Doesn't work.  :oh_i_see:

Origin hate is the new butthurt gamer bandwagon/circlejerk.

I find it positively awesome that EA doesn't back down from it and continues to release games through Origin. The amount of forum/reddit bitching over Origin and EA is truly comical, yet EA happily skips to the bank with fat stacks.

Give it a few years (no, origin isn't going to go away) and their distribution service will have a nice collection of games and other features... and gamers will gradually accept it.

Just like Steam.

Yes, I'm sure that everyone that's saying "I won't use Origin" are just butthurt gamers bandwagoning/circlejerking. There certainly can't be any underlying reasons beyond that. :oh_i_see:

It's possible, but they came right out of the bag with a terrible EULA that claimed they were going to sell your info, specs, and habits. Then they softened it. Given that EA customer service has been a bit of an issue, this rubs people the wrong way.

Also, let's compare Steam's and Origin's terms of service currently. One makes me feel at least somewhat concerned, and one doesn't. Guess which one!

Origin - EA may terminate access to any  online or mobile products and/or EA Services (and/or any portion thereof) at any time by giving you notice of such termination within the time period specified when you joined the particular EA Service, or if no time period for notice of termination was specified, then within thirty (30) days of the date such notice is either (at EA’s discretion) provided to you via email or is posted on the applicable product or EA Service or on http://www.ea.com/2/service-updates.

Steam -  In the case of a one-time purchase of a product license (e.g., purchase of a single game) from Valve, Valve may choose to terminate or cancel your Subscription in its entirety or may terminate or cancel only a portion of the Subscription (e.g., access to the software via Steam) and Valve may, but is not obligated to, provide access (for a limited period of time) to the download of a stand-alone version of the software and content associated with such one-time purchase

Let's not also forget that EA copy/pasted Sony's addition to their EULA, stating that if your info gets 'mishandled' (either through Black Hat hacks or numb-skull net-admins being lazy), you can't sue them  :oh_i_see:

It will most likely end up being the EA on-line store for EA games, much like the Blizzard store and both will rise or fail with the success of those studios.

Meanwhile Steam will probably the be one expanding faster and widening the pool of available PC games.

Okay, what is EA going to do with Origin in the next two years that they've failed to do in the past seven or eight when the service was the EA Download Manager and when it was EA Downloader before that, and EA Link before that, and likely a half-dozen other names for the exact same service? Because aside from some social networking features that nobody uses, it's the same damn thing only with a different name. Games required the EA Downloader to run long before Origin came out and nobody willingly used it then, so why should people suddenly start using it now? Sure, they could just go all-out and make every EA-branded PC game require Origin to run (instead of the handful of games that require it now), but that's just as likely to drive people away from the platform as it is to bring people in. "Kicking and screaming" is not the way you want your customers to begin using your platform, because they're not gonna stay.

Even if Origin were this fresh brand-new never-before-seen-from-EA service, why should anyone give them two years to stop sucking? "Because Steam sucked when it launched" isn't an excuse and Peter Moore should be punched in the nuts for using it. Steam launched almost a decade ago to no competition and a radically different economic environment; they're competing with the Steam of 2012, not 2003.

If a game is the same price on Origin as it is on Steam (or GOG for that matter), I'm not picking it up on Origin.  Those two services add some value on top of just delivering bits to me.

But the EADM over the past few years has done a fine job of doing the primary job of a digital distribution service, getting me my game and getting out of the way.  And that puts it well above the "massive discount only zone" of a D2D/GameFly or Impulse or a retail box.

More power to you if you take issue with its Terms or EA's corporate policy, but the software's been fine for some time.  (Disclaimer that I apparently have some of the best luck in the world in getting DD services to behave, going back to ye olde Steam.)

What's wrong with Impulse, apart from the fact it's been bought by gamestop?

Isn't that enough?

If it makes you feel any better, you never would have gotten anything from suing them anyway.  I don't think anybody made any money when PSN got hacked and that was about as poor a handling of personal information as you can get.

It's enough for me, yeah.   :why_so_serious:

I haven't used it for a lot of games (or recently), but I had some issues with patching and expansion installations.  EU3 specifically for the latter. And the storefront kind of sucked to browse in-client.

In its defense, I was able to play Positech stuff like Democracy 2 completely without incident.

