EA giving away 1 free game for 1 yeah Origin anniversary

You are in the small minority then, because the rest of us joined steam because our Valve games wouldn't work without it.

Origin is in the exact same state Steam was when it was first released--a lockdown environment being forced upon us to play EA/Valve games. Steam is no better just because it has more third-party support; the same thing EA is adding to Origin now.

Either you hate both of them, or hate neither of them, because everything else is hypocrisy.

steam didnt bother me when it came out. I had it because of counterstrike I always thought it was pretty awesome because it meant no more holding on to a CD and losing it or something.. you know how many diablo 2 and sc1 cd keys ive lost in my day?!?! I always felt like steam was an awesome and its gotten a lot better with re-iteration.

Origin just started so its hard to compare the two and it only sells EA games so its obviously lacking.

The thing is.. I only want one application to contain all my games and it isnt origin. Its kind of like looking at wow player and being like how the fuck could you still play this game? they play it because its had years of re-iteration to continue to make it better so new mmos with less functionality dont hold up


tl;dr fuck origin steam is better
 
Origin just started so its hard to compare the two and it only sells EA games so its obviously lacking.
They sell games from other publishers. But if you use Steam there's simply no reason to buy from them unless they offer a lower price.
 
You are in the small minority then, because the rest of us joined steam because our Valve games wouldn't work without it.

Origin is in the exact same state Steam was when it was first released--a lockdown environment being forced upon us to play EA/Valve games. Steam is no better just because it has more third-party support; the same thing EA is adding to Origin now.

Either you hate both of them, or hate neither of them, because everything else is hypocrisy.

I'm sorry, what?

Valve wants to make money sure, and they will make it, but they go about with a philosophy (at least publicly) that is oriented towards the customer. That shows in all kinds of things from the Steam sales to the Steam workshop. What's more is that they are (again publicly) pretty loudly coming out against restrictive DRM even though that is a part of what their service is.

Can you really say the same thing about EA? Of course not. What a ridiculous comparison to say they are both the same. Origin's service may get better, but Valve and EA are very clearly different companies. There is a reason that Valve is loved and EA is despised, and it isn't because we're all idiots or hypocrites.

Sure, in this example, both Valve and EA forced their customers to use their DRM service. Valve and EA also charge money for the games they sell. Does that also make them the same in your eyes? They do numerous things differently, and almost without fail Valve is on the friendlier/better side of whatever their differences.

Valve is a company out to make money sure, so they should not elicit our trust without verification, but acting as if all companies are the same regardless of their actions is ignorant first and ultimately punishes the companies that take the hard route and try to treat their customers better - like Valve does a lot of the times.
 
You are in the small minority then, because the rest of us joined steam because our Valve games wouldn't work without it.

Origin is in the exact same state Steam was when it was first released--a lockdown environment being forced upon us to play EA/Valve games. Steam is no better just because it has more third-party support; the same thing EA is adding to Origin now.

Either you hate both of them, or hate neither of them, because everything else is hypocrisy.
Yeah, that's how I remember Steam too. I was forced to use it to play Half-life 2. It took an hour and a half to unlock my game files since their servers were so overloaded. I was pretty pissed, but I didn't have much choice. At some point after a reformat, I installed Steam and downloaded and installed Half-life 2 without knowing where my CD's were. It was then that I realized it could be a pretty cool service. Their servers still get bogged down during some of their sales, but most of the time I don't have any problems. I buy lots of games on Steam now, but I do remember the hatred I had towards it in the beginning.
 
I'm sorry, what?

Valve wants to make money sure, and they will make it, but they go about with a philosophy (at least publicly) that is oriented towards the customer. That shows in all kinds of things from the Steam sales to the Steam workshop. What's more is that they are (again publicly) pretty loudly coming out against restrictive DRM even though that is a part of what their service is.

Can you really say the same thing about EA? Of course not. What a ridiculous comparison to say they are both the same. Origin's service may get better, but Valve and EA are very clearly different companies. There is a reason that Valve is loved and EA is despised, and it isn't because we're all idiots or hypocrites.

