Retail

Origin launches Steam-like sale in UK

Origin launches Steam-like sale in UK

Tue 19 Jun 2012 5:07am GMT / 1:07am EDT / 10:07pm PDT
RetailOnline

EA's digital destination offers some of its best at low, low prices

Despite telling us two weeks ago that Valve's Steam sales "cheapen" intellectual property, it looks like Electronic Arts has kicked off a sale on its digital storefront, Origin. Most of the games are discounted from their current prices on Origin, not their launch prices.

Dragon Age Origins is going for 87.5 percent, the highest of any game on Origin. Darksiders, Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit, Spore, and Battlefield: Bad Company 2 are all going for 75 percent off. You can pick up Alice: Madness Returns and Darkspore for 66 percent off. Finally, Dead Space 2, Batman: Arkham Asylum , Mirror's Edge, Shank, Battlefield Bad Company 2 Vietnam, The Saboteur, and Gotham City Imposters are all going for 50 percent off.

The timing is a bit poor coming so soon after DeMartini's previous comments, but that's no reason to turn away cheap games!

The bad news? This is for players in the U.K. only. In the US, we have a few Battlefield Premium bundles and a "pre-order one, get one half off" deal. Nowhere near as cool.

8 Comments

Christopher Bowen
Editor in Chief

Gaming Bus

Good on you, EA.

STILL wouldn't touch your awful service.

Posted:11 months ago

#1

Sam Brown
Programmer

Cool Games Ltd.

I tried to buy the ME3 From Ashes DLC from Origin a couple of days ago (it's the only place you can buy it from) and the app locked up at the point it tried to take me to PayPal. I ended up having to buy the BioWare points required from the BioWare site, then using them in Origin to buy the DLC.

Now I know that crying "That should have been found in testing!" is usually showing a lack of awareness as to how difficult testing is, but seriously? No-one checked that a payment method was possible? ^_^

Edited 1 times. Last edit by Sam Brown on 19th June 2012 8:22am

Posted:11 months ago

#2

Alfonso Sexto
LT Tester (Spanish)

Keyfactor

Two week ago EA was saying "Steam's market model cheaps the IP's" (refering to theyr weekend sales, basically), today I find this.

The first sentence of the article says it all.

Really EA?, Really?

Posted:11 months ago

#3

Morville O'Driscoll
Games Blogger & Journalist

It's not that I find their sale bad. It's more that I find their non-sale prices shocking. Who on God's Green Earth normally pays £39.99 for Dragon Age: Origins? This isn't the Ultimate Edition with all the DLC and expansion, this is the base game. £39.99 for something which is £19.99 on Steam.

Urgh. Competiion isn't competition when it's patently against the consumer.

Oh, and, yeah, thanks for being hypocrites EA.

Also, EA have to learn that region-restricting sales just antagonises consumers even further. Someone reads about a game on sale, finds it isn't available on sale in their country, curses Origin, and then goes to Steam, or GMG, or Gamefly.

Edited 1 times. Last edit by Morville O'Driscoll on 19th June 2012 8:43am

Posted:11 months ago

#4

Kingman Cheng
Illustrator and Animator

Hypocrites. </story>

Posted:11 months ago

#5

Thomas Dolby
Programmer

Ai Solve

How does this happen? How do they have a carefully calculated PR stunt about not having big sales and then two weeks later have a big sale. It's almost like they're trying to trash (what little is left of) their reputation.

Posted:11 months ago

#6

Paul Shirley
Programmers

They cant even manage a competitive sale. All but one of the games in the £5 list, I paid (or could have paid) $5 or less for Origin free versions months ago!

A double whammy of paying 50% more than Steam/GMG/Gamersgate/Amazon wanted AND having Origin infecting your PC. They just don't want to compete.

Posted:11 months ago

#7

Liam Farrell

@ Thomas Dolby: "calculated PR stunt" you're almost there, but it's a similar sounding word, to "stunt" you're looking for

Posted:11 months ago

#8

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