Origin and Digital Distribution

“EA adding third party games to Origin

Electronic Arts has revealed the first third-party publishers which will feature games on its Origin download service, naming THQ, Warner Bros. and Capcom for the service.

As of November, the service will feature Batman: Arkham City, Saints Row: The Third and further, undisclosed titles. Third-party games will continue to be added to the service.

“Since launch, we’ve had overwhelming support from both publishers and developers across the gaming industry, recognizing Origin as an opportunity to deliver more of their great content straight to consumers across the globe,” said senior VP of Origin, David DeMartini.

“We’re excited to welcome Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, THQ and Capcom as the first publishers to offer their games via Origin.”

EA had already announced that it would be releasing some of its own games exclusively on the service, as well as extra exclusive content. David DeMartini first publicly floated the idea of third-party support in July.

At the EB Games Expo in Australia recently, EA boss Peter Moore responded to a heckler by revealing that over 5 million players were already using Origin.” – Taken from http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2011-10-28-ea-adding-third-party-games-to-origin

Recently I have bought EA’s new battlefield and one thing you notice before you even get playing is that it requires a program called Origin brought out by EA to jump on the market of online distribution (for the second time) to hopefully rival Steam’s current monopoly.

Now I remember buying Warhammer a while back and having windows online which I was sceptical about, it seemed poorly done and annoying as it had no offline mode, I only bought it as I believed they would link it to console games. Windows online was essentially a big flop due to a service different to Steam, which people had just gotten used to after years of pain, and the fact it offered in my opinion nothing really appealing game wise.

Now Origin in my opinion is a revamp of EA’s attempts of digital distribution, I like the feel and this time they are opening it with great games, the main two for me being BF3 and the new star wars MMO. But as a plan I feel like people don’t really WANT Origin, but more they HAVE to have have it. This causes some angry customers and right now I dont see Origin becomeing a big thing right away, for one I won’t look at its offers as much as I do for Steam. I also noticed Origin has very high prices, both games I noted I bought off Amazon and just downloaded EA’s Origin ontop. So will Origin do well and will more digital distribution become avaliable?

EA recently released some figures of their sales and this quote shows why I think digital distribution will be a big thing in the future.

“Whilst boxed product sales remained relatively stable, up from $441 million in the same quarter last year to $450 million in this, digital sales rocketed 45 per cent from $161 million to $234 million.”

Now one reason why digital sales is so big right now is that it is being implemnted in games (mainly f2p) to buy items and unlocks. Its also a big seller beacuase you dont need a disc, you can go on any computer and install your game providing you have internet. Using a internet webpage or third party program to sell games also means the companies can shove adverts in our faces which isn’t so easy in shops, and if digital distribution keeps growing I believe places such as Game and Gamestaion will be turned into trade in stores for second hand games.

I am finally going to finish with a quick talk about the new way Battlefield 3 works as I have never seen this method before. To start the game you log into a webbrowser and launch the game from there, essentially there isnt a in game menu or interface and i for one don’t like this new approach. I like to be in the game and flick through menus and feel like I’m not closing the game and restarting it every time I want to play single player or even change server. It will definately be interesting to see how games are designed on the PC/Mac from now on.