Home Gaming Origin will no longer ship physical copies of games

Origin will no longer ship physical copies of games

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No more shipping problems

Did you know that you can buy your games online through EA’s Origin service and request a physical copy of the game to be delivered to you? Yeah me neither but apparently you can…or should I say you could.

EA has announced that from the 4th of April they will no longer sell physical copies of their games through the Origin store. You can still pick up your physical copies from all retailers as usual it is just that Origin itself will no longer do that.

It’s obviously just a way to cut some costs as according to EA 99% of people who purchase via Origin only want a digital copy so I would presume the logistics required for posting those few discs is just not worth it.

The full press release goes as follows

Starting April 4th Origin will be going all digital. This means the Origin game store will be entirely digital downloads for PC and Mac.

What does this mean for you? If you’re among 99% of our users, absolutely nothing. Your shopping experience hasn’t changed one single bit.

But if you’re that 1% who still desires a physical collection, we want to let you know that Origin won’t be able to fulfill that need beginning April 4th. We’ll still be here when you transition your gaming habits to the wonders of digital downloads.

Digital is fast and convenient. Origin’s focus is to give gamers the best experience, and going all-digital will make that possible.

Just to clarify again, EA will still be selling boxed version of games to retailers for you to buy. This is only applicable to their online Origin store.

Last Updated: April 2, 2014

36 Comments

  1. Bob the Zealot

    April 2, 2014 at 12:04

    Presumably there would have been a small part of the purchase price to cover the cost of the physical media included in the Origin price. Does this mean that we can expect a small price drop if we purchase digital media?
    My guess is: probably not 🙁

    Reply

    • Lourens Jordaan

      April 2, 2014 at 12:18

      I did the math
      If Real price – 5 % = Origin price and
      Origin price + 14 % VAT = origin price for SA then
      South African customer = still screwed.

      Reply

      • Jim Lenoir (Banana Jim)

        April 2, 2014 at 12:20

        We all have to do our bid for King Nkandla. It’s our patriotic duty.

        Reply

        • Bob the Zealot

          April 2, 2014 at 12:24

          Ah, I see…Ask not what you can do for your country but what the country can do for you.

          Reply

          • Jim Lenoir (Banana Jim)

            April 2, 2014 at 12:25

            Nope, Ask not what your country can do for you, shutup and pay your taxes, fool!

        • Unavengedavo

          April 2, 2014 at 12:25

          We didn’t offer to pay for the “security” upgrades and he never asked for it in the first place… So why was it done then?

          Reply

          • Jim Lenoir (Banana Jim)

            April 2, 2014 at 12:26

            Because… something.. something.. Cobra Commander!

          • Dutch Matrix

            April 2, 2014 at 12:28

            Last when I talked to the Commander, he distanced himself from the ANC. Apparently Cobra got standards…

          • Jim Lenoir (Banana Jim)

            April 2, 2014 at 12:28

            LMAO!!

        • Alien Emperor Trevor

          April 2, 2014 at 12:25

          May he be showered in cleansing praise forever!

          Reply

          • Jim Lenoir (Banana Jim)

            April 2, 2014 at 12:26

            May his shower cap fit snugly on his head!

      • Bob the Zealot

        April 2, 2014 at 12:22

        I can’t disagree with that math. I’d still like to see just how SARS is going to collect the 14% VAT. I personally think it’s one of those good-in-principle, bad-in-implementation ideas.

        Reply

        • Unavengedavo

          April 2, 2014 at 12:26

          SARS is actually quite efficient when it comes to collecting taxes… Not surprising that it is the only thing our current government is efficient at O_o

          Reply

  2. Jedi JJ

    April 2, 2014 at 12:04

    So people are still using Origin hey?

    Reply

    • Jim Lenoir (Banana Jim)

      April 2, 2014 at 12:09

      I’m surprised too, maybe they’re sado-masochists?

      Reply

      • Jedi JJ

        April 2, 2014 at 12:17

        Sounds like a probable explanation.