(http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2938963/whyoriginwhy.jpg)

What EA is doing with your information via Origin: Auto-adding titles you already purchased through other digital-distros. (http://www.joystiq.com/2012/02/27/origin-auto-adds-ea-games-bought-through-steam-no-its-not-c/)

I don't know how  I feel about this.  It's a nice feature, I suppose.  But if they're scanning my files to find out what software I've owned before, what else are they scanning for?

Post edit: Obligatory
 :tinfoil:

Ah thats why I had that Need For Speed available on Orgin all of a sudden. I thought that was a promo or something.

I suppose that's one way to siphon users.

Basically migrate them one game at a time to the new platform.

Again, this is the reason I don't agree with Origin's terms of service. You are opting in to their marketing efforts simply by downloading their client, even if it has nothing to do with what you purchased on their client.

What else? Absolutely any morsel of information they think will allow them to sell you something you didn't even know you wanted.

That can't be right.  Then I'd be able to download a cracked copy of DA2 or something, unzip it into my Steam directory, log into Origin, and find a legit copy waiting for me there.  Or hell, skip the cracked version and just rename Magic_Ponies.exe to MassEffect3.exe if it's just checking file names.

Are we sure it's not just EA looking at their own verification database for these games?  Even for non-Origin stuff, EA still handles their own registration of CD Keys and things AFAIK, wouldn't it be easier to just check that?

That might very well be the case.  Once again luckton has linked to a less than reputable article.  This time the article lists it's source as a forum post.  If you click on the link there's some speculation about why Dead Space 2 popped up on the OP's Origin account, but none of the posters have any real information.  I'm not sure how someone from Joystiq read that thread and decided to turn it into a news article,

That's how.

Big Data is the way of the future.

Most of the articles claiming evidence link back to this image (http://s1.directupload.net/file/d/2691/fglehhsj_jpg.htm) in which origin is merrily scanning through the guys accounting software data files. I believe that function was removed after the anger at the time. But I'm pretty sure if EA can get information without people noticing they will. The fact that the EULA allows that being a pretty good hint.

If they want the data, they can buy it from clearing houses. They have your name, address and credit card / financial information. That's a good place to start.

I read this data mining piece on Target (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/magazine/shopping-habits.html?_r=2&pagewanted=1) the other day. Take what you gain from your customer's interactions with you, combine it with other behavioural data from other sources and you've opened up a predictive gold mine. Online companies are even better placed to do this kind of analysis, since they can end up tracking a lot of your online behaviour (through social media monitoring et al).

So just as a "oh for the love of god" moment for me, last night there was an Origin update. Ever since, I click the icon and it does nothing. No errors, nothing in the windows event logs, nothing.

Finally figure out where the hell the tech support forums are, and find this lovely thing: http://forum.ea.com/eaforum/posts/list/8212346.page

Mostly laughable for me because of the "I have what appears to be a semi common issue!" *PM'd response to people instead of just posting the fix* (as an aside, the use-the-pre-patch .exe fix works great)

I'm not sure how deep EA is, I sort of assume they just want to be getting the cut that steam would take for themselves. But to an extent Steam threatens their entire business model. They rely on flashy big budget titles, assembled by an army of subsidiary companies and developers, that need advertising and retail presence to get the numbers that pay for development and drive their profits.

Steam lowers the margin for entry to the market, weakens the retail chains EA works closely with and can take advantage of the internet to both advertise its product and generate positive word of mouth. It lets weirdo games and small publishers actually compete meaningfully with EA in a way they would never be able to do through retail. Likewise it encourages developers within EA (like [http://vr-zone.com/articles/star-wars-the-old-republic-developers-leave-bioware-to-work-on-independent-game/14967.html]stoic[/url]) to feel there is an alternative if they don't want to be part of EA. And since EA relies on buying up talent that's threatening.

If Origin replaced steam then they'd have more control. Choose not to sell a stoic game, choose not the encourage f2p or indie titles, push the big budget titles they thrive on, try and steal some of the digital light from other online sources of games. Probably not nearly as much control as they enjoy now, but more than if they become just another vendor on steam.

In a way they are quite a lot like the big media companies.

