Get (Most Of) the Ultima Series on EA’s Origin Store
Not to worry: you can still get all the Ultima games, DRM-free, at GOG. But as of…well, very recently…Electronic Arts has begun adding titles from the Origin Systems catalogue to their (unfortunately-named) Origin digital storefront.
Ultima 7, as well as Martian Dreams and Savage Empire, are all notably absent from the above; if you’re looking for copies of those, GOG is still your main source. EA’s pricing for every game listed above is a uniform $4.99, although this curiously includes Ultima 4 (which GOG has available for free). GOG also offers generally better pricing on the earlier Ultima games, charging $5.99 for the first two trilogies in the series, rather than $4.99 for each game therein. Conversely, EA is retailing Ultima 8 and Ultima 9 for a dollar less than GOG is.
Oh, and as our friends at the Wing Commander CIC point out, Wing Commander 3 is also available.
This is a welcome thing to see, I think…though it comes (as our friends at the CIC also note) as a complete surprise; there was no prior indication that EA had any interest in adding games from their library of classic titles to the Origin storefront (not that me and a few others didn’t lobby the team at Mythic, who spearheaded the efforts at EA’s end to get many of those classic titles added to GOG’s catalogue, to lobby for “Origin on Origin” as well). Wider availability of the Ultima titles is always welcome thing; hopefully EA are able to get Ultima 7 (and the rest of the Wing Commander titles) added to their storefront in short order!
EA sucks. No point for them to add these titles.
Actually, I can think of quite a number of reasons they might have added the games to the store.
And as noted above, it’s something I lobbied for personally, back when they were getting the series up on GOG. “Origin on Origin”; I’m sure Jeff Skalski (formerly at Mythic) grew to hate hearing that term from me.
I don’t know… considering that EA has named their sub-par store where they peddle sub-par products as “Origin”… it feels somewhat like they’re desecrating a company they already dragged through the streets, dismembered and then left for the vultures to pick.
I’ve bought all of them (except 8 and 9, and that’s never going to change) on gog.com. But buying it directly on their store? No.
Is that the fairest description of it? My Origin catalogue has stuff like Reckoning in it; hardly a sub-par title. Heck, I wouldn’t really consider any of the Dragon Age or Mass Effect games sub-par either. And Origin is both easier on my system and less intrusive (DRM-wise) than Steam tends to be.
Though, granted, the name is irksome. But then too, there was a time when Origin Systems published games from other companies (Looking Glass, Raven Software…), so in some respects it’s not a total abuse of their namesake to have the storefront bear the name.
@Maus Just be thankful EA hasn’t acquired any non-gaming properties, for example personal hygiene products such as Charmin. At least their digital distribution service can be described at the most basic level as “a place where things come from”, or an “origin”, so the name’s not terribly inappropriate. Nevertheless, our hearts will never heal and we’ll never forget.
Sorry if this is a little off-topic, but I was just watching some random Star Citizen video and noticed this (screencap):
http://eightvirtues.com/misc/Original%20Systems.png
Chris Roberts showing some love for his old employer. Nice.
I cannot stand EA but at the very least they are putting these up for those people who use Origin. Its nice to see but it’s very bitter-sweet…..very bitter sweet. They after-all pretty much killed these games to begin with.