Origin gets a nod.

T

Tooner623

Spaceman
Kotaku has been doing a PC themed week, and one of their editors, Luke Plunkett, just wrote up an article asking "Who is the greatest PC developer of all time?"

His answer was Origin! The article's lead photo is even a Privateer screenshot!

See, while I applaud "specialist" developers - those like Valve who continually progress the one genre or series - to me, if you're going to talk about the greatest PC developer of all time, it needs to be one that has proven itself across multiple generations, genres and series. Why? Because if a developer can come top of the class in more than one kind of game, it shows that there's brilliance running right through the company, not just in the engine room or art department.
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http://kotaku.com/5676241/who-is-the-greatest-pc-developer-of-all-time
 
Cool!

Actually I noticed this myself a little earlier. It's always great when Origin gets the attention it deserves.
 
Nice article, even if he didn't like Arena.

The lead picture is from Strike Commander, not Privateer. But close, they're sort of related to each other (technically).
 
It's great to see Wing Commander and Origin mentioned in the "press", but it's also frustrating to me. These people namecheck Wing Commander as being so important to them but they never go any further. The sad fact is that a half hour of Kotaku or Destructoid or the other one campaigning in favor of relaunching the franchise would do more than I have in ten years here.

The lead picture is from Strike Commander, not Privateer. But close, they're sort of related to each other (technically).
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It looks like there's two different versions of the article. This one opens with a Privateer screenshot: http://kotaku.com/5675194/pc-gaming-week-confessional-luke-edition

... which brings me to another point--why it's so important that truly dedicated fan sites like the CIC or Ultima Aiera still exist in this age of mass market news blogs. A zillion Kotaku posters saw that and thought nothing of it--but a hundred WCNews readers should know that not only that it's the woman from the Merc's Guild but also that she was the creation of Origin artist Brian Smith, who passed away three years ago, and was based on his sister (that story and so more in Brian's memorial - https://www.wcnews.com/articles/briansmith.shtml).

It's one little thing, but it's the sort of thing you'd never have learned from the latest press release chewing blog.
 
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To me, the article is less a tribute to Origin and more of a testament to how EA has had a huge hand in contributing to the death of creative PC gaming. Now all we're left with are casual games, web-based games, mmos and the same regurgitated game sequels (i.e., C&C). Innovation and creativity has been almost completely stifled by the large corporations that bought up all of the little development houses. :(
 
LadyDragon said:
To me, the article is less a tribute to Origin and more of a testament to how EA has had a huge hand in contributing to the death of creative PC gaming. Now all we're left with are casual games, web-based games, mmos and the same regurgitated game sequels (i.e., C&C). Innovation and creativity has been almost completely stifled by the large corporations that bought up all of the little development houses. :(
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I know it's popular to rag on EA for the death of developers like Origin, and as is the case they aren't entirely without blame, but the actual facts really speak something different than what we all want to believe. Really, Origin mismanagement was as equally to blame as EA. EA needed to keep Origin from bleeding money. Their methods were perhaps shortsighted, but it was a position Origin themselves put EA in. Plus, I beleive it was Origin that set in motion the whole MMO thing... a victim of Ultima Online's success essentially.

EA has had a bad rap, but we don't learn anything if we simply demonize them because their a big corporation and they make money. That's a sure way to hurt future prospects of Ultima or other games that we may actually want to see. The lack of PC games isn't because there's a lack of developers wanting to make good games, it's because alll the money is in consoles. Traditionally PC-centric companies are increasingly bringing their games to consoles first and PC as an afterthough since they aren't making back their money on PC games... (with the exception of blizzard... which actually fall into that MMO maker group you painted with a broad brush moments ago).

Innovation and creativity is certainly out there, it just isn't typically something large corporations are willing to risk piles of cash in when there's no proof they'll make it back. Where you see the innovation is in smaller indie titles made using XNA and released on xbox live or done for cheap and released for 10 or 15 dollars on download services like Steam. To an extent I think you'll even see the limitations of facebook games inspire more creative gameplay as biggger names in the industry are breaking into the Facebook game scene and attempting to make *real* games for the platform.
 
Wing Commander
Ultima
Crusader
Bioforge

At times it seemed like every game that got in my hands and i liked it was from Origin.
 
AD, trust me when I say I was around at the time and pretty close with a lot of the people involved. I know plenty of the actual facts, thanks very much. I don't demonize EA because they are a big corporation and make money, but because they deserve it. Origin isn't the only development house they've squeezed to death with their corporate idiocy. Believe me when I say I have plenty of reasons for my extreme negative feelings toward them and it has nothing to do with them being a big corporation.
 
Surprised they did not mention Tom Chilton who is/was(?) one of the lead designers for WoW, he was with Origin at point as well.
 
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