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Steam vs Origins - worth another look?
Rattenmann
Member UncommonPosts: 613
Since quite a few years Steam has become the Nr 1 platform for gaming. Great selection of games, great deals. On the other hand noone likes / liked Origins and everyone hates EA.
At least that is what i was thinking up to this point.
Since i mostly buy my games trough resellers that usually offer better deals even then Steam 75%+ sales Steam lost one of its major plus points for me. The again they let everything on their platform and 90% is pure crap. Sure, we can filter that better now. But the only thing that is left for steam is the easiness of installation and the huge collection of games available. Both minor conveniences for sure.
Now with Dragon Age Inquisition they forced me onto origins ( and i hated that!).
Not only does it work flawlessly now, but they also have 75% off deals of current / semi current games. They also host 454 games and are no longer EA only either. So i figured id check further if origin was a viable alternative to Steam just yet. Then i saw one thing that instantly made me a believer.... and a betrayer to steam.
Full money back if you dislike the game.
You get 24 hours from the first start of the game, or 7 days from buying the game. Dislike it? You can return it. Ever payed 60 Bucks for a 3hour content game? There you go. Ever bought a game that looked nice on screenshots and videos, but played like crap? There you go.
I am really a little upset here almost lol. I always hated EA and loved Steam. But EA really seems to change direction and they change fast. Just bought my first game on origin simply due to the nature of this return policy. I always wanted to test the game out but never got convinced that id not waste my money. And money is tight around here, so i am happy for that deal.
What about others? Have you checked out Origins since their first release? The hatetrain was strong and huge back then. How abaout now? Am i the only one?
MMOs finally replaced social interaction, forced grouping and standing in a line while talking to eachother.
Now we have forced soloing, forced questing and everyone is the hero, without ever having to talk to anyone else. The evolution of multiplayer is here! We won,... right?
Comments
Actually that is another topic.
It is pretty hard to avoid EA nowadays, since they fund pretty much every other big franchice by now. That being said: i skipped several games due to the EA tag, but i would never skip something like a Dragon Age. After all Bioware is behind this. I never disliked EA enough to skip a Bioware title ;-)
I am pretty impressed on what origins is NOW tho. When i first saw it i never looked back at it up to this week. And the 75% sales got me to check it out further. The full money back guarantee is what will make me stay pretty much. Unless Steam changes their refund policy (read, no refunds), i will try to get games on origins from now on. Hell... even paying a few bucks more then id pay via a reseller, just so i can make sure i get that refund guarantee.
I never look back if i spend money on a good game. Usually A LOT of play time versus little money. But i absolutly HATE thinking about all the money i wasted on games that played like crap.... just the thought of being able to avoid that in the future gives EA like 100 Interwebz from me.
Will definitly give EA a second chance. Just like origins. Their new way of handling gaming seems to go in the right direction. Let's hope they keep it up and not change back after a few months.
MMOs finally replaced social interaction, forced grouping and standing in a line while talking to eachother.
Now we have forced soloing, forced questing and everyone is the hero, without ever having to talk to anyone else. The evolution of multiplayer is here! We won,... right?
Valve is nothing more than the current "Golden Boy" of technology. Make no mistake, though, if you think that they're upholding the greater good in some way, you're an idiot. Valve is a privately held company with the majority (50%) shareholder (Gabe Newell) steering the boat. EA is a public company of which Origin is just a small division. It's run by an employee who can be fired at any given moment. Why is this good? One word, ACCOUNTABILITY!!!
I think that many people get caught up in the glitz and glamour that companies like Valve put out there. It's that Rock Star persona. Kinda like Google. The problem is that while you're gazing into their eyes, falling so deeply in love that you'd do anything for them, they're simply tightening their grip on your balls until, *pluck*, like grapes from the vine.
Crazkanuk
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Azarelos - 90 Hunter - Emerald
Durnzig - 90 Paladin - Emerald
Demonicron - 90 Death Knight - Emerald Dream - US
Tankinpain - 90 Monk - Azjol-Nerub - US
Brindell - 90 Warrior - Emerald Dream - US
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Steam TOS is the biggest POS you can find and if you shop at steam you give away all your customer rights.
