Skip to main content

Can EA’s Origin succeed on Mac where Steam hasn’t?

EA-Origin

Electronic Arts may be struggling to regain its financial strength as the company transitions from the one-time wealth of console games to the more level playing field of digital distribution on PC and mobile, but that doesn’t mean the company isn’t exploring every possible avenue of growth. The publisher wants a piece of the 54 million active user per month pie enjoyed by Valve’s Steam, and it’s spent two years growing its Origin digital platform to do just that. EA announced on Friday that it’s bringing Origin to one of the few growing personal computer brands in the market: Apple’s Mac. Based on the performance of competitors, though, Apple’s desk and laptop line may have a negligible impact on Origin’s growth.

“Our vision with Origin is to connect your gaming universe online, and today we’re taking a major step in expanding our service to reach Mac-based gamers worldwide,” said Origin VP Michael Blank in EA’s announcement of the service, ”In delivering great game content, connecting the Origin service across PC, Mac and iOS devices, and offering great value to gamers with dual-platform play on select EA titles, Origin is making it easier than ever before for gamers to connect and play.”

Dual-platform play, letting Origin users with both a Windows PC and a Mac play games on both platforms, is an appealing sales pitch. According to research firm Gartner, Apple’s Mac line accounted for just above 12 percent of the global PC market during the holiday quarter, but compared to the broader PC market, it’s maintained the steadiest growth. As the NPD Group discovered just three years ago, an enormous percentage of Mac purchasers also own PCs. Dual-platform play should help EA appeal to those users.

The initial lineup of dual-platform supported games may not be a huge draw. Batman: Arkham City, LEGO Harry Potter, The Sims 3, and Dragon Age 2 were popular titles at one point, but their age limits their appeal as instant draws to the service.

An outdated game selection isn’t the biggest hurdle EA faces in finding an audience for Origin on Mac. With 40 million registered Origin users—though active client users on PC are closer to 11 million—EA has a base of gaming customers to build from, but that base has shown it isn’t especially interested in gaming on Mac. As demonstrated in Valve’s monthly overview, Apple’s OS X is the least used operating system amongst Steam users.

Editors' Recommendations

AMD’s integrated graphics might beat the most popular GPU on Steam
A woman sits by a desk and plays a game on a laptop equipped with an AMD processor.

Most people don't expect much from integrated graphics solutions, but it appears that AMD's new iGPU can do a surprisingly good job.

The AMD Radeon 780M was spotted in a benchmark by Wccftech, showing off the performance of the AMD Ryzen 7 7840HS and the RDNA iGPU itself. Who would have thought that this card would be able to beat Steam's No. 1 discrete GPU?

Read more
This Alienware gaming laptop with 64GB RAM, RTX 3080 Ti is $1350 off
God of War running on the Alienware x17 R2 laptop.

For the best possible gaming experience on a laptop, you should be ready to shell out a significant sum for a machine such as the Alienware x17 R2. You'll get $1,350 in savings if you purchase the gaming laptop from Dell, which is selling it for $3,200 instead of its original price of $4,550. It's still not cheap by any means, but we'll still consider it a steal for this price because of the power it packs in its portable body.

Why you should buy the Alienware x17 R2 gaming laptop
Our laptop buying guide says gaming laptops should be built to keep up with the requirements of today's video games. The Alienware x17 R2 takes things further, as it's also prepared to run titles that are still on their way with its 12th-generation Intel Core i9 processor and Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 Ti graphics card. It's even got 64GB of RAM, when our guide on how much RAM do you need only recommends 32GB of RAM if you're planning to run multiple apps in the background while you're playing. With the Alienware x17 R2, not only will you be able to select the highest settings of the best PC games, but you also won't have to worry about making upgrades for years to come.

Read more
This deal saves you $500 on a Dell XPS 15 with an RTX 3050
The Dell XPS 15 Touch Laptop placed on a desk next to a monitor and other study accessories.

Always one of the laptop deals worth considering, Dell has a great offer on the Dell XPS 15 right now. Normally priced at $1,899, you can snap it up for $1,399 saving you $500 off the regular price. With great hardware for both working well on the move and even some gaming, this is sure to be a hit for anyone looking for a great all-rounder. It won't stay at this price for long so hit the buy button if it appeals or read on while we take you through what you need to know.

Why you should buy the Dell XPS 15
Dell is one of the best laptop brands and it shows with the Dell XPS 15. It has a 12th-generation Intel Core i7 processor along with 16GB of memory and 512GB of SSD storage. That's a reasonable set of specs to ensure you can multitask well, allowing you to be productive and have plenty of space to store all your files. It also has an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 graphics card so you can get some gaming in. While it won't rival the best gaming laptops, it's nice to have such flexibility made available to you. There's also an attractive 15.6-inch full HD+ screen with a resolution of 1920 x 1200 so you can see plenty on-screen with 500 nits of brightness further helping matters.

Read more