Sure, in this example, both Valve and EA forced their customers to use their DRM service. Valve and EA also charge money for the games they sell. Does that also make them the same in your eyes? They do numerous things differently, and almost without fail Valve is on the friendlier/better side of whatever their differences.

Valve is a company out to make money sure, so they should not elicit our trust without verification, but acting as if all companies are the same regardless of their actions is ignorant first and ultimately punishes the companies that take the hard route and try to treat their customers better - like Valve does a lot of the times.

I'm sorry, what?

Please re-read what you quoted. I said that Steam and Origin (the PROGRAMS) are the exact same thing. The genesis of both was to force us to use Valve's DRM and EA's DRM, plus subject us to a closed ecosystem to sell us shit. Neither of them was made out of benevolence. Origin offering free games is doing the same thing (albeit cheaper and more enticing) as Steam sales--enticing you to commit deeper into the ecosytem. Steam beat Origin to the punch, and now lots of people want all their games on it because they are already entrenched.

Anyone shitting on Origin, the program, while defending Steam, the program, is a hypocrite. They are both trying to do the same thing with a different wrapper. Anyone loving Steam but hating Origin because they "want all their games on Steam" just has Stockholm Syndrome.

Also lol at praising Valve coming out against restrictive DRM when they have one delivery platform that is nothing but restrictive DRM.
 
I guess it'll be DA:O for me since I own the others already. :)

EDIT: Never mind, didn't get the email. Eff you too, Origin. :(
 
IMO, this giveaway cheapens games and is bad for the gaming industry. shame on origin.
 
Anyone shitting on Origin, the program, while defending Steam, the program, is a hypocrite. They are both trying to do the same thing with a different wrapper. Anyone loving Steam but hating Origin because they "want all their games on Steam" just has Stockholm Syndrome.

Also lol at praising Valve coming out against restrictive DRM when they have one delivery platform that is nothing but restrictive DRM.

Clearly, you're right. Origin and Steam are the same. Damn, you got me.

Well, to make me feel better, I guess I'll just have to go load up some mods for Skyrim on Origin Workshop. Oh wait...

Nevermind, but at least I am looking forward to the Origin summer sale that will discount games to stupidly low prices. Oh damn...

Sure, there is a different wrapper on the same function. I guess that is one way to put it. Another is to say that one program provides real value to its users with frequent sales and mod support (and potentially Linux support) which makes a large portion of its users not even care about the fact that it is also a DRM service to the point that they *want* to use it, and another program that is hardly anything more than DRM.

That wouldn't have been so bad 6 years ago when there wasn't anything better, but it isn't 6 years ago. And now there is Steam that is a better service, so Origin now forcing us to choose the worse option for DRM is not the same as what Steam was 6 years ago.
 
Clearly, you're right. Origin and Steam are the same. Damn, you got me.

Well, to make me feel better, I guess I'll just have to go load up some mods for Skyrim on Origin Workshop. Oh wait...

Nevermind, but at least I am looking forward to the Origin summer sale that will discount games to stupidly low prices. Oh damn...

Sure, there is a different wrapper on the same function. I guess that is one way to put it. Another is to say that one program provides real value to its users with frequent sales and mod support (and potentially Linux support) which makes a large portion of its users not even care about the fact that it is also a DRM service to the point that they *want* to use it, and another program that is hardly anything more than DRM.

That wouldn't have been so bad 6 years ago when there wasn't anything better, but it isn't 6 years ago. And now there is Steam that is a better service, so Origin now forcing us to choose the worse option for DRM is not the same as what Steam was 6 years ago.

one way i like to think about it is this: what if origin had been first instead of steam? short answer is they would have abused origin to the fullest extent possible. valve took the opportunity to make their DRM less invasive, organize your games better, make it easier to view trailers and play demos, make everything cheaper, make it easier to find/buy games you normally might miss, socialize with and make new friends, patch old games, gift games and items and coupons, etc etc. origin would have thrown their games in your face every chance possible, never discounted games, forced more and more invasive DRM on you, mined all the info they could on you, probably made ad popups in your games, and a million other terrible ideas it seems only EA is capable of. the company as a whole just seems evil, whereas valve as a company just seems like they really care. sure they are both makers of online storefronts, but saying theyre the same thing is like saying microsoft and apple are the same thing because they both make operating systems. there is a lot more to it than that.