Sadly Origin fails at prices, its 20% higher than retail prices and even though they are having a sale you will find their games cheaper at a regular store.
True on both accounts. Not to mention I've heard Valve is a veritable nightmare to work at.
Origin DOES offer free games periodically, though. That's pretty cool. I think they're going to have to give a lot more before they can really penetrate the market / weasel their way in. On a positive note, they have plenty of content they could probably give away and not really suffer for doing so.
Crazkanuk
----------------
Azarelos - 90 Hunter - Emerald
Durnzig - 90 Paladin - Emerald
Demonicron - 90 Death Knight - Emerald Dream - US
Tankinpain - 90 Monk - Azjol-Nerub - US
Brindell - 90 Warrior - Emerald Dream - US
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Which alternate Universe do you live in? Valve has consistently been said to be one of the best places to work at with their workers being allowed full freedom on their creativity and no vertical chain of command. People are also free to just move their workdesk to whatever project they want. Go look up on the Valve workers Handbook which was released online some time back and look at the perks the workers get. It has a Glassdoor rating of 4.4/5, on par with Google.
Origin uses a pretty clunky interface compared to Steam and doesn't price nearly as well.
The only real reasons to get Origin seem to be the Bioware titles, and even those are declining drastically in quality. Bioware peaked with Mass Effect 2 (in my opinion), and they haven't been able to produce a standout title ever since the EA takeover.
Now, EA generated a lot of cautious "good faith" with their PR statements of wanting to undo their reputation and put players first again, and this resulted in a higher degree of temporary trust in the company, which increased, if anything with the push-backs on Inquisition and the "when it's ready" statement on Mirror's Edge 2's release.
Unfortunately, with premature closure of Dawngate, the mediocrity of Inquisition, and the dreadfulness of Inquisition's pc port, I can't help but think that my optimism for improvements in the company was foolish and unfounded. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me with Mass Effect 4, and I'll never buy another EA product.
Origin's customer service is decent, unlike Steam's nonexistent version. However, as others have mentioned, its prices are awful. Sometimes, it has sales, but those sales tend to come very late or be worse than the sales on Steam or GMG. By the way, Origin sales are very rare, so don't think this'll continue.
EA itself has its ups and downs. Right now, they seems to be in the "we screwed up and maybe need to fix things" phase. They're even releasing a sequel to Mirror's Edge. However, as soon as their reputation is good enough, they tend to decline into the "lol we're EA, screw you" phase characterized by games like the new SimCity and Dragon Age 2.
Steam
Pro:
Con:
I see the point of the people saying Origin has higher prices. That is obviously correct. But does it matter if you can return the game if you dislike it?
If the game is crap. No matter how cheap it was... the money spend will hurt.
If the game is great. You will not regret the money.
This comes out as "Pay a little more, but be sure to only get games you like" vs "pay a little less, but if it sucks you are stuck with it". You are paying a little extra to make sure you don't waste your money.
I happily take the first. Even if i do A LOT of research about a game i can be wrong and the game can still play like crap. I am a controls kinda guy... i simply can not stand a game that has akward controls or can not be changed to something that feels fluid. That is something that can barly if at all be seen in Videos, Screenshots or reviews. Might be a personal problem tho.
MMOs finally replaced social interaction, forced grouping and standing in a line while talking to eachother.
Now we have forced soloing, forced questing and everyone is the hero, without ever having to talk to anyone else. The evolution of multiplayer is here! We won,... right?
To me EA and activision and many other companies are all the same. Although I admit I am kind of a blizzard fanboy so I buy every single of their games. But I am pretty sure that no one can say with a straight face that their games are not amazing value for money.
Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.
