EA Launches Origin Online Game Distribution for Mac

[RolyPolyBird]

Originally Posted by SimonTheSoundMa

It wouldn't pass the smell test. Origin would not pass Apple's privacy guidelines.

It scans your whole computer and send information to EA and unknown third parties. Data such as which app are installed and when they are used, your bookmarks and browser history, collect data with who you are contacting for example e-mail addresses.

It also slows your computer down significantly because it always scans what you are doing.

If this is true then that is pretty shocking. As I see it that is not an app but spyware and should be detected by a virus app or directly blocked from running by apple.

[Kissaragi]

Excellent, hope Simcity preorders come up soon!

The more games on the mac the better I say.

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Originally Posted by RolyPolyBird

If this is true then that is pretty shocking. As I see it that is not an app but spyware and should be detected by a virus app or directly blocked from running by apple.

Its not true

[skottichan]

Originally Posted by nutjob

Wow, you can't even read a Mac blog without hearing people whine about the ending of ME 3.

I know, right? Bawww, day one DLC!! Bawww, my Shepard didn't get a white picket fence ending!! EA killed Bioware!

[Nermal]

Can someone in the US take a look at, say, Dragon Age II and tell me how much it costs? Origin is listing $89.99 here, so at first glance it looks like it's as bad as Steam when it comes to ripping off non-US customers...

[quaternio]

Originally Posted by Nermal

Can someone in the US take a look at, say, Dragon Age II and tell me how much it costs? Origin is listing $89.99 here, so at first glance it looks like it's as bad as Steam when it comes to ripping off non-US customers...

It said $19.99 US when I checked it last night. Are you in Australia or something?

[Eriden]

Originally Posted by skottichan

I know, right? Bawww, day one DLC!! Bawww, my Shepard didn't get a white picket fence ending!! EA killed Bioware!

If you really believe that the ending to Mass Effect 3, especially pre-Extended Cut was an ending worthy of the series, I pity you. You probably think that the average Mario or Zelda games are examples of masterful storytelling.

[Renzatic]

Originally Posted by Nermal

Can someone in the US take a look at, say, Dragon Age II and tell me how much it costs? Origin is listing $89.99 here, so at first glance it looks like it's as bad as Steam when it comes to ripping off non-US customers...

You're getting ripped off in a big bad way. It's $19.99 over here.

edit: What Quaternio said. Should've scrolled down a little more. :P

[Nermal]

Originally Posted by Renzatic

You're getting ripped off in a big bad way. It's $19.99 over here.

Typical. The exact same bits from the exact same servers... so let's charge more than double the cost of a boxed version!

It's the same with Steam; I sometimes get an American friend to "gift" the game to me and pay him via PayPal, but often I just don't bother. If the company is going to be evil then they don't deserve the money...

Originally Posted by Renzatic

edit: What Quaternio said. Should've scrolled down a little more. :P

In your defence, you didn't accuse me of living in Australia!

[ditzy]

Do you have to repurchase games bought on origin on windows?

[BRLawyer]

Originally Posted by Vertigo50

This will never be installed on my machine.

You had me at "EA".

The only relevant question is: is this bringing a lot of new games which did not exist on the Mac before?

Otherwise, Steam is already bad enough in terms of customer support. I won't install a crappy EA-sponsored platform for that matter.

[mrxak]

Originally Posted by watchthisspace

In the Terms and Conditions for installing Origin, EA pretty is very vague on that data Origin collects from a user and users computer.

Here's a good read about it: http://www.cinemablend.com/games/EA-...-PC-36690.html

That article pretty much says all it does is check to see if your serial is valid and what EA games you have installed. Hardly shocking, or worthy of the spyware moniker.

Originally Posted by SimonTheSoundMa

It wouldn't pass the smell test. Origin would not pass Apple's privacy guidelines.

It scans your whole computer and send information to EA and unknown third parties. Data such as which app are installed and when they are used, your bookmarks and browser history, collect data with who you are contacting for example e-mail addresses.

It also slows your computer down significantly because it always scans what you are doing.

This strikes me as simple paranoia. I'm much more interested in what the software actually does. There are programs that can monitor and/or block what other programs are doing on your system. Why not fire one up and actually see?

