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I recently had a bad experience with Origin and EA customer service.
I currently don't plan on buying any future EA titles due to this.
I currently don't plan on buying any future EA titles due to this.
I think that EA Origin and Microsoft Games on Demand have the same reason for their prices: They want to keep retailers happy. If you could find every EA title cheaper, and be able to download it via digital distribution on their official website, I'm sure a lot of costumers would switch over to buying from EA rather than buying from their local Best Buy or Walmart. Then, the retailers would buy less games from EA's distributor since they have less costumers that are buying EA games. Then, EA would make less money.
Absolute BS pricing strategy that is further pushing me away from them. I really hope capitalism shines here and shows EA that limiting the customer and jacking up prices leads to losing market share.
It's obvious they're hoping the Star Wars MMO acts as a trojan horse for people to use Origins. Yet another reason to stay away.
If they had competitive prices and plenty of features, I'd be pretty excited, but this is a smack in the face.
It's obvious they're hoping the Star Wars MMO acts as a trojan horse for people to use Origins. Yet another reason to stay away.
If they had competitive prices and plenty of features, I'd be pretty excited, but this is a smack in the face.
EA has done nothing but lie about Origin in relation to Steam so it's no shock that you can't get a straight answer from them.
Also,.. lol @ $59.99 msrp PC games. Publishers that do that must really think people are dumb(well,. I guess they are considering the games still sell)
Also,.. lol @ $59.99 msrp PC games. Publishers that do that must really think people are dumb(well,. I guess they are considering the games still sell)
Griven, what happened?
I'm kind of a whore when it comes to Steam. It rapes me of my money, but I enjoy it and I allow Steam to do it. Some of the sales are just disgusting, I can't resist!
I'm kind of a whore when it comes to Steam. It rapes me of my money, but I enjoy it and I allow Steam to do it. Some of the sales are just disgusting, I can't resist!
@Nebenator
That's a really good point. EA is maneuvering in such a way to appease brick-and-mortar retailers because of their bulk purchasing--I never thought of it that way. You may have completely changed my opinion on this whole deal.
Still, that doesn't mean any good news for us gamers. Guess if I ever wish to buy an EA game again I'll go with a box copy shipped from Amazon.
That's a really good point. EA is maneuvering in such a way to appease brick-and-mortar retailers because of their bulk purchasing--I never thought of it that way. You may have completely changed my opinion on this whole deal.
Still, that doesn't mean any good news for us gamers. Guess if I ever wish to buy an EA game again I'll go with a box copy shipped from Amazon.
@Nebenator - Huh? So you're saying 10,000 sales on Origin leads to 10,000 less sales of physical copies... and that makes them LESS money? Unlike what the EA rep says, retail takes away as much as 60% of the profits away from the publisher, leaving them with as little as ~$25 per sale. What you said makes no sense... unless that was a great use of sarcasm.
Ever since I bought BF2:Complete on their previous digidistr service, I promised myself never to trust them again. What goes on my PC goes through Steam, or it gets ignored. EA and Valve both want my money... but what EA fails to aknowledge is that Valve achieves getting it by aiming for my satisfaction. Simple as that.
We have the BF3 Anti CoD police, we have the ninjatastic "Who even likes ___ anyways?" Defenders of ___ who just appeared out of nowhere, and the Activision haters. I'm sure the Origin defenders are here somewhere
Games for Windows Live has a few blowout deals to scam people into registering for the service, like Age of Empires 2 for $1, or something.
How genius would it be for EA to offer free Sims 1 and 2 for all users who either converted their EA Accounts to Origin, or anyone who registered a new Origin account?
Who wouldn't register? EA - what the hell?! This is what you do when you have a new service - not charge $10 for robot dogs in Mass Effect 3!
How genius would it be for EA to offer free Sims 1 and 2 for all users who either converted their EA Accounts to Origin, or anyone who registered a new Origin account?
Who wouldn't register? EA - what the hell?! This is what you do when you have a new service - not charge $10 for robot dogs in Mass Effect 3!
They wont have an answer as to why they're charging full MSRP on any of these games because the only real one is that they're just trying to make as much a profit as possible. Even by buying games in bulk most stores aren't paying more than maybe 50(console) or 40(PC) bucks for the games that are being bought.
Prices from EA as an employee on something like BFBC2 for example was roughly 10 bucks for PC and 20 for console, the collectors edition was an extra 10 for each.
