Origin vs Steam: EA Cites BF3 vs COD

The handbags have been out for a while between EA and Valve over their competing PC services: Origin and Steam. Especially after EA removed some of their games from Steam (though some of this was because of terms of service violations). Either way, they’re at it again. This time it’s EA Origin chief David DeMartini citing the prominence of Battlefield 3 over Call of Duty. Evidently he thinks Steam is tired and Origin is about to overtake them.

That might have some merit, if there were any reason to suppose Origin provided a different or better service than Steam. Unfortunately they don’t. Their unique selling point is that they provide EA games. That’s it. It’s not even an enjoyable interface. DeMartini admits they’ve got work to do: “give us a few more years, and maybe we’ll be better than Steam”, metering his previous predictions “Battlefield 3 is…a great shooter in its own right. I want Origin to be the exact same thing. That doesn’t mean Call of Duty is bad. I don’t want to see Steam become bad…I want Origin to be differentiable and better as a service.”

As for the notion of a few years to overtake Steam, from my perspective they can have all the time they need because they look pretty stuck for ideas at the moment. Nobody wants to see monopolies, but with a service as bland as Origin, it’s hard to see them as a serious competitor.

Via [Eurogamer].