Origin nets 4 million client installs, adding third-party content 'very soon'

by Jessica Conditt on Sep 9th 2011 5:30PM

EA's digital distribution service, Origin, is set to deliver third-party content "very soon," EA CFO Eric Brown said today. Origin has gathered 4 million client installs, a number Brown expects to see grow as we enter the holiday season, also known as Dueling Mainstream FPS Launch season. Brown says EA will use its collection of 130 million users and various payment methods to attract third-party games to Origin.

EA has previously said Origin wasn't created to compete directly with Steam, but that was way back in July, when EA wasn't sure if Origin would catch on. Apparently plans can change drastically in two months, especially once an obvious business-dependent marketing ploy actually catches on.

Source: Gamasutra

Tags: battlefield-3, EA, Electronic-Arts, origin, pc, STEAM, third-party

Reader Comments (65)

raging steam fanboys in 3... 2... 1...

@PR0F3TA

Fanboys =/= Sensible people.

@PR0F3TA
I guess I do fall under the definition of a Steam fanboy. However, I still plan on downloading Origin for BF3. But that's it.

@Theneverendingsoda
Suspected someone would say that. Or something along the lines of that, at least.
I don't believe in Origin, and I hate EA for pressuring people to commit to it. It's a terrible service with a terrible TOS that goes completely against my code of conduct. However, when you look at it, the release of BF3 is going to have a pretty damn big impact on PC gaming- on one hand, people will ignore the game and Origin entirely (and most likely buy MW3 instead). Then there are those who will choose to support DICE and their attempts at revitalizing PC gaming by implementing features stripped by past FPS' (the mistakes of Crysis 2 and CoD, among others). I'm choosing the later because their attempts at doing good for us seem to outweigh EA's attempts at completely dissolving PC gamers.
My honest hope is that some method is released that allows BF3 to be played without Origin, either by a crack or some other means. EA is making a huge mistake, but in my opinion, not supporting a modern PC game that is finally doing everything 'right' seems far more spineless, and like an excuse to torrent.
Not every publisher is like Valve, ergo, not every publisher is perfect.

@PR0F3TA

down voting for stupid comment in..............wow!!! you already are!!!!

you know 3 million were from the free scrabble games they released. the other 1 million were for BF3.

Release Steam and EA games for Mac OS X, i'll try out Origin.

Sweet, so 4 million BF3 players? See you online bros!

@onlyk

you can expect this number to jump dramatically when BF3 comes out.

@onlyk
Ok ok, I laughed.

Doubt origin will have kickass deals like steam does, so thats a fail in itself

@Faenix

They probably will since they can't afford not to.

That doesn't change any of the other horrible things about Origin (Hallowed are the Ori)

@Faenix

what are you talking about, they can easily afford sales. EA is a distributor, a developer and a publisher. This gives them a HUGE leg up in the DD platform.

@PR0F3TA

Never once did I say if they can afford it or not, learn2read

@Faenix

true. my bad.

point still stands. Origin will have sales once it gets off its infancy. i guarantee it

@Scuffles Hallowed are the Ori

@Esir Stargate reference FTW

@Faenix Origin already had some great sales. Stop sipping on the hatorade.

@Faenix
Origin is the same ol' digital store EA has been using just with a new name, correct? If so, he is pretty much on the money. EA has had sales before but rarely as good as Steam sales. Hopefully they can do a bit better this time and maybe let the servers run a bit longer. ;)

"Brown says EA will use its collection of 130 million users and various payment methods to attract third-party games to Origin."

130-million users and only 4-million installed clients?

@txphisher

Well that might only be .03% but that means that its going to be pure market growth. I humbly await the "Origin market grows by 300%" or some other dubious percentage that makes lackluster performance look awesome to some CEO somewhere.

@txphisher

some people will just pull anything out of anywhere to make their least favorite thing sound worse then their most favorite thing.

if EA has 150 million users its because we ALL have EA accounts. How many of us have a PC capable of gaming, how many of us want another DD platform, how many of us just signed up to post on the forums, how many of us just signed up to be able to play EA games online period.

Some people need to really think about what they say before using weak arguments.

@txphisher
EA accounts are now Origin accounts. Every EA game needs an EA/Origin account.

@txphisher

Which is exactly why I've already spam blocked main from my EA aka Origin account.

I wonder how many of those were for SWTOR preorders?
I know I installed it thinking it would be necessary to play SWTOR, but after I heard it wasn't I uninstalled it right away.

@Kayonesoft

Yeah, that was a fairly major factor in deciding whether or not to participate in the Labour day weekend stress test.