Does Steam really threaten retail chains in any kind of meaningful way? I don't think any of them are going out of business because PC sales are being lost to Steam, they've been primarily console shops for years and years anyway.

Steam basically saved PC gaming from what I can tell. Origin is just EA wanting another revenue stream. They've had similar services before and the only reason Origin is getting any notice is because they picked a fight with Steam over EA content/DLC on it's launch.

It still needs a ton of improvements to be anything but that thing I launch to play EA games though. Hell, pass through authentication would be fucking awesome at the very least. They're your games. Why do I need to type my EA user/pass when the game starts to log in? Origin already authenticated me!

When you walk into a video game store, compared to in the 80's, what percentage of the store space is dedicated to PC games?

It was going towards that before Steam, though?

Literally all the stores I walked in to prior to going hot and heavy on to steam had a mediocre amount of PC games, and they'd been shuffled further and further back into the darkest corner of the store. Then they began with starforce etc, which drastically reduced my desire to buy games even further. Then came steam, and I now have well over 300 games on there.

I don't want to draw conclusions, but yes, I'd say steam did do a lot to make PC gaming not suck all the dicks on the way to the parking lot for a few years.

Yeah, that's more or less my memory too, that PC games were being shuffled into the Dark Corners of the store, and if it wasn't something Big Name it probably wasn't there at all.

In Australia PC games were a dark and shrinking corner. Largely full of blizzard and EA games. And I think the big publishers (including microsoft who in theory should be the champions of PC gaming) and retail were absolutely fine with that.

However PC gaming, largely due to steam, is now alive and demonstrating it is a good platform for a variety of titles. Especially things that are actively modded, fringe or deep.

Before I adopted Steam wholesale, I was buying my games through Amazon. B&M gave up on PC gaming a long time ago. And good riddance, there was never a good physical distribution channel for PC games imo.

Yeah, Steam didn't do squat to brick and mortar stores.  At worst they smoothed out the dirt on the coffin after the stores dug a hole, hopped in, nailed it shut from the inside, and pulled their little contraption to dump dirt in the hole.

Interestingly enough, my nearest Best Buy was a surprisingly excellent source of PC games for a very long time, even after the big decline in PC game sales and the rise of consoles, with nearly as much shelf space dedicated to just PC games as my local strip mall Gamestop has for games, period. They'd stock some fairly old stuff too, which was very weird.

If I buy in a store, I still generally go to Best Buy to be honest.  I don't love the store, but they have a reasonable selection, and then always have plenty of boxes of big releases.  Last game I bought like that is SC2 I think, which probably says enough at this point.

Yeah Best Buy and Fry's are both like that here. Everywhere else has had shit for PC games since *before* Steam.

Even when I find a store with a good selection of PC games they'll still display it like a garage sale with spines facing out and boxes beat to hell.

It's always hard to link correlation and causation though. PC gaming was suffering through retail at least partly because console titles became more popular (and had a nice, small, standardised box size that packed more onto shelves) and at least partly because of the "buy, burn, return" attitude a lot of players took to PC gaming. Dealing with PC games became too much of a hassle for a lot of gaming outlets, so they dropped all but the big releases.

Steam was there to help pick up the slack, but it's also interesting to note that both Steam and Xbox Live have about the same number of users (40m) and Xbox Live's is growing faster.

It was mostly perception and console games are wonderful for the second hand games trade. Big names, high volume and in 6-8 hours a lot of them are finished and people are trading them in for credit.

Also PC gaming had no "champion". In theory Microsoft should be pushing PC gaming but in practice they'd rather people buy X-box's. I mean the idea of a "PC exclusive" title is nonsensical. Even if a game only comes out on the PC only it doesn't count because no one paid them to make it PC only.

The pre-load process for ME3 on Origin was much smoother than any pre-load processes I've experienced on Steam. Deus Ex HR in particular I had to download three times as it kept failing to finish 'unlocking' the game on the release day, and then downloading 10gb worth of 'missing files'. After letting this process complete twice I uninstalled the pre-load version entirely and did a regular download.

The ME3 pre-download was just a regular download with a release date check when you actually try to launch the game.

I'm guessing what is required for pre-loads on Steam is largely determined by the publisher, not Steam, but it was still sort of bizarre to have a better experience with Origin's software for once. I guess anything is possible.