        Reply

        • Jim Lenoir (Banana Jim)

          April 2, 2014 at 12:19

          Speaking of which, I can’t even remember my Origin account details… o_0

          Reply

          • Jedi JJ

            April 2, 2014 at 12:50

            Same here. Formatted my pc, haven’t bothered to put it back on again. I feel cleaner than I’ve ever felt before.

    • Johan du Preez

      April 2, 2014 at 12:28

      Yup to play battlefield 4

      Reply

      • Kromas

        April 2, 2014 at 12:30

        And Mass Effect 3.

        Reply

        • Matthew Holliday

          April 2, 2014 at 13:09

          and things from humble bundle.

          Reply

          • Kromas

            April 2, 2014 at 13:20

            Most of the origin humble bundle stuff had corresponding steam links 😛

          • Matthew Holliday

            April 2, 2014 at 13:48

            most, not all though

      • Jim Lenoir (Banana Jim)

        April 2, 2014 at 12:31

        People still play Glitchfield 4?

        Reply

    • Amber

      December 29, 2015 at 17:34

      I only use origin because the Sims requires it.

      Reply

  3. Alien Emperor Trevor

    April 2, 2014 at 12:21

    Maybe people weren’t buying physical copies because they didn’t know they could.

    Reply

    • Jim Lenoir (Banana Jim)

      April 2, 2014 at 12:23

      I didn’t know you could, and all of this is a surprise to me. You could buy physical copies from the EA Store… whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaatttttt? And now they’re taking it away? whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaattttt?

      Reply

      • Alien Emperor Trevor

        April 2, 2014 at 12:24

        I didn’t know either. Not that I would, it’s just a bit odd that they did that in the first place.

        Reply

  4. Sir Rants A Lot Llew. Jelly!!!

    April 2, 2014 at 12:30

    “Digital is fast and convenient. Origin’s focus is to give gamers the best experience, and going all-digital will make that possible.”

    Just goes to show how out of touch they are with their users.

    Yeah most prefer digital and will often pre-load a game for launch day etc. But that statement that digital is fast and convenient is by no means true for the vast majority of gamers. Not by a long shot.

    Even if it was fast, convenient is also not a term I’d use because there are often so many problems with this. Not to mention that if you have to re-install your machine for any reason (HDD loss for example) you have to re-download your entire library.

    PS: For those that don’t know you can actually opt to keep the install files when Origin downloads a game and one can back it up externally. However I have found it doesn’t always work and usually isn’t picked up correctly anyway so again one has to re-download the game if anything happens

    Reply

    • Matthew Holliday

      April 2, 2014 at 13:05

      I actually find Origin quite nice.
      its installs and downloads are pretty buggy, but as a game manager and store, its pretty neat.
      its only real downfall, aside from “omg EA sux” is thats its just ANOTHER game manager to install and maintain…

      Reply

      • Sir Rants A Lot Llew. Jelly!!!

        April 2, 2014 at 13:35

        It’s not a bad client at all and as I said it allows you to keep the downloaded install files locally so that you don’t have to re-download. I’ve just been unlucky that those kept downloaders never seem to work right lol

        Reply

    • Mark Treloar

      April 2, 2014 at 13:52

      Everything you said here unfortunately also applies to Steam.

      Reply

      • Sir Rants A Lot Llew. Jelly!!!

        April 2, 2014 at 13:55

        I backup my steam games with the handy backup option

        Reply

        • Mark Treloar

          April 2, 2014 at 14:58

          So do I but recently when trying to restore an entire 60gig volume was corrupt, so literally the same issue with downloading everything from scratch.

          Reply

          • Sir Rants A Lot Llew. Jelly!!!

            April 2, 2014 at 16:27

            oh young one. You do each game separately. Never one big one. 😉

  5. UltimateNinjaPandaDudeGuy

    April 2, 2014 at 12:37

    I had no idea it was even an option… o.O

    Reply

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