Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Computing
  3. Guides

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

Anthony John Agnello
By
EA-Origin
Image used with permission by copyright holder

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.”

Recommended Videos

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.

Related

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An outdated game selection isn’t the biggest hurdle EA faces in finding an audience for Origin on Mac.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

Topics
Anthony John Agnello
Anthony John Agnello
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Anthony John Agnello is a writer living in New York. He works as the Community Manager of Joystiq.com and his writing has…
How to customize mouse gestures on Mac
Apple Magic Mouse on a desk.

Did you know that you can still pull off gestures and haptic tricks with a Mac computer, even without a touchscreen? Such feats are possible, just as long as you own an Apple Magic Mouse. Far more than a sleek-looking desk accessory, the Magic Mouse functions much like a MacBook trackpad. Taps, long presses, swipes, and pinches (among other actions) deliver a number of results, and you’ll be able to customize these commands, too.

Read more
How to delete or hide chats in Microsoft Teams
Running Microsoft Teams on the Galaxy Tab S8.

Microsoft Teams is a terrific workplace platform for keeping the camaraderie strong. Featuring collaborative messaging, video conferencing, and file-sharing tools, it’s your one-stop-shop for in-office, hybrid and at-home workers alike. But anyone with a long history of using Teams will tell you how clogged up your message stockpile can get. Fortunately, deleting and hiding these exchanges is relatively easy to do, and we’ve put together this guide to help.

Read more
Why Llama 3 is changing everything in the world of AI
Meta AI on mobile and desktop web interface.

In the world of AI, you've no doubt heard about what OpenAI and Google have been up to. And now, Meta's Llama LLM (large language model) is becoming an increasingly important player in the game, especially with its open-source nature. Meta recently made a big splash with the launch of its Llama 3 AI model, and it's shaken up the field dramatically.

The reasons why are multiple and varied. It's free to use, it has a wide user base, and yes, it's open source, to name but a few. Here's why Llama 3 is taking the AI industry by storm and may shape its future for some time to come.
Llama 3 is really good
We can debate until the cows come home about how useful AIs like ChatGPT and Llama 3 are in the real world -- they're not bad at teaching you board game rules -- but the few benchmarks we have for how capable these AI are give Llama 3 a distinct advantage.

Read more