AppleInsider Staff
Over year and a half after its initial launch, the Electronic Arts-backed Origin digital marketplace is finally coming to Mac, though initial buzz surrounding the alpha build's release will be tempered by Valve's decision to debut the 15-year-old classic "Half-Life" for Apple computers through the competing Steam service.
Due to its relatively small marketshare and shallow demand for games, Apple's Mac has been notoriously slow to get the latest titles from leading developers like EA, but that may soon change with the upcoming launch of Origin.
The online marketplace and digital hub for owned games will be premiering on Mac later this year, but the company has opened a limited alpha for testing. According to the Origin website, "a few thousand" users in North America and the UK will get access to the early version, which includes a free copy of PopCap's word game Bookworm.
"With Origin for Mac we’ll be able to offer the same Origin experience and features that define our PC app — cloud storage, auto-patching, friends list, and more — to Mac users everywhere," said Origin's Thierry Nguyen in a blog post. "We’re very excited about the upcoming launch of Origin for Mac and the opportunity to reach the millions of Mac-based gamers out there."
For now, Origin will be hobbled without access to the online storefront or live streaming from Twitch, but the company hopes to add those features soon.
EA's Origin push will butt heads with Valve's Steam platform, which already has an established core of gamers after being available for nearly three years.
In a relatively quiet rollout, Valve on Friday put the original Half-Life up for sale through Steam, some 15 years after the game was first launched in 1998. This is the first time Half-Life has been available through Steam for Mac. Valve has already rolled out its entire catalog, including Half-Life 2 and the following sequels, through the Mac client, making the original Half-Life launch somewhat of an anomaly.
The crowbar. Half-Life protagonist Gordon Freeman's go-to weapon. | Source: Valve
The title is currently is on sale now for $9.99 through Steam for Mac.
Andrew Orr
Amber Neely
William Gallagher
Christine McKee
18 Comments
Do not want.
Origin, that is. EA has become… Hmm, I don't know that there's an analogy from elsewhere in the industry to describe them.
[quote name="Tallest Skil"]EA has become…[/quote] Valve? I don't like Origin either but EA's really just doing what Valve did. Valve made their own software (Half-Life, Team Fortress, Left 4 Dead, Counter-strike etc) and sold the digital versions exclusively via their own online store and then persuaded other developers/publishers to do the same. There was always going to be competition coming along. EA buys so many companies and publishes so many titles that they were bound to eventually wonder why they'd sell their titles online via a 3rd party. They just needed leverage and so came Battlefield 3 exclusive to Origin. They now have 21 million users on Origin: http://www.nowgamer.com/news/1515383/battlefield_3_premium_subs_hit_13_million_origin_users_hit_21_million_ea.html vs Valve's 50+ million: http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2012-11-22-steam-still-at-50-million-users-500-000-use-big-picture Companies with both stores and their own software exclusively on them now include Valve, Apple, Microsoft, Sony, Blizzard and EA. Ubisoft has their own too but I don't think they have exclusives and Amazon offers digital game downloads. The multiple store setup isn't so bad but they need accounts for each one. It would be good if you could just have one login and buy from each store but of course they want to track how you play games, presumably so they can make better games (not much evidence of that though). I can see Valve's dominance slip away over time because they aren't delivering the big exclusive titles any more. Source 2 is rumoured to be coming along with something though: http://uk.pc.gamespy.com/pc/half-life-3/1226637p1.html It better not just be to draw nicer hats for repetitive games. Whatever they do, EA will always have the Battlefield trump card and it will keep a few million users tied to Origin all by itself. Without a Mac port, Origin for the Mac isn't really worthwhile.
Well if Origin is coming I really, sincerely hope that it is better implemented than the version they included with Fifa 12 for the mac. Missing key features like friends, Ultimate team and others that my son get out of shape about. Even Origin on the pc side has some horror stories - head over to fifa12 forums if you're interested. They made sure the iPad/iPhone versions of origin worked tho' - probably only coz they had to satisfy App Store rules. We will see - oh EA Hurry up and port fifa 13 for Mac. sheesh you can be useless sometimes
I signed up for Origin on my PC just to play Mass Effect 3 but I do not like it and will not install it on my Mac. I also have not installed Steam on my Mac even though I do like it, and have it on my PC, and use it a lot. Why? Because I want to encourage publishers to use the Mac App Store. Even Steam is a bit of a nightmare when apps use out of band licensing models and activation services. The Mac will be better off in the long run if all apps come through the App Store. There will be a central place to find apps, all subject to the same fair licensing model, security review and sandboxing.
I agree with Tallest and ascii. I'd rather EA just make games (and support them, goddammit) instead of trying to run their private app store. I mean, the future of computing should not be dozens of app & content stores installed on your computer. Pretty soon, we'll need an "App Store Store" for managing the download and updating of app stores.