Originally Posted by locust76

There's a huge difference between a badly worded EULA and what the program actually does. There would have been a *****storm of bad press had the program actually been found to be snooping through bookmarks, emails, contacts and the like (which, by the way, any program on a PC can do, with or without your consent). Yes, EA knows which apps you have purchased through Origin and knows when you're running them. In reality, that's probably pretty much the extent of the information they're interested in, but their team of lawyers (who probably haven't spoken to a real person in years) can't seem to put words on paper that don't ring major alarm bells.

But to suggest that the program is uploading sensitive personal documents, histories and contacts without any proof is absurd.

Despite what some here claim, there are major tech sites who would be all over the story if EA was really stealing all your bookmarks, emails, and contacts. I've seen them cover the Origin EULA outrage, but no big stories about EA actually doing something nefarious.

What I'm asking is, what does Origin actually do that can be considered spyware?

[ihuman:D]

Originally Posted by Bantz

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2B-ekl_cEWk

EA publish some of the best games
Crysis
Battlefield
Fifa
NHL
Sim City
Mass Effect.

They are fine

Lol! Great laugh, you are! They have ruined The Sims, SimCity, Spore and Maxis in general. EA is doing a great job!

[skottichan]

Originally Posted by Eriden

If you really believe that the ending to Mass Effect 3, especially pre-Extended Cut was an ending worthy of the series, I pity you. You probably think that the average Mario or Zelda games are examples of masterful storytelling.

I thought it was a well executed ending, since the ending of Mass Effect was the whole game, not the last 15 minutes alone. Secondly, it was only the end of Shepard's story, from day one they said ME was going to be a larger saga, so the three endings all had to have a convergence, or moving forward would involve multiple versions of Mass Effect 4 and on.

I get it though, you wanted the hero to save the day, get the girl and have everything be sparkly. Personally, I preferred my Shepard being the heroine who united organics and synthetics, and while yes, Samantha Traynor will be sad that her romance with Shepard was brief, she knows the Commander sacrificed herself to save everyone.

Lemme guess, you're one of the fans who attacked Jennifer Helper when she said that she wished that there was a way to skip "gaming elements" so the player (like herself) can just enjoy the story.

[kingtj]

You know, I've run Steam on my Mac Pro tower for a LONG time now... and while it had a lot of issues, they've done pretty well with fixing most of them.

Some of the bugs were just plain stupid, like the news bulletins for particular pieces of software refusing to update (until you blew out the whole cache file that stored them in some difficult to locate sub-folder and forced it to redownload it all again). But they have pretty much corrected this stuff.

I don't find it a bad product for the Mac, really. More stable than many of the Mac ports of older games released from companies like Aspyr or MacPlay in the past.....

Originally Posted by Fatalbert

"Origin is quite similar to Valve's Steam." What's the point then? There's already Steam and the App Store. Unless this turns out to be a more stable and less annoying version of Steam (which I don't use because it's CRAP), then it's dumb.

I've also used just one EA thing on a PC before, and it was a horrible experience. But all their software for game consoles is good.

[Eriden]

Originally Posted by skottichan

I thought it was a well executed ending, since the ending of Mass Effect was the whole game, not the last 15 minutes alone. Secondly, it was only the end of Shepard's story, from day one they said ME was going to be a larger saga, so the three endings all had to have a convergence, or moving forward would involve multiple versions of Mass Effect 4 and on.

I get it though, you wanted the hero to save the day, get the girl and have everything be sparkly. Personally, I preferred my Shepard being the heroine who united organics and synthetics, and while yes, Samantha Traynor will be sad that her romance with Shepard was brief, she knows the Commander sacrificed herself to save everyone.

Lemme guess, you're one of the fans who attacked Jennifer Helper when she said that she wished that there was a way to skip "gaming elements" so the player (like herself) can just enjoy the story.

Wanting a sparkly happily-ever-after ending? Hardly. How about asking that the ending actually make sense? (Pre-Extended Cut) Or that the conclusion of Shepard's story and that of his friends be more satisfying than a couple of hastily scrapped together storyboards. (Post-Extended Cut)

I'm far too busy to post a 5000 word analysis of why the ending is as bad as it is. Head over to YouTube and find one of Julian Kluk's videos on Indoctrination Theory for some excellent analysis.

