Wasteland 2 - Origin Deal
 

You may have heard that EA's Origin is offering crowd-funded titles - Kickstarter and IndieGogo projects - 90 days fee-free distribution, which prompted inXile to sign up with Wasteland 2. A quote from the press release via NMA:
In turn, this lead some players to believe Wasteland 2 would be an Origin exclusive, despite the DRM-free promise. Fortunately, Brian Fargo clarified via Twitter:
More information.

origin users 3%

EAs digging their own hole

Non-exclusive deal, so good for Fargo. For those that don't mind using Origin it'll be a fee/royalty free way for them to distribute the game during the initial launch. For those that do mind using Origin it'll be something they won't have to touch with a 10 foot pole if that's their preference. I'll be choosing an alternative method myself.

The rumored fee on most platforms is ca. 30-40%. Signing up for a platform if you can keep this money during the extremely important early post release weeks is a no- brainer. Fargo would be stupid not to take free distribution to a 12M+ audience and a 50% higher margin at the same sales price. All he has to do is produce the PR fluff we just posted and have the Origin client integrated.

I agree with Gorath and jh… It makes complete business sense, especially since it doesn't tie them down, gives them a massive potential audience and no fees. There are no negative points to this …

Quit being rational on the internet. It's EA and there the cancer of gaming. We all know that right?:rolleyes:

I said it before I see no difference between any service that sell games. I don't let petty things get in the way of good deals. It's funny people have forgotten steam was once a pile of crap in it's early days also. Now its a service that can't do anything wrong.

I love saying this and it's true of all of us double standards gotta love them.;)

I really hope that it will be an Origin sale-success - to show them that even on this crap GOOD games are selling well (I hope also, that it will be a good game… :p)

That is *exactly* the response to have. Good money to be made and encouragement to keep selling/making more of these kinds of games.

AFAIK, they don't really even need to have Origin integrated as DRM for that version. Maybe things have changed since I last checked, but Origin offered a fair amount of games that didn't need its client to run, you'd simply download them and then play them without starting Origin. I'm wary of EA, but that's an obvious advantage over Steam and its myriad of problems with offline play.

I wish the backers comments on the Wasteland 2 page looked as reasonable and rational as the posts here. This one makes me want to throw up:

Really? Well "Nick", I think you need to calm the hell down.

Holy crap, the comments on the kickstarter page make me sad to be a human being.

What the hell is wrong with these people? :(

Well there's a lot of backers who also post here (many of us in this thread) so I certainly don't think that its indicative of the general attitude. It would probably help if Brian Fargo posted an update which included the information he tweeted: that this is not an exclusivity deal. But yeah there are a few who just seem enraged that this game will be on Origin at all, regardless of whether or not it will be DRM-free and availible elsewhere - which it will be. People who don't like Origin still have plenty of options for not supporting it; though cagey individuals might also realize that buying it royalty free from Origin costs EA money rather than making them any.

Really this is and shouldn't be different than if it were announced that Gamestop or Walmart had agreed to carry retail copies of the game with 0% markup. Ok yeah that would be a little different - it would be a bigger deal. Oh and glad to see posters like Jason and Linus in the backers section who agree.

Reading a few of the comments on the Kickstarter page made me a little perplexed. Many of them haven't thought critically about this development. EA had to revolutionize their business model to compete in the indie market. Kickstarter has been won an early battle in the overall war to change the gaming industry to allow for more opinions and diversity in products. This may cause Valve to alter their indie model as well if there are big returns through Origin.

Lately I've been using Origin more and more. Still using it less frequently than Steam though. However, the service I am now using more than both Steam and Origin together is Amazon digital service. For someone living in Europe Amazon offers totally annihilate anything Steam or Origin have to offer.

What I am trying to say is that of course we have the freedom to choose only 1 DL service and stick with it. Or we can be more flexible because by agreeing to use several services you start having access to far wider options.

So… no difference between GOG and Steam/origin?

I agree. By using other services you create competition. You also have the right to limit your options. Blind hate doesn't solve anything.

Once again this deal is good for inXile. 90 days no fees and access to millions of users despite people saying no one uses it.

No and if that's all you picked up on my comment I feel sorry for you. They all sell games digitally. They just have different views and policy's. Your just enforcing my comment by allowing petty flaws to get in the way of your judgement.

For the record I know EA and can hate them for good reason but that wont stop me from enjoying there games. The developers deserve it not the publisher.

Most people don't think critically about anything so this sure isn't surprising. :wall:

And now there's a guy encouraging others to demand their money back over this and providing a link to do so. Sigh - this isn't even equivalent to the reaction to the exclusive DLC with Shadowrun. In that case I suppose you could have made the argument that your only way to chose not to support that - regardless of whether or not your reasons made sense - was to chose not to support the project unless they didn't change their tack. In this case though you have a freaking clear and easy choice that allows you to not support Origin - you don't download it through origin but get it through any of the other distribution means as they have clearly said it will not be exclusive.

The direct and open encouragement of posters like Ikea Sausage:
I suspect they're trying to whip up some hollow fury over a non-issue in the hopes that Brian Fargo drops Origin as the guys working on the Shadowrun game backed down on their DLC reward idea. This is really an attempt to force a sort of embargo of what will be one of a multitude of choices in distribution open to customers and one wrapped in something that smells not-completely-honest. Want to boycott Origin? This moron still can by not choosing Origin and encouraging others to simply choose one of the alternative delivery systems; but that's not what they're doing.

They're demanding the game producers limit the options for customers by not even making the games available on that service; this precludes letting other customers even make the choice to use that service or not themselves and demanding the company make it for them. Cancelling your pledge over a principled disagreement (even if the rationale is arguable) is one thing; demanding your money back and threatening chargebacks AFTER the project is funded is a bit different particularly because kickstarters aren't exactly the same as pre-orders; they're donations where the reward items are a thank-you rather than a traditional purchase. Encouraging others to demand their money back rather than consider… not using Origin and instead using one of the other methods to receive their game - that is just ridiculous.

EDIT:No I didn't change the name because I thought it was particularly clever to make fun of their name but because I'd rather not use someone's FULL real name when holding them up as an example of dishonest, childish, self-righteous bullshit. Also yes I'm being a hypocrite after calling for calm and rational discussion earlier and in other moderately similar (though not entirely) situations.

I feel your pain. Just be glad that the people here have been eminently sensible and pat yourself on the back for your good taste in websites.

With any luck the chargeback crowd will be deservably laughed at by everyone concerned. I loathe the term 'entitlement' but there really ain't anything else to describe wanting to arbitrarily limit where a game is sold based on your personal dislikes when using that particular seller is 100% voluntary.

Seems completely logical that they would make Wasteland 2 available by as many vendors as possible, especially if they are getting it for free. People are getting worked up for nothing.