Yup!!! It's funny, we LOOOOOOVE sports stars, celebrities, etc., etc., who make a metric crap ton of money for doing relatively trivial things, but you get a company who's out to make money and it's like BOOOOOOOO!!!!!! Why not be like "BOOOOOOO, Robert Downey Jr.!!!! Thanks for single-handedly making our movie ticket prices jump $1 with your $75 million dollar salary!"
I've said it before and I'll say it again. Retail video game in 1990, $50. Retail video game in 2014. $60. Movie Ticket in 1990? $4, Movie ticket in 2014? $10. You do the math. Basically, we'd be getting a great deal if video games cost $100, if not $120. So, in my opinion, we've got a pretty good deal. These are AMERICAN based companies with people getting paid well to create superior products. If you want to get the job done for 10 cents on the dollar, send it overseas. Oh, but that'd be a bad thing, right? Oh! And, you could also get "All" that content for $100 if you bought the CE, right?
The nice thing is that you get to make the decision. It'd be like a movie theater selling you a ticket for $5, except you could pay $10 and, instead, get the extended cut, and, also, pointless nudity scenes.
Sorry, people are wrong about dlc.
Crazkanuk
----------------
Azarelos - 90 Hunter - Emerald
Durnzig - 90 Paladin - Emerald
Demonicron - 90 Death Knight - Emerald Dream - US
Tankinpain - 90 Monk - Azjol-Nerub - US
Brindell - 90 Warrior - Emerald Dream - US
----------------
lol...no.
They only recently updated their UI and lol @ "80's 'web' tech"
TSW - AoC - Aion - WOW - EVE - Fallen Earth - Co - Rift - || XNA C# Java Development
I have both but I only use origin 1 day a year (black Friday) and I only use it for free games the other 364 days of the year.
Combine with that the fact that most origin games are available on steam and steam games are good value for money unlike most ea origin games which rip you off massively and steam wins by a long mile.
I hardly ever use origin its full of rip off prices.
Steam:
Pros:
1. Huge number of games from multiple developers.
2. Excellent prices.
3. All in 1 media centre for speaking to friends on a messenger, making clan forums, groups etc.
4. Can stream steam off your pc onto any other device connected to the internet so you can play in other rooms from your pc.
5. Allows users to vote for new titles to green light for sale.
6. Allows family sharing with up to 5 people. I do this with 2 people and have access to all their games.
Cons:
1. Lacks console exclusive titles like Nintendo games.
2. Gets some 3rd party titles after launch rather than at launch.
Origin:
Pros:
1. If you don't like a game for any reason including gameplay, you can return it free of charge within 24 hours of purchase.
2. Excellent customer service.
3. Sometimes gives free games. To date, the only 1 I liked is dead space cuz the rest are so old that I wont play them.
Cons:
1. Only has EA games. No 3rd party developers.
2. Not a media centre. You cant manage clan forums on it, you cant stream it onto other devices to play your games on your smart tv for example.
3. Horrendously expensive prices for both games and dlc. For example, the cost of 1 dlc for mass effect 3 is more expensive than the game now cuz its an old game and that is unfair when you consider that they make dlc basically mandatory by excluding core story like who made the reapers and why in mass effect 3 and by making all starter weapons obsolete in games like battlefield so if you don't get the dlc you lose in multiplayer.
4. Helps to support ea who have a long history of buying populat companies like bullfrog games and westwood studios and ruining them like how it pushed out me3 and da 2 leading to massive backlash on both games for a very populat developer known as bioware.
Conclusion:
Due to lack of games, options and the exceptionally high rip off prices, Origin is only worth it for the free games and for getting titles if you want to get them at launch rather than a few monthes down the line when they get ported to steam.
Due to games, options, prices, steam is better for everything else.
95% of the time steam, 5% of the time origin (that's optimistic for me).
MMOs finally replaced social interaction, forced grouping and standing in a line while talking to eachother.
Now we have forced soloing, forced questing and everyone is the hero, without ever having to talk to anyone else. The evolution of multiplayer is here! We won,... right?
Ive just logged back on origin. All the gams I see are ea only.
Where are these non ea games you are talking about.
