If anything it is more stable then Steam (Steam crashes on me at least 2-3 times a week).

Plus they have very quick access to customer support compared to other clients.

Nice way to attract more people to use Origin.

Fourth game they have given away for free (3rd in this On the House Promo)

Battlefield 1942
Dead Space
Plants VS Zombies
Battlefield 3

and since On the House appears to be a permanent part of Origin now that just means more free stuff to come.

It's nice of EA do this, though I wonder if the people who paid full price for this are going to be pissed about this.

Probably the same reaction as when any other company releases a game for free.

This can be countered be stating that the person who paid for it has had up to three years worth of play (depending on when they got it) out of the game before now.

Thanks for sharing this.


Obviously, EA is desperately trying to keep Origin alive... Steam is just too much competition for them, I think. They aren't giving away games out of the love for humanity in their hearts. LOL

I wouldn't say that really. EA made all their games Origin exclusive, so there's no real competition going on there. If you want to play EA games on PC you use Origin, and a lot of people want to play EA games on PC. Especially Battlefield.

We really have no idea how it impacted their sales, but I bet they're doing fine.

If they are doing fine, why the free games?

Promoting the service doesn't automatically mean the service is in trouble. McDonalds is constantly promoting, after all.

This is especially true considering the games they are giving away are sub-$5 bundle fodder. They're losing less than they're gaining just from the news sites talking about it.

I'm agree.
Steam, Origin and another online-DRM services are absolutely rubbish, but with multiplayer games it's not a big problem. I think bunch of free MP games is much better than 90% discounts on Steam 'labels' for singleplayer games.

Or those too cheap to buy the top tier. :D

It doesn't integrate itself into your system or anything, it's just a piece of software which works as a pre-requisite for other pieces of software. I even remember that some Origin games don't even really require Origin to run.

^ This.

Too expensive.