Don't look at me I dont have an account with them.

competition always brings the best out of companies

@Splenda14

I don't think people realize that because they are too busy being fanboys with their hands in their ears.

If it wasnt for competition Sony would be selling us a $500 device with a crappy library of games. Wether you admit it or not MS lit a fire under Sony's ass as made them rethink their consumers and their structure not to mention their attitude in general.

@PR0F3TA I agree, although I'd say Nintendo lit the fire, not Microsoft. Steam fanboys are worse than console fanboys. One is a $200 or so machine and another is a 200 mb (or something) couple minute download in Origin. It won't freaking kill them to download something other than their godly Steam.

Well it was only a matter of time, Valve came up with something that was inevitably going to happen at some point and are now making money from it in the same way Apple leeches our souls but we still go back for more and prefer to spend at Apple then anywhere else. Origins is just another competitor, as is XBL store, as is Sony Playstation store etc etc

This isn't really a surprising move. Assuming the support was there, Origin would logically be leveraged for bigger things. I'm curious if EA will try to lure away current Steam partners or if they will be content (for now) to sign new partners.

Should be interesting to watch.

@StrangeDNA

Nearly all of steams partners, smaller devs being the major exception, have their games on all the other DD platforms already so it wouldn't be much of a stretch for them to appear of Origin.

That's a lot of people who don't care about their privacy.

"I'm never going to get Origin." he said, while downloading Origin.

4 million confused yet opportunistic gamers?!

Ok I've been a fan of valve and steam since forever, but i don't get the fanboizzz on joystiq on this issue about BF3 not offered thru Steam... I mean give me a break! EA wants to profit more on the sales of BF3, and cutting out the middleman, in this case "Steam", is an awesome way to rake in profit!

Pause for a second before you start flaming... go google Valve's product: Half-Life 2, Orange Box, Portal 2, etc... and find me a digital service provider that sell these games beside Steam. Now if Steam is making their digital version of the game to be steam exclusive... then GTO EA making their not accessible thru Steam!!! I don't see Portal 2 or Orange Box for sell on Origin either so...

and for those who said... "but but BF3 is still offer thru other digital retail beside Steam"... well to be honest the only sale competition Origin would have is Steam. Probably too much hassle to take BF3 off of D2D and all the other retailers... but i won't be surprise if BF4 is Origin Exclusive, like Portal 3 would be Steam exclusive

@sohcahtoa

http://store.origin.com/DRHM/store?Action=DisplayProductDetailsPage&SiteID=ea&Locale=en_US&ThemeID=718200&Env=BASE&productID=181157700

@Colin I'm pretty sure he said DIGITAL PROVIDER. That link is for the box copy of Portal 2.

So... I like to think I am a hardcore PC gamer... I have over 200 games purchased on Steam. BUT I was kinda forced to download and install Origin to test out that BF3 Alpha Stress Test. And as we all know, BF3 is totally worth it... but anyways... Origin IS NOT that bad at all! The deals have been very decent compare to Steam. Sure, its all EA games, but not too shabby at all. The client works... works pretty well. And it allow me to add/link every almost single EA game I had on Steam (Mass Effect 2, Dragon Age 1 / 2, Crysis 2, The Sims 3, The Sims Medieval) So it isn't all doom and gloom. Just my 2 cents....

@Aquaryon How did you manage to link Sims 3 to your Origin account? My copies were from Steam, and it has consistently refused my CD Keys. Not that big a deal, I boot Origin up once every week or two to see if the SW:TOR pre-load is available there but other than that...

@(Unverified)

Only thing I can think of is do you have any of the expansion packs for the Sims 3 as wel though Steaml?? I only own the basic Sims 3. Wonder if those Origin refuses the cd keys bc you need all of them install to play??

@Aquaryon Yeah... I have two of the expansion packs for it, all registered to my EA account but not coming up on my Origin account yet. I'm betting they'll merge them in at some point though.

4 Million users because it's the only way you can order EA games digitally anymore.

I don't have a problem with Origin. I just don't like being forced to use it when simply adding the game on Steam would suffice. It already has an established player base, tons of my friends/groups and my 260+ games.

It just bothers me that they've made BF3 available for all other digital retailers and they're boycotting Steam. I want this game so badly, everything I see from it looks amazing, but unless it's available through Steam where I have a pre-established network of friends and community already in place, I am planning on not picking this one up. There are other good games coming out this fall that I can spend my time on (Not MW3 either.)

Just because Origin has 4 million client installs doesn't mean it has "caught on".

How many of those 4 million people are using the client not because they want to, but because they have to to play future EA published titles?

How many of those 4 million people have installed the client only to realise they don't like it and then uninstalled it?

