By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close

I'm not sure I agree with some of the sentiments in this thread.

My experience with Origin so far has been stellar.

At first I purchased FIFA 10 to play with a friend. The install failed and it refused to recognize my key. Fine, I'll contact Origin support. First feather in Origin's cap: they have live support! Granted, they aren't the most knowledgeable people out there, but they are available immediately! Contrast that to Steam, where you send an email and receive a reply a week later.

Anyhow, I raised this issue with Origin support, and no amount of uninstalling and restarting the computer worked. What does Origin do? They give me another code for FIFA 10! I tried this, and it also refused to work. I contacted them again, and after verifying that I was unable to get the game to run, they gave me The Sims 3 for free as compensation for the hassles I've endured thus far.

This all happened in the office. When I got home, I tried installing FIFA on my gaming rig - and it worked! So Origin gave me another working version of FIFA 10 (I must be the only person who has duplicate games on their account) and The Sims on top of that.

I consider that exceptional technical support - even if they were unable to resolve my issue, they went out of their way to help.

The second feather in Origin's cap is logging in multiple computers: While with Steam it's a pain in the ass - you have to turn off WiFi and / or disconnect the LAN cable, then hope that Steam has kept your login information stored, otherwise you are forced to go back online to be able to play the games you purchased; really? - with Origin, when I login to another computer it asks me, very kindly, thank you, that if I login to my account on one computer the other computer will be put in offline mode. When I go on to the other computer, I will see a message saying that I am in offline mode but that I can still play my games offline.

Contrast the courteous, automated and streamlined approach Origin offers users with multiple computers with the draconian Steam service where you have to disable your internet connection!

Those two reasons alone put Origin above Steam for me in terms of end-user service. Don't get me wrong - I love Steam, and have over 250 games on it. However, that doesn't mean there isn't room for improvement.

In many ways having Origin as a serious competitor is of benefit for all of us, for it may just force Steam to improve their service and that's a win for all gamers.