that said, i think its great that they decided to go back on their word and offer some heavy discounts, including this free game offer. unfortunately, i refuse to buy any EA games unless i really have to because i hate them as a company, and i will never install their service on my computer either unless i see a real turnaround in how they perceive and treat their customers.
 
one way i like to think about it is this: what if origin had been first instead of steam? short answer is they would have abused origin to the fullest extent possible. valve took the opportunity to make their DRM less invasive, organize your games better, make it easier to view trailers and play demos, make everything cheaper, make it easier to find/buy games you normally might miss, socialize with and make new friends, patch old games, gift games and items and coupons, etc etc. origin would have thrown their games in your face every chance possible, never discounted games, forced more and more invasive DRM on you, mined all the info they could on you, probably made ad popups in your games, and a million other terrible ideas it seems only EA is capable of. the company as a whole just seems evil, whereas valve as a company just seems like they really care. sure they are both makers of online storefronts, but saying theyre the same thing is like saying microsoft and apple are the same thing because they both make operating systems. there is a lot more to it than that.

Thank you. You said it better than I did.
 
Clearly, you're right. Origin and Steam are the same. Damn, you got me.

Well, to make me feel better, I guess I'll just have to go load up some mods for Skyrim on Origin Workshop. Oh wait...

Eh I actually preferred just downloading from places like TESNexus and sorting it on my PC for Oblivion. And Skyrim is LOCKED with steam, so try another game next time that isn't exclusive to one service.
 
one way i like to think about it is this: what if origin had been first instead of steam? short answer is they would have abused origin to the fullest extent possible. valve took the opportunity to make their DRM less invasive, organize your games better, make it easier to view trailers and play demos, make everything cheaper, make it easier to find/buy games you normally might miss, socialize with and make new friends, patch old games, gift games and items and coupons, etc etc. origin would have thrown their games in your face every chance possible, never discounted games, forced more and more invasive DRM on you, mined all the info they could on you, probably made ad popups in your games, and a million other terrible ideas it seems only EA is capable of. the company as a whole just seems evil, whereas valve as a company just seems like they really care. sure they are both makers of online storefronts, but saying theyre the same thing is like saying microsoft and apple are the same thing because they both make operating systems. there is a lot more to it than that.

That's just a whole heap of "what ifs" there.

For me personally they're both just DRM and distribution services which my games are tied to, really not a fuck load more. I know Steam has more features, but for the most part I don't actually use any of them. I just launch the DRM platform then launch my game regardless of whether it's Steam or Origin. Steam does have a much nicer store page, though it's still pretty shit to be honest and I'd rather browse the store via a web browser than the actual Steam or Origin clients.

I try and distance myself from the politics of what company presents itself to the general public better. Games are my hobby, not my life, so I judge games based on the quality of the game itself rather than anything else then decide whether it's worth installing any necessary clients for it from there, and when I come from that angle Steam vs Origin is just a "meh" sort of argument, with the main benefit of Steam being I already have a lot of games on it (thanks to the old days before regional pricing when Steam games were cheaper than buying in stores).
 
Clearly, you're right. Origin and Steam are the same. Damn, you got me.

Well, to make me feel better, I guess I'll just have to go load up some mods for Skyrim on Origin Workshop. Oh wait...
What 'evs, I just use TESnexus, I briefly looked at the Steam mod distribution service but saw it had barely any mods compared to the nexus and never really looked at it again. Aside from a few games, Steam in general isn't that mod friendly for most games, historically speaking at least. Most recently I was installing some basic mods for Space Marine and Steam threw a hissy fit after a couple of days of running it without trouble and I had to redownload the entire game. Then you have the way Steam loves to update your games even if you tell it not to which often fucks up the mods.

Nevermind, but at least I am looking forward to the Origin summer sale that will discount games to stupidly low prices. Oh damn...
Maybe you missed the part where this is a thread about EA giving away free games on their service? Origin isn't devoid of sales either. I bought a few games on Origin for fuck all recently as well. Hell, the whole reason I installed Origin was because I got BF3 cheap through EA around Christmas time, cheaper than I could get it in stores. I actually had no intention of buying BF3, but since a friend was playing it and it was on sale I snapped it up. I admittedly don't have a lot of games on Origin, but none the less I bought all of them on sale.
 
