Bioware's Chris Priestly has posted on the Bioware forums with confirmation that all copies of Mass Effect will have to be activated using EA's digital download service, Origin. Priestly also says that while Mass Effect 3 "will be available on Origin and a number of other 3rd party digital retailers," it won't be coming to Steam.
The reason is a familiar one. "Steam has adopted a set of restrictive terms of service which limit how developers interact with customers to deliver patches and other downloadable content," Priestly says. Mass Effect 3 will need to connect to Origin for one-time activation, and there won't be a limit to the number of installs, but every edition of Mass Effect will need Origin to activate, including retail editions and collector's editions.
It's not an entirely surprising move. EA will be looking to use their major titles to get Origin onto more systems. Last year, the Battlefield 3 beta and the digital version of Star Wars: The Old Republic were available exclusively through Origin. It seems to be working. Way back in October, EA said that five million people were using Origin on a daily basis . What do you think of Origin so far?
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Part of the UK team, Tom was with PC Gamer at the very beginning of the website's launch—first as a news writer, and then as online editor until his departure in 2020. His specialties are strategy games, action RPGs, hack ‘n slash games, digital card games… basically anything that he can fit on a hard drive. His final boss form is Deckard Cain.
