EA Origin to expand social features, reach 'other platforms'

EA shed some more light on its multi-platform strategy during its Q3 financial conference call for fiscal year 2012, including improvements for digital service EA Origin.

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Electronic Arts is inching towards 10 million users of its Origin service. While it's currently little more than a digital storefront, the platform is of great focus to the publisher, with an aggressive roadmap being laid out.

According to EA COO Peter Moore, Origin will see a number of updates over the year that "will include more social features, enhancements to the way that our consumers can access Origin, and not only just focus on the PC, but other platforms as well."

Origin's primarily competitor, Steam, is already available on multiple platforms. In addition to PC, Valve supports Mac games. It also recently launched an app for iOS and Android devices.

Moore went on to explain that the long-term plans for Origin are global ones, and that EA will continue "building in different business models, so that we can not just do direct to consumer downloads as we currently do with full games and DLC, but also different types of business models that will allow us to aggregate our consumers and provide them with better opportunities and price-value relationships for our content."

The ultimate goal is to develop a "full and very robust portal to the consumer on a global basis, regardless of platform or geographic location," Moore concluded.

From The Chatty
  • reply
    February 2, 2012 9:30 AM

    Jeff Mattas posted a new article, EA Origin to expand social features, reach 'other platforms'.

    EA shed some more light on its multi-platform strategy during its Q3 financial conference call for fiscal year 2012, including improvements for digital service EA Origin.

    • reply
      February 2, 2012 10:43 AM

      [deleted]

      • reply
        February 2, 2012 12:16 PM

        I am not positive on that but I did see a roadmap for Origin features which talked about thinks like achievements and cloud saves or parity with steam.

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          February 2, 2012 2:20 PM

          I wish Origin wasn't so goddamn half-baked.

          If they CAME OUT with feature parity with Steam, I'd be much more inclined to use it, but if they're endlessly playing catchup, it's always going to be my last choice for purchasing games.

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            February 2, 2012 3:12 PM

            Things EA can do to trump Steam:

            Add ingame video capture to Origin. License fraps or something.
            Allow users to link older EA games to Origin. Even after importing my keys from Steam, I have more EA games in Steam than I do in Origin. Very few non-Steamworks games can be linked to Steam. EA could garner goodwill by letting retail copies be linked.

            Things EA will do instead (the GFWL model):
            Devote inadequate resources to the Origin platform.
            Force integration that offers little to users (FO3)

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