EA Origin to expand social features, reach ‘other platforms’

EA shed some more light on its multi-platform strategy during its Q3 financial conference call for fiscal year 2012, including improvements for digital service EA Origin.

February 2, 2012 9:30 AM5

Electronic Arts is inching towards 10 million users of its Origin service. While it’s currently little more than a digital storefront, the platform is of great focus to the publisher, with an aggressive roadmap being laid out.

According to EA COO Peter Moore, Origin will see a number of updates over the year that “will include more social features, enhancements to the way that our consumers can access Origin, and not only just focus on the PC, but other platforms as well.”

Origin’s primarily competitor, Steam, is already available on multiple platforms. In addition to PC, Valve supports Mac games. It also recently launched an app for iOS and Android devices.

Moore went on to explain that the long-term plans for Origin are global ones, and that EA will continue “building in different business models, so that we can not just do direct to consumer downloads as we currently do with full games and DLC, but also different types of business models that will allow us to aggregate our consumers and provide them with better opportunities and price-value relationships for our content.”

The ultimate goal is to develop a “full and very robust portal to the consumer on a global basis, regardless of platform or geographic location,” Moore concluded.