Your original insult was far too simplistic and tries to dismiss an ocean of legitimate criticism by suggesting that people who were dissatisfied are merely 'whiners' who want a bleached white happy ending. The bottom line is that it just isn't that simple.

[lupinglade]

Originally Posted by Spetsnazos

No one uses it on PC other than for battlefield 3 and no Mac can run bf3...

Good luck in your distribution goals of 2013 EA

Really? My 2008 Mac Pro and an ATI Radeon 5870 run it perfectly at 1080p.

[Icaras]

All the EA hate in this thread is funny.

Anyway, INSTALLED!

Now give me some Battlefield, Command & Conquer and The Old Republic for Mac please!

[MagnusVonMagnum]

Originally Posted by Eriden

EA is the soulless corporate juggernaut of the gaming industry. I can only imagine how great the ENTIRETY of Mass Effect 3 would have been had EA not gotten its hooks into Bioware.

Instead, thanks to EA, we got a game that was 95% awesomeness followed by 15 minutes of ending that ruined the whole fusking series.

Sounds just like Knights Of The Old Republic 2 which had it's 3rd part all screwed up and largely incomplete, leaving this overwhelming feeling of "WTF happened" if you play the original game (but even with the 3rd party mods that restore most of the unused content, it's still jarring between cut-scenes and you have to fill in many blanks yourself. (In that case, you can thank Lucasarts for now allowing them to fix the bugs, though, which makes no sense, really. WHY would you NOT want to allow them to be fixed?

The only thing I can think of is that George got royally P-O'ed at how that game turned the whole good/bad Jedi/Sith thing on its head, pointing out (rightly) that the Jedi are also flawed and potentially evil and not everything about being Sith or "dark" is just about crazy maniacal evil and that TRUE balance is actually in the middle somewhere. I think Lucas wanted to point out that the Republic had become corrupt and the Jedi within it also corrupted to some degree in Revenge of the Sith (e.g. Mace Windu ensuring Anakin would turn by making himself judge, jury and executioner), but that's not the same as suggesting the world is really shades of gray (as Kotor II did), not just black and white (as Lucas always wanted Star Wars to portray like an old Western where the good guys where white hats and the bad guys wear black hats).

While I don't care for EA for the very reasons you state (soulless money grubbers, really), I have to admit that Dragon Age Origins was the best game I ever played on any system. The expansion packs and rushed, somewhat unrelated "sequel" pretty much attempted to ruin the franchise, though. Frankly, I'm amazed the original game was as polished and well done as it was from the start. Frankly, it's exactly what an RPG style game SHOULD be (even better than the first Kotor, which had a horrible ending set whereas Dragon Age had several endings and ties that felt complete except for the sub-plot of the child, which I assumed was going to be the sequel, but probably never will be handled well). It's always a shame when art is ruined by money changers.

As for their store, if they're going to use that as an excuse not to sell their products anywhere else, we're right back to square one with the whole monopole app store concept. No competition = high prices = loss for the consumer. The best thing Steam has going for it are its sales and recognizing that games should come down in price the older they get. I'm not paying $60 for Diablo 3, for example, not now not ever with the restrictions that game has and the whole money trading crap that sounds like it ruined it completely. I got Torchlight 2 instead for $20 and it has no major restrictions (and through Steam I should get the Mac version when it becomes available for no extra charge as well). Is EA going to give Mac users the PC version for free like Steam does? I seriously doubt it. They see far too many dollar signs in their eyes to even consider it.

[richard4339]

Originally Posted by ditzy

Do you have to repurchase games bought on origin on windows?

That's the one thing I haven't seen anyone address.

So far, it appears they're cross platform, based on the one game I looked at.

http://store.origin.com/store/ea/en_...ctID.254372900

The SimCity listing is still PC only though. So, who knows. It may be some titles and not others.

Has anyone seen official word on this?

[VoR]

Originally Posted by MagnusVonMagnum

The best thing Steam has going for it are its sales and recognizing that games should come down in price the older they get.

