After nine anticlimactic years the Origin name is no more. Going forward, EA will simply refer to its PC gaming client as the “EA desktop app.”
The video game publisher announced the move in an interview with GamesIndustry.biz, saying the name change is part of a larger overhaul of the platform intended to “to create a more frictionless, fast, socially-oriented experience for our players, where it becomes the best place for them to connect with the people they want to play with in the games they want to play.”
Origin was launched back in 2011 as a home for EA games, much like Blizzard’s Battle.net client, but with the intention of eventually making it a storefront that might one day rival Steam. That day never came, despite EA making Origin the exclusive home for many of its biggest franchises on PC, and the eventual addition of a gaming subscription called Origin Access.
“It’s one of those things where I would ask: Give us 18 months to two years. And if we sit here two years from now, start looking at it then,” then-chief operating officer, Peter Moore, told Kotaku in 2012. “I think the ability to have your own direct platform with the consumer is going to be very important in the digital world going forward.” Moore left EA for the Liverpool Football Club in 2017, where he served as CEO up until last month.
Earlier this summer, EA finally brought a bunch of its game that were previously exclusive to Origin to Steam, and has since re-named Origin’s subscription service EA Play, and added it to Steam as well. “I think we’re responding more effectively to the needs of our players today than we ever have, and Steam is part of that journey,” EA SVP Mike Blank told GamesIndustry.Biz.
If you can’t beat ’em...