EA’s reputation in the gaming community is appalling and often perceived as a development studio obsessed by profits at the expense of making compelling games. Furthermore, the disappointment surrounding Star Wars: Battlefront, eventual demise of Maxis and a host of other failures hasn’t helped matters. Similarly, the advent of pre-order bonuses, DLC, microtransactions and anti-consumer measures all appear to be introduced by EA at some point. While other developers have engaged in similar activities, EA popularized it which makes consumers very suspicious of anything they produce. Despite ruining Maxis, one of the most iconic PC studios ever devised, EA appears to be trying to regain the trust of the PC gaming audience.
According to industry website MCV, Origin’s senior marketing director, Peter O’Reilly proclaimed:
“We are on a journey to regain the trust of the PC gamer,”
“Over the last couple of years we have focused on ensuring a great play experience from launch and bringing players a better experience on Origin with programs like the Great Game Guarantee, On the House, and now Origin Access.”
“We’re excited about the progress we’ve made, but are always pushing ourselves to innovate on behalf of players.”
While many decisions from EA have been absolutely atrocious, I have to commend them for the Origin refund policy. Arguably, this encouraged Valve to offer a similar service on the Steam platform, although their decision might have been more to do with European legislation. EA Access is also an interesting initiative and could provide good value-for-money. However, the majority of consumers judge EA on the basis of game releases, microtransactions and other business decisions.
The Origin platform is still disliked, because it’s not Steam, and forces users to install two clients. Even if Origin was the best system out there, it still wouldn’t help EA because their core games prioritize profit over gameplay. Don’t get me wrong, publishers exist to make money, but that shouldn’t happen by looking at a short-term gain, and ruining a number of historic studios.
