EA Origin abandons optical media, Do we even care?

[WYP]

Yesterday EA announced that their Origin platform will be going all digital. This means that from April 4th onward the Origin Store will no longer sell physical copies of games.

So what changes here, nothing for the majority of us, but those who like their physical game collection you could miss out.

EA had this to say;

What does this mean for you? If you're among 99% of our users, absolutely nothing. Your shopping experience hasn't changed one single bit.

But if you're that 1% who still desires a physical collection, we want to let you know that Origin won't be able to fulfill that need beginning April 4th. We’ll still be here when you transition your gaming habits to the wonders of digital downloads.

Digital is fast and convenient. Origin’s focus is to give gamers the best experience, and going all-digital will make that possible.

With the popularity of Steam and other digital gaming platforms, this is an unsurprising move from EA. With most PC gamers preferring digital downloads to physical copies, with many gamers and even case manufactures abandoning the optical drive entirely, it is obvious that EA is doing this to keep up with the times.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KP85Zo-E55I
(NZXT has abandoned the optical drive in recent designs, why shouldn't EA?)

Simply put EA is no longer dealing with costly postage and packaging, going for an all digital distribution model, which should reduce their distribution costs for PC releases.

Does this affect anyone here? Does this make anyone question why they still have an optical drive anymore? Please post your thoughts and feelings below regarding this bold move from EA.

Source - Electronic Arts

 

[Squidlorock]

While still charging £45 to even upto £100 for digital downloads Tbh i never bought retail versions off Origin, i mainly look at the prices of the downloads and stare at it going 'no frigging way' lol. I remember when they said digital would reduce prices... oh well

I would still have a optical drive mainly for music, burning my archive of albums to keep safe though.

 

[Davva2004]

Not one single f*ck is being given. I haven't purchased a physical game since getting broadband.

 

[Dark NighT]

well good, less plastic wasted i suppose!

yeah about time things went digital only.

 

[nepas]

Why would you buy from Origin anyway?It is cheaper to buy from ANYWHERE ELSE than to use Origin.

 

[vorticalbox]

While still charging £45 to even upto £100 for digital downloads Tbh i never bought retail versions off Origin, i mainly look at the prices of the downloads and stare at it going 'no frigging way' lol. I remember when they said digital would reduce prices... oh well

I would still have a optical drive mainly for music, burning my archive of albums to keep safe though.

i remember buying UT3 for £19.99 still have that disk lol, prices are getting a bit out of hand tbh.

Why would you buy from Origin anyway?It is cheaper to buy from ANYWHERE ELSE than to use Origin.

i think the point was that no more disk were being sold, it's kinda big deal like when sony stopped making walkmans in 2010

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencet...ortable-cassette-player-stopped-30-years.html

 

[Rogster]

I still occasionally use 5,25-inch floppys so no I don't care

 

[nepas]

i think the point was that no more disk were being sold

errr,only by origin,you can still buy ea games on disc from other stores,so its no big deal at all.

just to clarify, we're still putting out boxed versions of our games, just not through Origin.

https://twitter.com/Charlie_Sin/status/449634238992617472

 

[vorticalbox]

errr,only by origin,you can still buy ea games on disc from other stores,so its no big deal at all.

it's the start of the end for disk though, disk are quite nice if you have a lot of games downloading them at 1 Mb/s (all i get here in scotland) can take a while

 

[Snortan]

I hope that not everyone switches to digital media. I can definitely understand the benefits but I still like to buy physical copies for those few games that show you some appreciation, as in don't just stick a dvd in a case and be done with it.

EA games give you just a dvd with the game so I'm not inclined to buy a physical copy of that because it's just a waste of space, but for example last physical copy of a game I bought was Witcher 2. With that they gave me a user manual, game guide, map of The Northern Kingdoms, pamphlet and coin, bonus dvd, game soundtrack, all that for a normal price not premium/legendary.So yeah you can be sure I'll buy the physical copy over the digital one of W3 when it comes out

 

[Excalabur50]

I couldn't care less what EA does after their BF4 debacle I won't be buying anything from them for a long time be it digital or disk

 

[ander01se]

Simply put EA is no longer dealing with costly postage and packaging, going for an all digital distribution model, which should reduce their distribution costs for PC releases.

Just a way to convince people to go full digital and increase their profits.

Why would you buy from Origin anyway?It is cheaper to buy from ANYWHERE ELSE than to use Origin.

Same in Sweden, heck, even during Origin's 50% sales it's usually cheaper to buy elsewhere. >_>

 

[remember300]

I think the way they should operate in stores and the web are to bung them on a stick calibrated to a user, so you have an origin USB stick take it to a store they put your game on the flash drive, then you install from it when your home.

Im one of the sad people that likes the collectors items if i have the cash id of got the titanfall Collectors edition for the small statue to match my Marcus Fenix and Aludin and my other miniature statues, so if everything went digital from the source then those kind of things might disappear too

But i do also agree Origin needs to drop the prices too

 

[veneror]

Use poland proxy and buy from origin, titanfall is around 27 punds, or any other origin game at half the uk price. My advice use paysafecard to pay for the game