One other large reason for why they might not be cutting prices significantly with Origin would be that they can only drop the prices on the PC versions of the game which in all likelihood would cause a backlash from the console community who would instead of only paying 10 dollars more on average per title would be now paying 15 to 20 to however large the gap may become.
That chance of an outrage could possibly result in less sales on the console side of things and seeing as most companies are currently banking on the console market to stay afloat in the industry it would make more sense to be seen as unfair by what they consider a much smaller part of the user base.
Then again, steam had a sale on DNF for half off less than a month after release and no one seemed to care so i may be way off base with that last argument.
Honestly the fact that BF3 wont be on steam and from the soudns of it there wont be any kind of incentive to buy directly from Origin, i still see no reason for its existence and until i'm forced to by SWTOR i wont be using it.
Prices from EA as an employee on something like BFBC2 for example was roughly 10 bucks for PC and 20 for console, the collectors edition was an extra 10 for each.
One other large reason for why they might not be cutting prices significantly with Origin would be that they can only drop the prices on the PC versions of the game which in all likelihood would cause a backlash from the console community who would instead of only paying 10 dollars more on average per title would be now paying 15 to 20 to however large the gap may become.
That chance of an outrage could possibly result in less sales on the console side of things and seeing as most companies are currently banking on the console market to stay afloat in the industry it would make more sense to be seen as unfair by what they consider a much smaller part of the user base.
Then again, steam had a sale on DNF for half off less than a month after release and no one seemed to care so i may be way off base with that last argument.
Honestly the fact that BF3 wont be on steam and from the soudns of it there wont be any kind of incentive to buy directly from Origin, i still see no reason for its existence and until i'm forced to by SWTOR i wont be using it.
@Arttemis
I don't think that 10,000 sales on Origin necessarily would cause just 10,000 less sales of physical copies; if each retailer stops buying what they think that they're going to lose from people buying from EA then that would cause more damage to the EA distributor then 10,000 less games sold.
At the moment there's still a great percentage of people who favor retailers to online stores / digital distribution, so I don't think that EA would risk losing those costumers by provoking retailers into buying less of their games.
I don't know the exact the statistics of "who buys from where", so you could very well be correct. I'm putting another option of why EA might be doing this out there.
I don't think that 10,000 sales on Origin necessarily would cause just 10,000 less sales of physical copies; if each retailer stops buying what they think that they're going to lose from people buying from EA then that would cause more damage to the EA distributor then 10,000 less games sold.
At the moment there's still a great percentage of people who favor retailers to online stores / digital distribution, so I don't think that EA would risk losing those costumers by provoking retailers into buying less of their games.
I don't know the exact the statistics of "who buys from where", so you could very well be correct. I'm putting another option of why EA might be doing this out there.
http://games.ign.com/articles/708/708972p1.html
@K72 - Wholesale retailers like GameStop, Walmart, Amazon, etc, buy in bulk because they pay EA less money per item... EA approves because they get to sell a large portion of units in one transaction. Retailers will still buy in bulk if more people go online... the copies just stay at a distribution hub longer. in the extreme, retailers would stop buying in bulk and pay HIGHER costs per item in smaller quantities because less physical copies are sold. EA makes more per physical game, meanwhile they're cutting out the middleman online and getting FULL profit from Origin.
Yet they still want to charge the same cost?
How do you people think this is AT ALL justified!!!!????!?!)
@K72 - Wholesale retailers like GameStop, Walmart, Amazon, etc, buy in bulk because they pay EA less money per item... EA approves because they get to sell a large portion of units in one transaction. Retailers will still buy in bulk if more people go online... the copies just stay at a distribution hub longer. in the extreme, retailers would stop buying in bulk and pay HIGHER costs per item in smaller quantities because less physical copies are sold. EA makes more per physical game, meanwhile they're cutting out the middleman online and getting FULL profit from Origin.
Yet they still want to charge the same cost?
How do you people think this is AT ALL justified!!!!????!?!)
Good article, I dunno about the US but in the UK many of steams AAA are priced more than the boxed version I can buy retail / amazon, also some older games on steam are at 200% (looking at that recently published data at RPS suggests half of the UK still buys boxed which is a lot higher than the % in the US. (Poor Euro gamers pay even higher steam prices)
Ive heard the reason of steams pricing is that its set by publishers to keep retail competative, or that UK retailers have made some kind of deal going on.
Anyway one would hope that EA would start to price their games on origin competativly it would make business sense. Unless they plan on cutting out the competition and starting a monopoly
Ive heard the reason of steams pricing is that its set by publishers to keep retail competative, or that UK retailers have made some kind of deal going on.