It's a universe of infinite possibilities, Rokal!

I guess when the inevitable crack to play ME3 prior to release date appears, EA can't sue itself while Steam could very well be sued in such a case and has to take precautions?

Steam would be in pretty deep shit if they wound up releasing games a week early by not encrypting them.

Origin can skip all the complicated bits and just accept that it's very easy to download a cracked exe to skip the check and play early. I'm actually pretty shocked that ME3 doesn't have one yet, considering every other game I've played on Origin has had a crack out ~5 days before release.

Of course on the flip side you have plenty of people who aren't being allowed to pre-load ME3 at all, so...

I hate orgins so much I refuse to buy ME3 until it is available on steam.   I am willing to never play it if it is never available, and I am a big fan of the series.

Oh? How many games do you have on origins? What are your negative experiences with it?

SWTOR, and it was a total nightmare.  I wrote a thread about it somewhere.

Here it is:  http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=21404.0

Well you'd better be prepared to forget about any PC games published by EA then.  This Origin thing isn't going away and I think it's very unlikely that any of their new games will ever be available on Steam.

Arrrrrrr

*cough* Sorry, something in my throat.

But the obvious solution aside I have no problem skipping games published by EA after my horrible experience with trying to use Origin.  Tons of other games I can spend my money on.

If I'd had the same horrible experiences with Origin you guys had I'd probably feel the same way. I got on board Steam ages later than most of the people here just because I hated the idea of a program monitoring me while I played my game.

Bought ME3 today. Filled out a fuckton of information just to get it to install. Encountered the dreaded Origin install, and my first thought was "Another password to forget. Wonderful."
My next thought was "Ah, it's using my TOR account, or sommat. I'm already registered:"
My next thought "This is gonna be scrapped in a few years when EA's next DRM Darling comes out."  :awesome_for_real:

So everything went smooth for me. Bought the game, it preloaded just fine, good download speeds once I kicked the old lady off her laptop.

BUT THEN!

The pre-order wouldn't unlock! I am boycotting EA and anything they distribute through that STEAMING TURD of a "service".

I mean, seriously. I'm not going to get that 73 seconds back. 12:01:13 unlock my fucking sweaty sack, you pig-fuckers.

Just proxy it. It takes like, 2 minutes. :P And maybe someday publishers will stop being douchebags about worldwide releases.

I can accept that. EA seems to spend most of their time putting out sports games, cheap movie tie-ins, and buying up good game studios which they then neuter in the interests of the lowest common denominator mass market.

Thanks to Steam it's not like I'm short of things to play.

Origin actually does us a favor in one way. It isolates the EA high-fructose-corn-syrup of gaming into one corner.

Pity it leaves Ubisoft and Focus Interactive still in the loop.

EA is upping their game and preparing a new SimCity, though :ye_gods:

Yeah, this could be an issue for me as well.  (on the same page that I post I'd have no problem dropping EA games  :uhrr:) Although I'm currently betting on it being so dumbed down for "mass appeal" that it won't even be an upgrade over 4 + mods.

I'm assuming we'll look at a mixture between CitiesXL, and Sim City Societies. I have little to no faith in them actually making a non-suck version of Sim City.

I bought sim-city 4 on the last steam sale, buoyed by fond memories of many hours spent playing the earlier versions.

2 hours later I began to wonder if I was a much less demanding gamer with fewer options to burn time. I don't remember it being quite that dull.

A.   I can live with that.

B.  If I really want a single player game I could just purchase a box...  Or find an "alternantive service" on the intertubes to provide it to me.

C.  Blizzard doesn't put their material on steam, but I am willing to purchase through battlenet because it is a good experience and I know the product will be high quality.  The same cannot be said of EA games.

Yeah, about SimCity 5...


Go fuck yourself, EA  :angryfist:

That's hilarious.

So wait, is "Limited Edition" just another name for a standard copy, or is it somewhere in between a standard copy and a DDE?

It's the pre-order only edition.  Hence the 'limited' tag.  The standard edition, which will sell after release, won't have any of the shit listed in the pic.

But will undoubtedly cost the same as the "Limited" edition, then.

 :facepalm:

But of course, and post-release, everything on that list can be DLC'd for double the cost  :why_so_serious:

It's amusing to me that I won't want any of that bonus stuff in my SimCity.

