Origin Delivers Revenue Similar to Steam for Electronic Arts

Video game publisher Electronic Arts has been very vocal about promoting its newly launched digital distribution service, Origin, and now the leader of the company says that it plans for it to be like a cross between HBO and Netflix in the future.

Speaking during a conference call with investors, John Riccitiello, who is the chief executive officer of Electronic Arts, has said, “We're seeing good uptake. By way of comparison, when we've had good success on Steam and then the same title on Origin, we see similar revenues to a service that is much more mature and of higher scale at this point in time.”

The CEO says that getting good traffic via Origin is important for EA because it gets to keep all the profits made on its own platform.

He also acknowledges that the publisher needs to make sure that the platform is both stable and easy to use and that just one bad experience could mean that users will start fleeing towards alternatives like Steam and its competitors.

Speaking about the future of Origin, the CEO added that, “We hope to be HBO meets Netflix for gaming. But we're also very keen to have our content distributed to anywhere and everywhere gamers are.”

The Netflix comparison might mean that Electronic Arts is interested in delivering streaming gaming services via Origin in the future, which might also see it competing with the likes of OnLIve and Gaikai.

Use of HBO as an example of what Origin can become also suggests that there are some projects that EA plans to just launch on the digital distribution platform, without making them available anywhere else, like the television program does with its original series.

Riccitiello has not offered any information on how EA plans to solve the issues that it has recently had with Steam.