Anyway one would hope that EA would start to price their games on origin competativly it would make business sense. Unless they plan on cutting out the competition and starting a monopoly
agree with the pricing. who would pay $60 on origin for bf3 when it's on d2d for $54?
question though... i heard with origin you can import your cdkeys. if i buy off d2d could i import the cdkey to origin?
question though... i heard with origin you can import your cdkeys. if i buy off d2d could i import the cdkey to origin?
@Oreo:
Basically, I was wondering why they didn't put Alice Madness Return on Steam (which they since have). Why they were pushing Origin so hard and why they had removed games from Steam. Why the Alice Madness Returns PC DVD has the DLC on it already but isn't accessible (unless you change configuration files with notepad). And why 360 and PS3 got the original Alice for free and PC DVD didn't.
I talked to three different customer service people and they all acted like I was an asshole for asking those questions, which I think are fair questions.
Basically, I was wondering why they didn't put Alice Madness Return on Steam (which they since have). Why they were pushing Origin so hard and why they had removed games from Steam. Why the Alice Madness Returns PC DVD has the DLC on it already but isn't accessible (unless you change configuration files with notepad). And why 360 and PS3 got the original Alice for free and PC DVD didn't.
I talked to three different customer service people and they all acted like I was an asshole for asking those questions, which I think are fair questions.
they'll have to lower eventually, the market won't buy it. the only way digital distribution works is when it's cheaper than physical retail copies. besides, the bad word of mouth will spread through the internets like wildfire.
I have not gone to a store and purchased a game since i bought my MW2 360 bundle.
@nerbenator is saying makes a lot of sense. Brick and morter stores will boycott something if they feel that the publisher is giving them the shaft. An example would be Half-life 2, Target sees that it includes steam, and promotes digital purchases, so target says hey, we wont carry any game that includes steam. End result Valve loses sales from target which would buy thousands of hard copies for all of their stores.
If EA then goes and says Hey you COULD buy it at target for $60, or you can buy it directly from us for $44.99. Target is going to not carry EA's software.
@nerbenator is saying makes a lot of sense. Brick and morter stores will boycott something if they feel that the publisher is giving them the shaft. An example would be Half-life 2, Target sees that it includes steam, and promotes digital purchases, so target says hey, we wont carry any game that includes steam. End result Valve loses sales from target which would buy thousands of hard copies for all of their stores.
If EA then goes and says Hey you COULD buy it at target for $60, or you can buy it directly from us for $44.99. Target is going to not carry EA's software.
"I’m not going to pretend like EA is a bad company; it’s not."
EA as a company has been stepping on the heads of its customers, not to mention some its developers, for as long as I can remember. Even when they were "cleaning up their image" I was still very wary of them. This just another example that tells me they consider their customers to be tools, and the sad thing is alot of us are and just know enough or just dont care.
"What's your incentive to buy a game through Origin if you’re given the choice to buy a game at a retail store for the same price?"
My incentive would be to go to the brick and mortar to avoid having another superfluous game portal with associated email accounts, UID's, passwords.
EA as a company has been stepping on the heads of its customers, not to mention some its developers, for as long as I can remember. Even when they were "cleaning up their image" I was still very wary of them. This just another example that tells me they consider their customers to be tools, and the sad thing is alot of us are and just know enough or just dont care.
"What's your incentive to buy a game through Origin if you’re given the choice to buy a game at a retail store for the same price?"
My incentive would be to go to the brick and mortar to avoid having another superfluous game portal with associated email accounts, UID's, passwords.
This one is easy. Companies almost never "lower prices to pass savings along to consumers" if they can maintain or raise their margins without significant backlash. This is one of those zombie econ ideas that never seems to go away in the face of a lot of evidence to the contrary, and anyone who thinks that the all digital distribution is going to save money for players isn't paying attention.
I think they should release some freeware to great people there :P
Dude! I just tried the aplication and it's TERRIBLE I try to do something and it won't do it, I always have to do a millions click!
Dude! I just tried the aplication and it's TERRIBLE I try to do something and it won't do it, I always have to do a millions click!
There is no incentive from my point of view. That's why I'm going with retail copies of both Mass Effect 3 and Battlefield 3 for the pc.
Going against a service with such a massive install base and customer loyalty as Steam is risky enough, but to try and do it with prices not only higher than Steam but occasionally higher than RETAIL is insane.
EA Store has been trying to gain a foothold for years and, under the new banner of Origin, this is the first time it has gained any mainstream publicity - and it's all been bad.