EA may have monitored how many people have installed their client, but that doesn't prove how popular their service is. It doesn't say anything other than the fact that they've had the client installed 4 million times. Who's to say it wasn't installed 1 million times each on 4 computers?

@(Unverified)

/agree

I never even heard of Origin 'till about 2 months ago when I read that I HAD to install it to pre-order BF3 and then a week or 2 later to pre-order SWTOR, which they felt the need to CHARGE ME $5 JUST TO PRE-ORDER.

I know $5 is nothing..but ffs..charging me money to pre-order a digital game? I understand that for hard-copies...but really? Digitals don't run out EA...just thought you'd like to know.

@Slomoshun Unless I'm remembering it wrong, that $5.00 is subtracted from the final price of your SWTOR pre-order at launch. It's been a while since I looked at it, and I pre-ordered the CE at a physical store locally, so I didn't wind up going with the Digital Deluxe version anyway, my memory may be faulty on this one.

Also, I'd point out that if you pre-order a game on Steam you pay the full price now (minus any discounts), even if release is 6 months away.

@(Unverified)

Origin charges Tax, Steam doesn't. Ergo Steam is cheaper.

MOAR STEAM RAGE PLZ!

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Battlefield 3

Origin nets 4 million client installs, adding third-party content 'very soon'

Reader Comments (65)

Posted: Sep 9th 2011 5:40PM PR0F3TA said

Posted: Sep 9th 2011 5:47PM Captaindrek1 said

Posted: Sep 9th 2011 6:38PM Special Agent Steve said

Posted: Sep 9th 2011 7:18PM Special Agent Steve said

Posted: Sep 10th 2011 12:51PM Hunter141072 said

Posted: Sep 9th 2011 5:43PM Rahabib said

Posted: Sep 9th 2011 5:43PM mguniverse said

Posted: Sep 9th 2011 5:44PM onlyk said

Posted: Sep 9th 2011 5:53PM PR0F3TA said

Posted: Sep 9th 2011 6:47PM pluupy said

Posted: Sep 9th 2011 5:45PM Faenix said

Posted: Sep 9th 2011 5:51PM Scuffles said

Posted: Sep 9th 2011 5:55PM PR0F3TA said

Posted: Sep 9th 2011 5:58PM Faenix said

Posted: Sep 9th 2011 6:04PM PR0F3TA said

Posted: Sep 9th 2011 6:31PM Esir said

Posted: Sep 9th 2011 6:43PM stundio said

Posted: Sep 9th 2011 9:00PM Enigma7ic said

Posted: Sep 9th 2011 10:45PM Dao Jones said

Posted: Sep 9th 2011 5:45PM txphisher said

Posted: Sep 9th 2011 5:54PM Scuffles said

Posted: Sep 9th 2011 5:59PM PR0F3TA said

Posted: Sep 9th 2011 6:01PM The Aquacharger said

Posted: Sep 9th 2011 11:38PM akeso said

Posted: Sep 9th 2011 5:46PM Kayonesoft said

Posted: Sep 9th 2011 8:51PM freaparn said

Posted: Sep 9th 2011 5:46PM Rain said

Posted: Sep 9th 2011 5:48PM Splenda14 said

Posted: Sep 9th 2011 6:02PM PR0F3TA said

Posted: Sep 9th 2011 11:33PM Dcmac said

Posted: Sep 9th 2011 6:02PM Spunky Monkey 190906 said

Posted: Sep 9th 2011 6:02PM StrangeDNA said

Posted: Sep 9th 2011 9:43PM This Little Man Says His Name Is said

Posted: Sep 9th 2011 6:09PM Cranky Penguin said

Posted: Sep 9th 2011 6:19PM agneumeyer said

Posted: Sep 9th 2011 6:47PM pluupy said

Posted: Sep 9th 2011 6:57PM sohcahtoa said

Posted: Sep 10th 2011 1:09PM Colin said

Posted: Sep 10th 2011 6:16PM mttrackmaster38 said

Posted: Sep 9th 2011 6:57PM Aquaryon said

Posted: Sep 9th 2011 7:50PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Sep 9th 2011 8:10PM Aquaryon said

Posted: Sep 9th 2011 9:14PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Sep 9th 2011 7:08PM Slomoshun said

Posted: Sep 9th 2011 7:11PM Akihiko said

Posted: Sep 9th 2011 7:11PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Sep 9th 2011 7:49PM Slomoshun said

Posted: Sep 9th 2011 9:29PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Sep 10th 2011 1:09PM Slomoshun said

Posted: Sep 9th 2011 7:13PM ChainSmoker said

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