Boycotting Origin? Check in here!

The Game Room
#1

Origin haters unite! If you refuse to install that piece of malware on any computer you own make your voice heard. For me its been tough going so far. I really liked Mass Effect 2, so not playing the 3rd one was a bit of a drag. After a recent computer upgrade I was somewhat disappointed about not being able to see how Crysis 3 does on it. I loved the first 2 DragonAge games(yes, even the second one), so missing the 3rd one is gonna be kind of sucky. THQ going bankrupt was also somewhat alarming, I can not subsist on greenlight/kickstarter productions alone, a well polished triple-A title is sometimes all I am looking for. In general the growing amount of under $5/early-access dreck on Steam has been bringing me down. It takes more then 1 motivated guy and an idea to create a game I am likely to enjoy, I wish they’d release bigger titles more often.

Anyhow, Origin must die, it can infect my gaming PC if it pries it from my cold dead hands!

#2

What don’t you like about Origin? Seems pretty innocuous to me. Though I was rather annoyed that it locked me out of my main online name because it’s reserved under an inactive email account from the BF2 days.

I mean, yeah, it’s unnecessary, but it looks nice and it works.

#3

Origin is a little annoying, but I paid $5 for 17 Command and Conquer games, so it’s a trade-off.

#4

I don’t have any issue with it (or UPlay for that matter). They look nice enough and serve their purpose – to launch games. Frankly, I think the Steam client is overly bloated with crap I don’t care about when I just want to play games but I’m not ready to raise a pitchfork against them either.

#5

Yeah, I’d also like to hear what’s so heinous about it. I’ve had few if any problems with it.

#6

I agree; Steam has a bunch of stupid garbage in it at this point, and the Client (as opposed to the Service) has always been trash.

That said, it’s not like no one releases $60 AAA games for it either, so whining that you can’t sustain yourself on “indie/greenlight” stuff is… :smack:

#7

The Steam client needs some major work. It’s weird that I enjoy navigating the big picture mode more than the desktop client. It’s just faster and more responsive.

Origin is pretty light. No real issues with it, other than the hassle of creating an account int he first place, but that’s already done.

The hassle of dealing with another game client <<<< Not getting to playing mass effect.

#8

In my case the boycott isn’t based on any objective reason. After hearing about EA’s “creative” DRM approaches and the way they treated their developers I just figured I’d vote with my wallet and take my business elsewhere. The shady dealings that went on with EA’s back catalog on Steam just cemented the decision. Mind you, I never hated EA enough to forgo their games completely, them trying to create their own Steam clone was just the straw that broke the camels back.

BTW not a single reply in this thread so far is from a person boycotting Origin. Why don’t you guys go start your own filthy origin lover thread and frolic around over there? :smiley:

#9

So let me get this straight: You don’t like EA, but rather than do something that might punish them (not buy their games) you’ve decided to throw a temper tantrum at their efforts to actually move into 21st century digital distribution and perhaps improve their customer experience for once?

Methinks you are sending the wrong message.

#10

Because then your thread would have died. We’re helping! :smiley:

I guess everyone has their passions but I don’t really get into the whole “rage against this game company, love that one” thing. Provided they make a game I like and it works, I’m happy. If they make games I don’t like or that don’t work, I won’t buy them (or won’t buy them twice anyway). I do very little Day One purchasing so I have time to see if a game is riddled with problems or reviews poorly before buying.

#11

Wrong for whom? I am perfectly happy with my message. I’ve been EA free since Dragon Age 2, and I intend to continue to be free from them until their games show up on Steam again or stop needing Origin in order to play from a disk. Boycotting their service might not make much sense or accomplish anything, but it gives me a good “I’m sticking it to the man” feeling, so I’m gonna keep doing it.

I guess you’re right, fine, you guys can stick around.

#12

Sure. Great. But I’m just saying that boycotting the service only sends them the message that maybe they need to improve the service, not that like, they are a sucky company should do better. Especially if you then go buy all their stuff on some other service if/when they release it there.

#13

The initial hullabaloo about Origin was that its EULA stated that it was going to scan your system for information on what games you own, and whatever other stuff, and sell it to marketing companies. And if you don’t like it, don’t play our games! I don’t know if they changed that policy or not.

In any case, I ended up getting it :eek: since they had ME3 on a huge discount. I was weak. Sorry OP :stuck_out_tongue: Up until then I was with you!

As far as its quality… meh, it seems unneeded. IF it kept my games up to date like Steam does that would be great, but I’m not sure it does that, at least for my older games like DAO or ME2. It doesn’t even recognise that I own DAO, so I still need a disk to play it.

Getting DLC for ME3 seems counter intuitive too. The main store seems to not have them. I had to go to their website to buy the couple I wanted.

#14

I believe Origin auto-updates or you can set it to, but I’ll admit that I usually only run Origin if I’m going to play a game on it and then close it down after. Unlike Steam which winds up running 24/7.

I know that at the very least Origin will put a flag on the game image saying it has an update pending.

#15

The main problems I’ve heard of with it are all quality problems. Games stop working or can’t be downloaded. The backwards way of installing the Sims 3 or other older programs. The program itself crashing for no apparent reason. The inability to use a mode other than one with huge boxes showing games. Upgrades breaking stuff that used to work. Stuff like that. I assumed that something like that happened to the OP.

The only thing I think it has over Steam is that its offline mode just works. You click it, you’re offline. No restarting the entire program and waiting on it to log in to a fake server. No nag screen about being in offline mode. It just works.

One more thing: it actually creates shortcuts that will launch Origin if it’s not already running. Steam’s shortcuts only work if Steam is running, unless you modify the shortcut. If only Origin wouldn’t open a useless window when you did that, and just would launch in the system tray, I’d consider this another way it is superior.

Another bonus is that most Origin games have a Steam Code, which lets me get two copies for the price of one on the Humble Bundle. But that’s really something the HB does, so I guess that shouldn’t count.

#16

I’ve never used origin, since my boycott started before it came out, but based on this it sounds like there are more reasons not to use it besides subjective personal preferences.

#17

I appreciate the fact that it DOES allow me to activate older (pre-Origin) EA games onto Origin at all. Surely, they have no obligation to. But now I don’t have to worry about tracking down independent game files on my drive or old physical media. Heck, my biggest gripe is when I want to activate an old EA game on Origin and they don’t allow it.

#18

Well, the problem is not being able to activate, but trying to negotiate activating the expansion packs, which use Origin exclusively. It just seems silly that they didn’t set it up where you can just use the same code directly, like you can on Steam. The codes have different lengths, so you can tell what type of code it is.

It just makes a mess of it where Steam just worked–that’s all.

#19

People have this strange habit of forgetting that Steam did not “just work” for YEARS after launch. It’s just a much more mature service at this point.

#20

I didn’t forget. I simply didn’t use it. And I don’t think I should be judging Origin’s current service by how Steam started. That EA took longer to create such a service is EA’s fault. The point is that old stuff just works now, which will likely never be the case with Origin. At least with regards to The Sims 3, which is just a mess. It would cost too much to fix it now, and won’t be worth it once The Sims 4 comes out.