PC gamers are not stupid and the free market will decide here, but we can all see where this is going.
EA Store has been trying to gain a foothold for years and, under the new banner of Origin, this is the first time it has gained any mainstream publicity - and it's all been bad.
PC gamers are not stupid and the free market will decide here, but we can all see where this is going.
Wow, such a good article. Thank you for enlightening me.
But really, I think EA will learn the errors of theirs ways when people are buying the games elsewhere for less. All this EA hate it's like it is the 1990's.
But really, I think EA will learn the errors of theirs ways when people are buying the games elsewhere for less. All this EA hate it's like it is the 1990's.
WHAT EA IS COUNTING ON
EA: So Dyn, are you exicited for Mass Effect 3, and SWTOR?
Dyn: Yes! Yes! I loved Mass Effect 1 and 2, and I cant wait to play SWTOR!
EA: Thats good to hear! How badly do you want to play them?
Dyn: They're currently my 2 most anticipated games! So I would say pretty bad!
EA: Do you...want them this bad? *zzzzzip*
Dyn: GODDAMNIT!! ...yes
EA: So Dyn, are you exicited for Mass Effect 3, and SWTOR?
Dyn: Yes! Yes! I loved Mass Effect 1 and 2, and I cant wait to play SWTOR!
EA: Thats good to hear! How badly do you want to play them?
Dyn: They're currently my 2 most anticipated games! So I would say pretty bad!
EA: Do you...want them this bad? *zzzzzip*
Dyn: GODDAMNIT!! ...yes
i like the part where they didnt answer your question.
It doesnt look like a clean start for origins, basically because is starting the service in a "we want to beat steam" fashion, taking game from steam and putting those at the same price over there.
Jim Sterling has it right when he says that multiple accounts for everything is fucking annoying.
It doesnt look like a clean start for origins, basically because is starting the service in a "we want to beat steam" fashion, taking game from steam and putting those at the same price over there.
Jim Sterling has it right when he says that multiple accounts for everything is fucking annoying.
Why give Origin any importance? Let's just wait until EA finds out that they need Steam for great sales and Origin will dissappear.
Servers are freely distributed on the streets people. Publishers incur 0 costs when it comes to providing stuff on the internet.
No Origin doesn't look worthwhile. Already made a descicion which are my digital services.
Dunno about the US but I live in Denmark and Steam prices for new games are typically priced 10-15 dollars over retail... Great sales on Steam but its so much cheaper going to retail and buy a steamworks game. Which is sad panda in pants...
Dunno about the US but I live in Denmark and Steam prices for new games are typically priced 10-15 dollars over retail... Great sales on Steam but its so much cheaper going to retail and buy a steamworks game. Which is sad panda in pants...
as long as they dont start fuckin charging more and more as the retailers start charging more and more soon games are going to be 80 90 dollars and hopefully EA is still at 60
No Origin doesn't look worthwhile. Already made a decision which are my digital services.
Dunno about the US but I live in Denmark and Steam prices for new games are quite expensive - typically priced 10-15 dollars over retail...
Great sales on Steam but its so much cheaper going to retail and buy a steamworks game. Which is sad panda in pants...
Dunno about the US but I live in Denmark and Steam prices for new games are quite expensive - typically priced 10-15 dollars over retail...
Great sales on Steam but its so much cheaper going to retail and buy a steamworks game. Which is sad panda in pants...
I'm going to fucking roll on the floor. Laughing when this fails.
Then I'm going to cry cuz battlefield 3 was actually going to be fun and now I cant play it.
Fuck you ea. Its like you just couldn't help but go back to your old ways of doing terrible business with your customers.
I hate this industry sometimes. =-(
Then I'm going to cry cuz battlefield 3 was actually going to be fun and now I cant play it.
Fuck you ea. Its like you just couldn't help but go back to your old ways of doing terrible business with your customers.
I hate this industry sometimes. =-(
Origin won't succeed unless they can compete with Steam. That's not going to happen.
They even used the name of a company they'd previously raped as a recognizable industry name, which I find utterly distasteful. EA you suck.
They even used the name of a company they'd previously raped as a recognizable industry name, which I find utterly distasteful. EA you suck.