The best thing about steam is that although they're a huge generic online shop company chocked full of AAA games, they've still got the indie spirit. Follow their development, they're really pushing for non-directx gaming. Considering how people often act on this forum, I'm surprised there's any negative comments

[KingPasta]

Originally Posted by richard4339

That's the one thing I haven't seen anyone address.

So far, it appears they're cross platform, based on the one game I looked at.

http://store.origin.com/store/ea/en_...ctID.254372900

The SimCity listing is still PC only though. So, who knows. It may be some titles and not others.

Has anyone seen official word on this?

Just had a chat with EA,

Vivek: Thanks for contacting EA Help! My name is Vivek how may I help you?
you:Hello, I would like to pre-order SimCity for PC. If I do this, will my user license allow me to play the Mac version when it comes out?
you:
I own an iMac, and have Windows as a boot-camp, so I was intending to buy the PC version for the time being until the Mac version comes, but I can't afford to buy the game twice. So will my license allow for play on Windows and Mac?
Vivek:Hello Sam,
you:hello ;-)
Vivek:Sam, Good news is that now origin is released on MAC.
Vivek:You should be able to play the game on MAC.
you:But SimCity for mac has been delayed, so can I buy the PC version for the time-being and not have to pay again for the MAC version when it comes out?
Vivek:Yes.
Vivek:If in any case you will not be able to access PC version of the game on MAC, we will issue refund for your PC version.
you:So in other words, transfer my license from PC to Mac?
Vivek:We will issue refund for your PC version of the game and then you can purchase teh MAC version of the game.
you:Thats great thank you. Is there any more news on a release date for the Mac version?
Vivek:Sam, I'm sorry we don't have any infomation about this at the moment.
you:ok thanks - thank you for your help

[tevion5]

Originally Posted by Dainin

Origin will never be on my Mac, and never on my gaming PC for that matter.

I have it on my PC for battlefield because I have to use it. It's a horrible buggy client with great rip off deals on a crap selection of games. And on top of that BF3 forces you into their "battle log" just to launch the damn game so you need internet access to play the single player campaign and need you open google chrome just to get the thing started.

Can somebody start some sort of organised boycott of EA altogether because I can sacrifice BF4 and the new SimCity if it will mean the end of this tyrannical publisher.

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Originally Posted by KingPasta

Just had a chat with EA,

Vivek: Thanks for contacting EA Help! My name is Vivek how may I help you?
you:Hello, I would like to pre-order SimCity for PC. If I do this, will my user license allow me to play the Mac version when it comes out?
you:
I own an iMac, and have Windows as a boot-camp, so I was intending to buy the PC version for the time being until the Mac version comes, but I can't afford to buy the game twice. So will my license allow for play on Windows and Mac?
Vivek:Hello Sam,
you:hello ;-)
Vivek:Sam, Good news is that now origin is released on MAC.
Vivek:You should be able to play the game on MAC.
you:But SimCity for mac has been delayed, so can I buy the PC version for the time-being and not have to pay again for the MAC version when it comes out?
Vivek:Yes.
Vivek:If in any case you will not be able to access PC version of the game on MAC, we will issue refund for your PC version.
you:So in other words, transfer my license from PC to Mac?
Vivek:We will issue refund for your PC version of the game and then you can purchase teh MAC version of the game.
you:Thats great thank you. Is there any more news on a release date for the Mac version?
Vivek:Sam, I'm sorry we don't have any infomation about this at the moment.
you:ok thanks - thank you for your help

Wait, are they actually not granting multi OS licensee for their games? As in must buy PC and Mac version separate? Just amazing.

[LiveinRiot]

Has Super Street Fighter IV Arcade Edition? Because in Origin Brazil don't has many games, only has The Sims, Dragon Age, and Spore.

[Icaras]

Originally Posted by tevion5

Wait, are they actually not granting multi OS licensee for their games? As in must buy PC and Mac version separate? Just amazing.

Not according to IGN. EA will indeed offer 'dual-platform play' via one single purchase, ala Steam Play.

http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/02/...es-out-of-beta

Win!

[vmachiel]

Damn you EA, even activision has it's games on steam.