Last edited:
one way i like to think about it is this: what if origin had been first instead of steam? short answer is they would have abused origin to the fullest extent possible. valve took the opportunity to make their DRM less invasive, organize your games better, make it easier to view trailers and play demos, make everything cheaper, make it easier to find/buy games you normally might miss, socialize with and make new friends, patch old games, gift games and items and coupons, etc etc. origin would have thrown their games in your face every chance possible, never discounted games, forced more and more invasive DRM on you, mined all the info they could on you, probably made ad popups in your games, and a million other terrible ideas it seems only EA is capable of. the company as a whole just seems evil, whereas valve as a company just seems like they really care. sure they are both makers of online storefronts, but saying theyre the same thing is like saying microsoft and apple are the same thing because they both make operating systems. there is a lot more to it than that.

that said, i think its great that they decided to go back on their word and offer some heavy discounts, including this free game offer. unfortunately, i refuse to buy any EA games unless i really have to because i hate them as a company, and i will never install their service on my computer either unless i see a real turnaround in how they perceive and treat their customers.

Uhm no. Back when Steam came out they had to make it better than physical copies, because they both cost the same exact same amount, and physical copies seemed like a better deal since you got a decent manual and an actual game. Unlike with Steam where you had to download it(think slow internet back then, not terrible but it wasn't as good as it is now) and you were forced to be online all the time to play.
 
When steam makes me use their login service to launch a game, then a seperate service built in to a webpage to launch the game, and then have two individual friends lists, and the inability to merge accounts because they couldn't decide where they wanted to take thhins, and then charge for dlc on day one of launch, have no cheat protection, charge crazy prices for the same game 3 years after release, and reduce my grammar skills to shit, then they will be the same service.

Katalysis, you are not doing a fair comparison. The companies have two different business models, and philosophies even if their platform is similar.
 
When steam makes me use their login service to launch a game, then a seperate service built in to a webpage to launch the game, and then have two individual friends lists, and the inability to merge accounts because they couldn't decide where they wanted to take thhins, and then charge for dlc on day one of launch, have no cheat protection, charge crazy prices for the same game 3 years after release, and reduce my grammar skills to shit, then they will be the same service.

Katalysis, you are not doing a fair comparison. The companies have two different business models, and philosophies even if their platform is similar.

Ever heard of Call of Duty MW2 and MW3? Both have VAC which is basically no anti-cheat system at all. They each usually don't reduce in price for a few years, and then it is $10 off or so.
 
i already owned them all too. so i gave my code to a friend.

btw if anyone picked up spore feel free to suscribe to my creatures.

http://www.spore.com/sporepedia#qry=ftr-creature:usr-WildAce|2250394142:view-newest

i havnt played it ina while but i have some nice creatures you might like to run into in your game.

500352685925_lrg.png


500352604205_lrg.png


500353600627_lrg.png


500351876766_lrg.png
 
Bah, don't get me started. I loved the main plot. :p Also, such a GD shame they didn't develop on the Morrigan ending in DA2...what the hell, that would have been great.

I'm going to have to agree with Derangel on this. I played the game like 4 times before I could stand to beat it. The plot was full of crap imo. The only reason I finally managed to beat it was because I downloaded tons of mods. All of which were hard as hell and got to a ridiculously high level after beating them, that I figured... why not beat it because it isn't that hard anymore.
 
I snapped up DA:O for free. I'm not a huge RPG guy, but I've heard it's great. Honestly Origin has been pretty good to me.

I got BF3 pre-ordered for $40 + free Dead Space 2 by going through their support chat thing, and now free DA:O. That's $40 for around $100 in AAA games. I also activated my hard copy of BF:BC2 through Origin so I can avoid dealing with disks.
 
Clearly, you're right. Origin and Steam are the same. Damn, you got me.

Well, to make me feel better, I guess I'll just have to go load up some mods for Skyrim on Origin Workshop. Oh wait...

Nevermind, but at least I am looking forward to the Origin summer sale that will discount games to stupidly low prices. Oh damn...

