Significant changes coming to EA Origin

Electronic Arts is aware that a negative perception surrounding its Origin service exists and is planning to launch significant changes to the platform to re-establish it with gamers in mind.

"In the near term, quite frankly, our focus is making that download better, making that install better, making that automatic patching better," executive vice president Andrew Wilson told GamesIndustry International. "Making that friends presence better, making the various game services better. That's what you're going to see from us over the next year, which is really re-establish Origin as a service to gamers, not as a means to drive transactions."

Regarding the negative sentiment that some users have expressed for Origin, Wilson said he doesn't expect users to change their perception of the service overnight. Still, he said he hopes gamers will come to appreciate the gamer-first changes in the pipeline.

"I want to reiterate, it's very important for people to understand that we don't expect that all of a sudden people are going to get up and go 'Oh! Great! We now love Origin!'" Wilson said.

"We get it. We understand it," he added. "We have heard, we have made some changes already in terms of how we do things, and we're looking at more changes that we'll talk about over the coming months that really are gamer-focused."

EA launched Origin during the 2011 Electronic Entertainment Expo. The digital distribution hub is a full-on replacement for the EA Store and sells first- and third-party PC and console games. As of March, it has 40 million members.