Origin Isn't Named For Origin
Though the overall tone and tenor of Kotaku’s article about the future of EA’s digital download storefront, Origin, tends toward the negative, there is one rather interesting little factoid buried in its depths:
It didn’t help EA’s goodwill that they named their Steam competitor after a beloved old game development studio that the company bought and then shut down, I pointed out to [EA Chief Operating OFficer, Peter Moore].
He said Origin’s name was not meant to refer to the old Ultima creators at Origins Systems. “I’m in Silicon Valley and the [new product] names have become unpronounceable because they’ve run out of real names,” he said. “I felt it was a great name. We knew we could protect it, which in the world we live in, is job one.”
Now we know, apparently. Have at it in the comments, Dragons and Dragonettes.
So they choose Origin because it happened to be a trademark in their back catalog. WOW, wait to shit on the name and legacy even more, Moore.
I’ve tried to think about things from their perspective, but they really are doing too many things that show they don’t care about the customer, only the customer’s wallet.
Iceblade beat me to it.
So, they aren’t referring to Origin Systems they’re just using/abusing the name because they own it. And this is better how exactly?
wasn’t expecting more from them, today there is only a handful of publishers that actually care a little about their customers… EA is not one of them.
Every company cares more about their customers’ wallets than their customers. If they say anything else, they’re trying to sell you something (wait).
Anyhow, it’s not better for Origin fans, but it does explain their thinking. You’ve already got a trademark in-house and it sure markets a whole lot better than “Nuquest” or “Skyvaris” or some other silly name.
Amusing how they let the Origin.com domain expire and had to buy it back.
And by amusing, I mean really pathetic.
I don’t have any problem with it. Origin was gone. Why not use the name? At some point, nostalgia gets silly.
This is interesting Interplay about the Origin of their On-Line systems’ ID. But Sir, Tech names must be treated more Siriusly!
[Sierriously, maybe? – WtFD]
I agree, I don’t think there’s a real problem with it having the same name as Garriott’s company.
What is a problem is that “Origin” is honestly not that good a name for a download service.
It’s short, they own the rights to it, which means it’s free, although they did have to buy the domain name back.
They could have named it EABloatedIntrusiveSteamCompetitor.com and it would still be doing well as long as it was the only online place to get their games.
Making it the only online place to get SWTOR was a brilliant move to really get it off the ground.
I honestly couldn’t care less about the fact that they used that name.. it’s not like it’s ever going to be used to develop games again. I agree with Infinitron though – the real problem I have is that it’s just a crappy name. It doesn’t help that there is a Gas & Electricity company in Australia called Origin with a rather similar logo and even kinda similar website…
Compare http://www.originenergy.com.au/ with http://www.origin.com
But for the record, Deckard, I actually find it less bloated/intrusive than Steam (not that I find Steam all that intrusive anyway).
Origin’s initial success probably has more to do with Battlefield 3 than SWTOR.
Infinitron, I thought Battlefield 3 had made it to Steam and SWTOR was the first truly big-budget Origin exclusive, but they never released BF3 on Steam, so you’re right. Although BF3 did make it to Amazon.com’s downloads so it’s not technically an Origin online-exclusive, but I doubt Amazon.com’s downloads come anywhere near close to Steam.
Those two probably helped pay for a lot of the cost to build up Origin.com, since EA wasn’t having to share revenue with Steam.