Roses are red
Violets are blue
The reviewer has a mishapen head
Which means his opinion is skewed
...Aldous.MF'n.Huxley
good pt.
no you cant use origin without internet but you can with steam.
You Sir should stop trolling this topic.
If you hate EA, just say it. But stop the false informations.
Origins HAS drawbacks, huge ones. But also positive points. Simply lying to make a point is not exactly productive.
MMOs finally replaced social interaction, forced grouping and standing in a line while talking to eachother.
Now we have forced soloing, forced questing and everyone is the hero, without ever having to talk to anyone else. The evolution of multiplayer is here! We won,... right?
They are there..........for one, they sell Far Cry 4
Also, I have zero issues with either of these services, customer services and the quality of the clients has never been an issue for me. I've never tried to get a refund from either, being I research my purchases first.
I have voted with my wallet, no Origin, no EA game since the original Dragon Age. I know a ton of people who used to work for EA, and they all spit on the ground when their name gets mentioned.
On the other hand, it is nice to see some reasoned arguments as to why Origin might be worthwhile, how it has improved, etc.
If you are holding out for the perfect game, the only game you play will be the waiting one.
I have just takena proper look on origin and actually they do sell far cry 4 but its the only non ea game I can see lol.
I wonder why that is. I need to check if ubisoft is a subsidiary of ea.
Edit: it stocks ubisoft games as well, I have noted far cry and watchdogs but origin does not do any other 3rd party development. Just ea and ubisoft, not a wide range of games by any means.
The majority of ea games on there are ancient.
From being in origin now, all I can see are all the ea games which are sold at rip off prices and 1 game which isn't ea which is far cry 4. (still need to check if ubisoft are a sub of ea)
Also you are wrong, there is no offline mode for origin.
You have to log into origin online. There is no offline log in.
This offline login is particularly useful when family sharing on steam or if for some reason you lose internet connection.
Origin isn't very good for the reasons I listed b4.
I still have it to get the free games they give away but of the 4 free games I have, 3 of them are so ancient that I will never play them and then there is deadspace which I am grateful for as a free game.
Edit: the one and only time of year that I do buy games off origin is black Friday when the games are actually sold at a decent price as opposed to the usual ea rip off prices. I only do this for eas older games though because eas newer games will still be sold cheaper on g2a.com. For example, dragon age 3 is 60 pounds on origin right now, screw that. Its less than 30 pounds on g2a.com. Steam on the other hand has a great selection from 100s of developers at great prices all year round.
There is an offline mode, just because it isn't the same as Steams doesn't mean it's not there.
Steam has it's major drawbacks as does Origin.
One of those two is a high priced but efficient games delivery service for it's company tiltes. The other is a community based marketplace with questionable storefronts.
At the end of the day don't be a bitch for any company, and you won't get shafted.
This looks like a job for....The Riviera Kid!
I don't hate Steam on principle, there are a lot of things I think could be done better, but on the whole right now I think the best digital marketplace available is Steam.
I question Valve seeming to pack everything into the Steam client - a media player, a web browser, a streaming service - etc. All those things are great by themselves, but it doesn't necessarily need to be built into a bloated storefront. iTunes has the same feature creep problem.
Valve has very competitive prices. Titles there have manageable DRM, and is usually up front about what has it, and what doesn't. And it has the intertia factor - I have dozens of titles already through Steam, by virtue of them having been around so long (and the sales don't hurt either). So if I want to continue playing those titles, or have access to them, I have to at least keep the Steam client around, even if I don't purchase anything else through them.
That being said - if something better comes along, I wouldn't hesitate. I have tried Origin for a couple of things, but it hasn't really hooked me by doing anything disruptively different than Steam (other than having EA-exclusive titles).
Honestly, I thought hard about getting DAI Day-1, and had it been on Steam I probably would have just hit the button, but it being on Origin, a platform I have nothing invested in to date and don't load up regularly on my machine, it made me think twice and realize I'll just wait until it's on sale and all the kinks are worked out and the DLC is done trickling out.