Isn't it a bit early for pre-orders?

I'm waiting to see their tie-in with SimCity and Facebook/iOS applications.

The way i see it, it's called "limited" because you don't get the full architecture sets :why_so_serious:

I am unbelievably happy that EA has made it so easy to boycott every single thing they do.

Yeah I'm in that boat as well.

I assumed that you were a Mass Effect fan.  Apparently not.

My hate for halfassed shortsighted competition for Steam is greater than my mild enjoyment of mediocre sci fi with shitty action.

Don't forget that the recent Bioware/EA track record consists of Dragon Age 2 and SWTOR.  Makes it hard to be very optimistic about ME3.

Yeah that house has really gone down since its halcyon days.  EA really does have the reverse-midas touch.

As an aside has anyone actually worked out how to register your Bioware account (which already knows my Bioware games) and/or older EA titles (such as Battlefield 2/2142 etc in Origin?

I googled it which resulted in about 4 different 'registration form' web pages, none of which worked and you dont appear to be able to submit a ticket to EA support anymore (cant find the support form via the website, I found it by google and never got a reply - not that I've ever had a helpful reply to an EA ticket anyway)

It almost like they dont actually want people to use Origin, otherwise why make it do damn difficult to register your games!

(http://i.imgur.com/swIIZ.jpg)

Just plug the CD key in the application just like you would on Steam.  Should be Gear Menu -> Register My Games Redeem Product Code.

I was able to add Alice, DA:O and Awakenings, Red Alert 3, ME2, and Shank from the Steam keys.  My Sims 3 retail key also worked.  Some obvious ones might not work though, like Mass Effect 1 (or Hellgate London retail).

Just got the email with my pre-order codes for ME3.

 :oh_i_see:

Just 2 years late. :awesome_for_real:

2 years and 2 weeks, to be exact.

Well I've tried Crysis, Crysis Warhead & Rift from Steam as well as the key from my retail KOTORO and none of them will register in Origin (although the KOTORO key does product instructions to register at a specified URL).

Apparently, since I created an EA Downloader account some time in the misty past, I have an Origin account already. However, it seems that EA can't even get a password-reset function right.

Trying to generate a password-reset mail from within the Origin client does nothing - no e-mail received, no code, nothing. There's about 5 different sites where you can request a password reset for an EA Account, and using these results in a 12-24 hour wait between request and receipt of the mail. Which then contains a link that doesn't work - the password reset page indicates that the link isn't valid, and prompts you to request another e-mail, triggering another 12-24 hour wait.

Tried to contact a live support monkey, but in order to get into support chat for issues with accounts/passwords, you have to be logged in. Which requires your password.  :uhrr:

I hope they get this shit sorted out before the new Simcity gets released.

So, EA must be trying to actually do this 'goodwill' thing for reals.  First was the Humble Bundle, and now they've 1-UP'd Steam: Fucking Refunds (http://penny-arcade.com/report/article/eas-much-hated-origin-service-will-now-let-you-return-games-with-some-strin)


 :ye_gods:

Too bad they can't refund the time I spent on Mass Effect 3.

That may be the first good thing I've seen on Origin as it is truly a great policy and I hope that Steam blatently copies it. It still misses the point as to why Origin is not worth using though.


And your time:money ratio isn't even as bad as those of us burned by pre-orders without the director's cut ending :why_so_serious:. On a side note - Even if you hate multiplayer, play ME3 multiplayer because they really did do that part right. Especially since the online strangers aren't really noticeable leaving you with pure fun.

Wake me up when the policy is "Origin doesn't exist anymore, so you don't have to install some bullshit to play games from one ego-maniacal publisher."

Considering that I've never actually bought a game on Origin (even though I have some that require Origin) that policy really doesn't mean anything (to me) especially since those games are usually alot cheaper elsewhere. Now if it was steam I'd actually have games I've bought from the steam store (in addition to those I've just activated on steam)

This is interesting, at least.  I forget why Origin is so awful, other than EA of course.

Besides EA? The whole spyware bit that could not be opted out of was a big part of it. I still don't like their UI and profile/game management and it's even worse on their barely working website. Just today, using Firefox, Origin wouldn't load from the google paid search link at first when I was going to look at info about the refunds.