Rest In Peace Origin, You Will Not Be Missed

Third-party launchers are never good. The horrific realisation that to play a game you just bought you must install, create an account for, and launch another app has long been a cause of headaches in the gaming world. Over the years, we have seen the likes of Ubisoft, Bethesda, Epic Games, Activision, and Electronic Arts launch programmes meant to house their digital libraries. Most of them suck.

Gamers are simple creatures, so once they have already downloaded an app like Steam it’s reasonable to expect that the vast majority of PC games should be available on the platform. I agree with this consensus, but thanks to the revenue split Valve puts forward, there’s a large enough incentive for other major players to create their own app and cut out the middleman.

Third-Party Launchers Do Nothing But Irritate Players

Having to juggle multiple different libraries, friends lists, and passwords is never fun. Picking up a game on Steam too late to notice it will launch onto Origin before going through the same tortuous steps all over again is never fun. But it won’t be necessary for too much longer, with EA recently announcing it will be bringing Origin to a close. However, it’s not all good news – EA will be moving PC operations over to the equally clunky EA app.

Origin first launched in 2011 and was one of the first third-party digital clients on the scene. It made headlines prior to the launch of Mass Effect 3 for being mandatory on PC, which didn’t sit well in a gaming environment that was already putting up with online passes and a vicious crackdown on used games.

But we went along with it for years as titles like Dead Space 3, Titanfall, Battlefield 3, and countless others arrived. Origin became a part of regular PC gaming, but I struggle to recall a moment when it was spoken about in positive terms.

And Origin Was The Worst Of Them All

It was slow to load, cumbersome to navigate, and there was rarely a reason to browse much of its digital storefront because chances are you logged in through Steam to jump into a very specific game anyway. Battlefield made use of Battlelog, a browser-based means of hopping into matches, which added yet another layer of needless complexity to the experience.

It feels like it was designed with a guarantee to inconvenience, or the incentive was to make money from digital sales over a rival like Steam, instead of making it a fun programme to interact with.

One saving grace was, in its later years, Origin developed a habit of releasing games for free and many of them were older titles you couldn’t find anywhere else. Over the years, I often logged on whenever one of these promotions reared its head to pick up a freebie.

It was a great initiative that pulled people into the ecosystem with a distant aim of making them stick around, but like the Epic Games Store years later, this didn’t work out. However, it showed us that EA cared, even if only a little bit, about its legacy and wanted to use Origin to preserve it. Now I just hope this new application carries these games over and doesn’t abandon them.

Recent years have seen Microsoft, Bethesda, and Ubisoft begin to transition their new and existing games onto Steam with native support, meaning you won’t be roped into launching another programme just to play them. Companies are beginning to realise that this strategy can actively harm sales if they don’t make the experience easier for audiences. Assassin’s Creed Shadows is one such example, which will be available on Steam on day one.

Origin hasn’t had a place in the gaming landscape for a long time, and with any luck EA is going to make its new app easier to use, less intrusive, and more willing to play ball with all the players on Steam. It isn’t going anywhere, and time and time again it’s been proven we want nothing to do with third-party launchers like this.

Released

March 6, 2012

ESRB

M for Mature: Blood, Partial Nudity, Sexual Content, Strong Language, Violence