After over a decade of players using Electronic Arts' Origin PC platform, EA has officially launched the EA App. In late 2020, the company started to rebrand itself, beginning with combining EA Access and Origin Access into EA Play. The streamlining of these two services into one subscription ultimately helped new users find the exact subscription they wanted.
Electronic Arts continued the rebranding effort by replacing its PC platform Origin with the EA Desktop App for an open beta test in September 2020. The new application promised to mainly focus on supporting the subscription service EA Play and act as a type of secondary launcher in supporting Steam releases of EA games. It also promised shorter loading times and an emphasis on cross-play. EA was able to deliver on a part of its cross-play promise with the offering of EA Play to all Xbox Game Pass PC subscribers in March 2021.
As reported by IGN, Electronic Arts has finally retired its decade-old PC platform Origin and officially launched the new EA Desktop App. EA announced the new app's official launch on its blog, touting "a faster, more reliable, and more streamlined gaming experience" via what it calls its next-generation PC game platform. The announcement calls to mind the EA Play and Xbox Game Pass relationship, as it explains that users can connect their EA accounts to other platforms and services like Xbox, Steam, and even PlayStation. The app also allows for automatic game downloads and background updates. Users will be able to transfer their local and cloud saves to the new PC app once they get an invitation. Notably, the EA app is currently available on Windows PCs only, so MacOS players must continue to use Origin.
The EA Desktop App Moves The Company Forward
In comparison to Origin, the EA Desktop App is much more user-friendly. The new PC app organizes games by genre, and does not crash like its predecessor often did. Furthermore, with its emphasis on the social aspect of gaming, the EA Desktop App is already facing towards the future of gaming. Back in 2019, EA said that cloud gaming could open video games to a new demographic. With the launch of a PC app that spotlights a player's friends list and encourages cross-play, EA is making moves towards the future. Welcoming cross-play opens the company and its library of games to a wider audience.
EA Origin was admirable in that it was the video game company's first foray into PC gaming services. However, it will most likely be remembered as an app that was hard to navigate and crashed often. Electronic Arts' new EA Desktop App is long overdue.