Origin has been a point of contention amongst gamers. EA's Origin service is meant to be an alternative to Steam but only carrying EA published games instead of a wide variety of them. It isn't any more obtrusive than Steam but having another service running in my tray, one that I rarely use as opposed to Steam, is a bit annoying.
Today, it was announced that Mass Effect 3 would require Origin to run on PC. This isn't much of a surprise but is still a bit sigh-worthy. My original or "canon" save files are on the PC so I was planning on getting this version. I already keep Origin installed for Battlefield 3 so this isn't anything more than a minor annoyance. Lucky for gamers, there will be no install limits and only a one-time online check for the campaign. EA has come a long way since forcing gamers who wanted to redownload their EA games to pay a $5 fee for "insurance" past the initial download.
According to EA, Steam isn't out of the question but it doesn't seem likely. Ever since the big kerfuffle when EA pulled some of their games from Steam, Crysis 2 in particular, they have been selling their newer games exclusively on Origin. EA states that it is because of how Steam forces publishers to sell DLC through their store, a fact that EA doesn't really like. I just hope that DLC for ME3 isn't like it was for ME2, forcing me to go to a Bioware store where I have to add credit separate from any other account to buy the DLC and then download and install each piece of content individually.
The inclusion of Origin in Mass Effect 3 isn't surprising or overly offensive but it shows us again that EA isn't about to give up on it, no matter how well Steam does. Some of you may argue that Steam is a monopoly and deserves competitors. I haven't been burned by Steam yet (and have been by EA) so until they fuck up, I can't help but feel this way.
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