I like Steam. i like all my games in one place and available for download with possible interruptions not ruining the download. I like that when I download a game, it downloads the most recent version. With Origin if my internet goes out, I have to restart the download. I have to later hunt down and download patches through websites, which is not easy on the official sites anymore. Origin has a terrible friends components and none of my friends from MOH, or Battlefield show up in my Origins account unless I add them through that. Recent issue that cropped up is no Mac support. On Steam if I buy a game on Mac I owned it on PC as well, on Origin I have to buy the game twice if I buy it from Origin. Prices are ridiculously high for older titles. The only game I have bought from the EA store is Shift, but only because they fucked up and gave me 20 dollar off coupon. Plus these ridiculous incentives for pre-ordering are just stupid. 10 dollars for a robot dog, bitch please!
@Cyber Altair - Are you sarcastically implying that it comes anywhere near manufacturing, resource, shipping, and overhead costs, as well as the need for shelf space/location required to adequately sell in stores? I hope not. Digital distribution isn't free, but it's, like stated in the article, pennies on the dollar in comparison.
I've got an even better question. What's my incentive to buy a game from Origin if I can get it on Steam for the same price?
EA obviously already gave the answer. None. That's why their making their big titles Origin exclusive.
I really was interested in The Old Republic. But: Not on Steam, not on my harddrive. And if EA doesn't like that well than too bad for them.
Just because you released so many shitty titles a few years back (NFS series , C&C Franchise, the list goes on) that everybody lost faith in you as a publisher and you're now posting net losses, doesn't mean that you get to force me into your own little economy to maximize your profit margin.
EA obviously already gave the answer. None. That's why their making their big titles Origin exclusive.
I really was interested in The Old Republic. But: Not on Steam, not on my harddrive. And if EA doesn't like that well than too bad for them.
Just because you released so many shitty titles a few years back (NFS series , C&C Franchise, the list goes on) that everybody lost faith in you as a publisher and you're now posting net losses, doesn't mean that you get to force me into your own little economy to maximize your profit margin.
Ugh... no thanks. I have three games on Origin currently. ME2, which I got for free from EA for DA2 being "meh," and DA:O UE and ME2 CE, both of which I purchased on Steam for like $20 total, and was able to activate on Origin as well. Notice I said as well. I didn't give them the pleasure of exclusivity. Origin is a knock-off of Steam, and I have used both. Steam charges a small commission, about what Apple charges for the iOS. It's far better than making only about %30 profit on retail, so EA has no room to bitch. They could've had a glorious partnership with Valve, but instead they ripped Valve off. Way to go, EA!
Its worth remembering that EA isnt some small time publisher that retail can boycott like they did with steam and HL2. BF3 and Sims alone is a big enough bargining chip.
This is an excellent point. It is widely reported that Steam takes 30% with the developer getting 70%. Since EA always prices it's AAA titles in the $50-60 range, lets take a $59.99 game as an example. With Steam, EA makes $41.99 (again, assuming they get %70). Thus, EA would make more from Origin than Steam by pricing the game anywhere within the $42 to $50. Even with the one-cent to eight dollar markup, it would still be "passing the savings onto the consumer". This article makes a good point because Origin does not appear to be doing that. Their price is still $59.99 - or an additional gross profit of $18.00. The question consumers (like me!) have, since we can piece together the business model pretty well, is what added value do we get from using Origin over some other service or retail? Certainly not what Steam has given us, (our friends, our library, multiple publishers, *sales, etc). No matter how you cut it, EA has hurt their consumers. If their prices were lower to reflect their larger slice of the pie, even with some markup for running Origin, then EA would be helping consumers. They are not.
Didn't EA just have a huge EA Week on Steam a little while ago? I'm sure after that they would've realized how much money they can make from Steam. Plus from the huge summer sale Valve had the past week.
It's not like the $60 that a physical retail disc costs is based on its value or production costs anyway. It's just an arbitrary number that someone chose and now every single game uses regardless of its budget or quality. Since everyone is already accustomed to paying that price, why reduce it and reduce their profits? They figure they have never based game prices on costs before, so why start now?
@Nebenator
This is a rather poor explanation, retail sales of PC games are nearly nonexistent now, most don't even *carry* them anymore. DD has almost entirely displaced retail sales of PC games already.
Usually the simplest answer is the right one: As usual EA just doesn't care and wants to pull as much money out of the consumers as possible, as demonstrated by the inexplicable jump to $60 prices when licensing costs are the only reason for that price on the other platforms.
This is a rather poor explanation, retail sales of PC games are nearly nonexistent now, most don't even *carry* them anymore. DD has almost entirely displaced retail sales of PC games already.
Usually the simplest answer is the right one: As usual EA just doesn't care and wants to pull as much money out of the consumers as possible, as demonstrated by the inexplicable jump to $60 prices when licensing costs are the only reason for that price on the other platforms.
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