14 DAY TRIAL // Electronic Arts' brand new digital distribution service, Origin, isn't trying to become a direct rival to Valve's hugely successful Steam, as EA believes that the two services can co-exist in the future, but that many fans of the company will be tempted with exclusive deals to start using Origin.
Electronic Arts surprised a lot of people at the end of last week when it transformed its regular EA Online Store into Origin, a better, fully pledged service which not only consists of a web portal but also has a desktop application for the PC, which allows gamers to purchase and download titles straight onto their computer.
As you can imagine, many quickly believed that Origin is aimed directly at other digital distribution services like Valve's Steam or GameFly's Direct2Drive.
That's not quite so, as David DeMartini, the senior vice president of Global Online at Electronic Arts, talked with Industry Gamers and said that the services shouldn't exclude one another.
"We don't see Origin and Steam as an either/or choice. Just because a gamer chooses to play Battlefield 3 doesn't preclude them from playing another shooter game, just as the fact that I'm on Facebook doesn't mean I don't also use LinkedIn," DeMartini said.
"We expect people will purchase content and utilize both Origin and Steam. We've learned a lot from Steam, they have been good partners. We will continue to listen to our customers, expand the social feature set, and will make Origin the best service on the market.”
EA is wasting no time in promoting Origin, as users of the new service can enjoy plenty of exclusive content arriving from EA's own E3 2011 press conference that took place Monday night.
What's more, in order to attract users of Steam or other such services, Origin is also going to offer exclusive deals on upcoming EA titles like Battlefield 3, Need for Speed: The Run or Mass Effect 3, whose N7 Collector's Edition is available as a digital download only through Origin.
Expect the Origin offers to keep on arriving in the following months, as EA tries to lure in PC gamers from around the world.