It already is.

- Less intrusive and more lightweight client
- 30 day money back guarantee
- tech support
- bi-monthly game giveaway

I'd recommend Origin every time over Steam, for very objective reasons. It's simply more consumer friendly and a better experience.

Have we been using the same program?! I certainly wouldn't call it light weight. It's quite clunky. Also their tech support is a major hit or a miss... just like Steam.

Do I understand this correctly that I (living in Germany) can still gift to people in "cheaper" regions?
Meaning, could I gift to someone in the US or Canada if the game costs the same or less there?

Origin is... great?! O_o Ha... Ha-ha... Hahahaha:D

Origin is great. What a wonderful joke. Made my year. Four of them, actually.

Worst customer service I ever had, and trust me, I've seen a lot of bad customer services in post-USSR countries (and outside). They may reply fast, I mean those people you can reach from app itself, but their helpfulness similar to wet tissue paper, when you try to use it instead of concrete. "Slow response specialists" are not much of a help either (even not local, but apparently American), unlike Steam guys, who may be slow to response first, but who generally help, even with third-party titles. At least they solved most problems that I've had, and added few features to Steam that may help certain issues. So I'd say part of 300 Valve employers works better than 600 of Origin dedicated specialists.
GoG support is still best though, 70 minutes is freaking record. And there are just 3 of them. *sniff* Probably that's why it's called "Pole position".

Moneyback and other PR fluff is not supported in many titles (sometimes on same page, there are statements that contradict each other - big one says it supports moneyback, small one says it doesn't). So good luck with that.

Many of not all games are language-locked, and translations are... how to put it mildly? Rubbish. Nuh, still poor reference.

App itself may use less resources than recent Steam, but when it crashes, it will be a thing to look at. Or deal with. And last time I checked, it still can't into offline. Just like ubisoft titles - always want to go online. For the last time, I don't want to socialize!

Surely, some people had problems with Steam, some had no problems with Origin, but I won't touch Origin not with 10 feet pole, nor with 10 inch howitzer's shell.

As for current state in Steam, all they've done was activation lock, which is mildest of all three, because it allows you play games outside of activation region, unlike other two locks (okay language lock allows you to play, IF you know the language). So for now I see no problem with that. Other than I can't gift my friends anything. But hey, I warned them when I gifted them stuff over a year, and not at to a certain date.


You should be able to, at least my friends just did a gift throwing fest and it worked for them.

A year is plenty of time to talk about them in their current states.

But in the past year they haven't had any bad patches, corrupt installs or over loaded servers. This is their good patch. Give it time.

I dislike DRM as much as anyone on here, but what kind of a bizarro world are you living in where you think Valve have damaged the PC gaming market? They saved it from a massive downhill slide in the mid-2000's and have greatly increased its popularity overall.

Anyway...

While the regional gift lock sucks I can see why they did it. Way too many people in Western countries buying cheap Russian keys on 3rd party sites. Had to know they were going to shut that down eventually. Regional pricing can be a good thing when done right, abusing the system sucks both ways (corporate over-pricing or consumer cheap-skating).

But according to certain people here, there was no such time when PC gaming jumped off a cliff.

You've got to wonder about some folks don't you.

Thanks for the reply! I don't really mind if exploitation of regional pricing is not possible, but I hate region locks and it's sad that this would also affect genuine gifts and favors. It happens on occasion that I don't have the money ready for a sale and would only get it when it's over, and in those cases people from the US or other countries have often helped me out. Apart from that, being restricted to buying German codes would be a real turn-off, as quite a few German versions of games are cut on Steam and stuck with (often inferior) German translations, even though it would be legal for adults to buy the original versions. :(

Go into any store where you can buy video games. Compare the size of the PC selection to that of consoles. The PC section used to be about as large as the others, and often times larger even. Ever since Steam struck, they've been rapidly shrinking. Nowadays, you generally can only find PC games on digital distribution sites, and even physical copies are often locked to such. Steam is the one that popularized most of these practices.

And seeing "why they did" something abusive doesn't justify the abuse. I mean, it's pretty easy to see why slave owners wanted to own slaves, that doesn't make it okay.

But judging from some of the biased opinions on this site, a fair justification will be taken as the worst thing on the planet. Btw why are you digging into Steam so much for "reducing" the selection of games? That was happening way before Steam launched, waaaay before.

The reason you can barely find PC games on shelves is because consoles like the PS2/XBOX was that damn popular, people stopped playing PC games as much. It is THAT simple.

You're over thinking this crap.

First of all, wow at that analogy.

Secondly, PC games had already vanished from most retailers when Steam just started. Trust me, I was out there trying to buy them, and they were already second-class citizens. Finally, what you're describing is a thrust toward digital distribution by consumers, it has nothing to do with the health of the PC gaming market in general. The PC gaming market is factually ten times healthier today than it was 7 years ago, and a big part of that is Steam.

Yes, consumers are the ones that decided that consumers should be treated like dirt and that consumers should have no rights. Let's blame consumers.

Now, granted, it is partially their fault for letting companies perform such practices and continuing to buy from them regardless, but consumers did not demand this shift.

Isn't steam savior of (PC) gaming? :)

PC gaming has no savior. PC gaming needs no savior.