Sure, there is a different wrapper on the same function. I guess that is one way to put it. Another is to say that one program provides real value to its users with frequent sales and mod support (and potentially Linux support) which makes a large portion of its users not even care about the fact that it is also a DRM service to the point that they *want* to use it, and another program that is hardly anything more than DRM.

That wouldn't have been so bad 6 years ago when there wasn't anything better, but it isn't 6 years ago. And now there is Steam that is a better service, so Origin now forcing us to choose the worse option for DRM is not the same as what Steam was 6 years ago.

This attempt at an argument was so bad I just got brain damage from reading it.
 
Tried to get spore but it says that my code is invalid. wtf. Doesn't work for any of the games listed. Did it expire?

Edit: duh, expired 19 minutes ago. I shouldn't have spent time reading this thread and deciding what I wanted.
 
Eh I actually preferred just downloading from places like TESNexus and sorting it on my PC for Oblivion. And Skyrim is LOCKED with steam, so try another game next time that isn't exclusive to one service.

That works for you and a large part of the [H] community sure, but Steam is making it easy for mods to be distributed to a lot of people without difficulty. May not make much difference for you, but it is a big deal for people without a ton of know-how.

I would bet the actual modders themselves prefer the Steam route as it allows them to get a wider audience too.
 
Maybe you missed the part where this is a thread about EA giving away free games on their service? Origin isn't devoid of sales either. I bought a few games on Origin for fuck all recently as well. Hell, the whole reason I installed Origin was because I got BF3 cheap through EA around Christmas time, cheaper than I could get it in stores. I actually had no intention of buying BF3, but since a friend was playing it and it was on sale I snapped it up. I admittedly don't have a lot of games on Origin, but none the less I bought all of them on sale.

My argument is that Steam sales are better. Not that Origin doesn't have sales. If you are looking for some support for my view, I am sure you can dig up that EA exec's quote on Steam sales.
 
This attempt at an argument was so bad I just got brain damage from reading it.

In case you really didn't understand, an argument was made that Steam and Origin are the same and should be viewed the same (i.e. as DRM). I was disagreeing by pointing out some fairly important distinctions between the two services.

Calling them the same seems to unfairly discredit Valve's efforts to make Steam better and would seem to me to reduce incentives to try to make improvements to the services in the future.
 
Ever heard of Call of Duty MW2 and MW3? Both have VAC which is basically no anti-cheat system at all. They each usually don't reduce in price for a few years, and then it is $10 off or so.

VAC may have holes but they are better than running nothing at all or punkbuster, which is a little bit stinkier in the pile of poo comparison. Also using a game such as the CoD series when talking about sales doesn't work in the argument. Sales are not in their contract and probably won't ever be.
 
If Nyone has a Spore code I would love one... I didn't get the email.
 
VAC may have holes but they are better than running nothing at all or punkbuster, which is a little bit stinkier in the pile of poo comparison. Also using a game such as the CoD series when talking about sales doesn't work in the argument. Sales are not in their contract and probably won't ever be.

VAC better than punkbuster, LOL.
 
In case you really didn't understand, an argument was made that Steam and Origin are the same and should be viewed the same (i.e. as DRM). I was disagreeing by pointing out some fairly important distinctions between the two services.

Calling them the same seems to unfairly discredit Valve's efforts to make Steam better and would seem to me to reduce incentives to try to make improvements to the services in the future.

And those distinctions are terrible. The guy is right: they are the same, they're just at different stages in their development.

The Steam Workshop? That's not Steam doing you a favour, that's Steam attempting to incorporate more of the market into their platform. It's only available for Skyrim so far, is shitty to use and has a limited selection. Steam chat, voice, photo and video recording/hosting are not innovations, they are stuff they ripped off existing clients like X-Fire that did the same stuff a decade ago in order to make their DRM platform more appealing. Origin has gone the same way, because it's clever marketing. It's not stuff that's designed for the benefit of the users, it's stuff designed to mitigate the intrustion of their DRM platform so their users will overlook the encroachment.

