Time sure flies when you’re having fun, and even more so if you’re gaming. Despite massive controversy regarding game exclusivity, sales, and customer service, the Origin digital-distribution platform has already had a steady year of growth and seems to be standing on feet much sturdier than when it launched.
Reporting large sales over the last few months, Electronic Arts claims that Origin has reportedly reached over 12 million individual game downloads in its inaugural year.
Origin’s own Senior Vice President of E-Commerce, David DeMartini, was pleased to report their fiscal and global success this weekend. On that subject, he acknowledge that features were fairly simplistic during their ‘trial run’ of a first year, stating that when they started their services, they couldn’t just “leap to the glitzy features,” having to get “the meat and potatoes down first.” That said, he promised that Electronic Arts was focusing on improving their services and sales for the 2012/2013 year of service, so gamers can expect more serious sales and offers, following what was evidently a good year even without them:
“We’ve got 12 million downloads of the application. We have 50 partners: independent game developers and publishers who are publishing on the platform. We’ve generated over $150 million in revenue, which represents huge growth on a percentage basis versus the previous year. In every numerical dimension it was a huge success!”
Numbers don’t lie, and it looks like Origin is certainly netting Electronic Arts a profit, despite the fact that Gabe Newell stated that it hasn’t done anything particularly well yet. Of course, the Steam platform has done an excellent job of reportedly keeping its revenue numbers a secret, but if the feuding between platforms continues Newell may be tempted to make a statement on the matter.
After taking a blow at Steam earlier, DeMartini touched on the subject of their digital distribution rivals again by saying that Origin wasn’t the company who took any games off Steam, but rather it was Gabe’s platform which stopped service on several EA titles:
“There’s been many quotes and misquotes with regards to who did to what to who and who took what off what. We’ve not taken a single title off of Steam.”
DeMartini goes on to state that titles like Mass Effect 3 and Battlefield 3 haven’t been negatively affected from not being included on the Steam platform, having met success on their own Origin system:
“Those three titles have done fantastically on Origin and every other download site where you can get access to those games. Gamers find the best intellectual property wherever it is for sale.”
If the above statement is accurate, than perhaps gamers may become accustomed to using both services at the same time, though it splits up friend lists and game libraries from being in a centralized spot. If Origin can keep improving their service, Steam may have to watch their backs as more EA exclusives – and bigger sales – may tempt gamers to shy away from the original (and still current) top-dog of distribution.
What do you think about the Origin platform? Do you think they’ve had a good year aside from sales?
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Follow me on Twitter @Makelevi.
Source: Gamespot
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They’ve had a relatively good year I suppose, minus all the crap gamers say. And I don’t have any issues with Origin like I did at launch, it was a headache but seems like a much smoother experience now.
Having exclusive EA games won’t help Origin. Steam is already at the top. Steam is like the Wal-Mart of PC gaming while Origin is like Target. You may occasionaly go to Target, but you always go to Wal-Mart.
What you should understand though, is if you want an EA game then it is best to use Origin. And obviously having exclusive EA games has helped Origin.
@Andrew
Of course they won’t be as big as Steam any time soon and I doubt they’re trying to. It’d be ignorant for them to think they can, at least so soon. But anyway, as long as they’re making a profit, as the article suggests, they are succeeding.
Wait they expected it not to be a sucess? They basically shoved it down every PC player’s throats who wants to play a EA game.
ME3, BF3, and OLD REPUBLIC, plus the forced download to origins. No freakin duh its firs year did great. I want to see EA have another year of success with just Medal Honor Warfighter and Dead Space 3.
The issue shouldn’t be whether Origin turned a “profit”. It’s not hard to create profits when it was a required storefront download to play certain games such as ME3, B3, and TOR.
The real issue is how much in LOST profit EA suffered as some gamers chose to decline purchasing certain games (or delayed purchasing said games) because they were not offered on Steam. That’s a number EA probably never would calculate internally, and certainly would never disclose to the general public.
Each of those games had great launches and actually turned in a great profit for EA plus they also have DLC/subscription services that are almost worth the same amount as the game. So how much could they have lossed. Sure EA did not cater to a certain crowd (Steam Users) but in return because of this, would the losses be so devastating that it will flop the Massive Success of Origins has received.
origin is good…. NOT I CANT PLAY BF3 AFTER PLAYING UP TILL BEFORE CLOSE COURTERS