Steam was and is a DRM platform. The only real reason it's succeeded and XFire has fallen into obscurity is because Valve forced players of their games to use Steam, and then cleverly marketed it as being more than just DRM (after about 6 years of its existence), oddly enough when people were starting to become concerned by the DRM stuff. Origin is exactly the same, but you've now got blind valve fanboys with their idiotic platform loyalty bemoaning the methods used by Origin whilst fellating Valve for doing exactly the same thing. That seems to be what he is objecting to, that weird cognitive dissonance the Steam fan-c*unts subscribe to just because they buy into Valve's whimsical marketing.

I don't want any DDL/DRM clients on my games. I still buy boxed copies from Amazon or Play or whatever because:

a) it is still staggeringly cheap compared to Steam and its competitors, even during the sales
b) it less often requires me to run an intrusive bit of bloatware to play it,
c) I am not an idiot child who can't look after his game discs or patch a game manually, and
d) I do not suffer from ADHD and as such don't have to have a game instantly, and am happy instead to buy online and get it at release day, often sooner than you would having to fight the traffic on the Steam servers.

To complain about the fact that another company is following Valve's model is inane - why not also complain about steam? Why have any of these clients? That's the issue. Brand/platform loyalty is for idiots. But right, they've half-dicked some non-working mod library into it, despite their being other existing (better) things like the nexus client. But no, we should celebrate homogenisation and smaller companies getting muscled out by one huge one expanding into every market they can. Although: fuck any other companies that do the same, and present competition for them!
 
If you missed out on this offer because you don't live in North America or for some other reason, you can send an email to EA customer support telling them that you got an anniversary promo code that is invalid and ask them for a new one. They will then tell you that they don't have access to the database that stores these codes but they will offer to add one of the three games of your choice to your Origin account directly.
 
Gah, I meant to grab Spore when I got home the other day, but forgot, even though I had the code in my inbox :(. Now it's expired.... Ah well.
 
My argument is that Steam sales are better. Not that Origin doesn't have sales. If you are looking for some support for my view, I am sure you can dig up that EA exec's quote on Steam sales.

Meh, the main reason Steam sales are better is they have a bigger library. Neither platform heavily reduces games that are new, so getting a decent chunk off BF3 at Christmas time was a pretty good deal as far as I'm concerned and in their recent sale many games were half price and I picked up a few for around $10, though admittedly there wasn't a lot of games I wanted to start with.

The EA thing on them thinking sales devalues games is a somewhat true statement, however it hasn't stopped them having sales. The guys over at GOG said the exact same thing at one stage...

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-04-12-gog-com-steam-sales-send-wrong-message-to-gamers

You have to take these quotes in context. GOG still has sales despite them holding that opinion and so does EA. Personally I agree with the idea sales like that devalues games... I have a Steam library of 100 games, of which just counting through them now I've only "played" 23 of them :p (that includes the original DOW games which I had already played retail copies before I bought them on Steam and defining "played" as more than an a couple of hours spent on it). Games definitely held a lot more value and playability/replayability for me when I was younger and had to save for weeks to buy a single game... but you have to keep things in perspective, even though I think sales reduce the value of games doesn't mean I'm not going to exploit them, doesn't mean I don't like them and doesn't mean I want games to cost $1000 so it still takes me weeks to buy a single game :p

And then on top of that you have the fact that Steam sales, while good, are often still are 2nd to retail store sales or other online stores.

There are arguments why Steam is better, no doubt, but for a large portion of users, me included, the differences between the two platforms aren't much beyond they are both DRM services of which I am more attached to Steam for no other reason than it has a larger portion of my library.
 
You are in the small minority then, because the rest of us joined steam because our Valve games wouldn't work without it.

Origin is in the exact same state Steam was when it was first released--a lockdown environment being forced upon us to play EA/Valve games. Steam is no better just because it has more third-party support; the same thing EA is adding to Origin now.

Either you hate both of them, or hate neither of them, because everything else is hypocrisy.

Have to agree. I was not forced to have Origin or Steam on my pc. But If I wanted to play L4d2 or TF2 then I better have had steam installed. Same goes for BF3(Origin).

I have fun in all three games and the rest of my 225 plus game catalog which is spread across different services.

Doesn't matter what a person has installed on their system. As long as they are having FUN in the end...

Some people though.. well you know what I mean..:rolleyes:
 
Back
Top