So I buy the game on Steam. Then to my horror, I realized that EA has Trojan Horse’d the Origin Launcher into the damn thing. I launch the game on Steam, and it turns around and launches Origin, which should then (theoretically) launch Star Wars… Fallen… uh… what is it again?<\/p>\n
Arg. Can I just do a little aside on how much I hate the title for this game?<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Going by the title \/ splash screens…<\/p>\n
<\/div>…the full name of the title is Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order EA\u2122<\/em>. It’s long. It breaks from the familiar STAR WARS COLON SUBTITLE format that we’re used to. Even the acronym SWJFO is awkward and unpronounceable. I can only imagine how bad this name will get when they start making sequels. We don’t use numbers for sequels anymore, and instead we append phrases. I get that Star Wars Jedi<\/em> is the franchise \/ series and Fallen Order<\/em> is the title of this particular entry, but Fallen Order<\/em> is the short phrase people are using to describe this particular game. As in, “I hope they make more Fallen Order games”. Logic dictates that the next game should be Star Wars Jedi: Another Game EA\u2122<\/em>, but marketing will want the more memorable Fallen Order<\/em> in the name. Marketing and logic are natural enemies, and I can only imagine the colon-infused mess we’ll get in the next one.<\/p>\n My suggestion? The main character should have been named Pendar Kul. Then this game could be called Star Wars: Order of Pendar<\/em>. There’s<\/strong> a memorable name! And it shortens to SWOOP!<\/p>\n Anyway. Back to Origin.<\/p>\n The thing is, I already have Origin on my machine, so this setup should be painless. Stupid, obnoxious, and irritating, yes. But painless. But the Origin that Steam launches isn’t quite the Origin I have on my machine. Or rather, it doesn’t have access to my login credentials. So when I launch SWJFO, an Origin login pops up. So now I need the login info and permission of two different monolithic corporations to run my game.<\/p>\n More importantly, it doesn’t work. Once I logged in, Orgin vanishes without launching the game. It’s still running in the background, but no game appears. I try to launch it again, but Steam claims the game is already running. So I have to use task manager to kill the zombie Origin process and try again. When I do, Origin reappears and says it needs to update itself. Then it vanishes into the background again without launching my game.<\/p>\n I realize this is going to be a nightmare, so I refund the game. Life is too short for this bullshit and I am not being paid to troubleshoot EA’s broken technology chain.<\/p>\n Then the moment the refund goes through, the game launches. I’m not exaggerating. I’m reading the last page of the refund process when SWOFJEA appears, and I’m suddenly playing a game I no longer own. My guess is that Origin was doing some self-update nonsense in the background and didn’t see fit to notify the user, which led me to assume it was crashed.<\/p>\n Whatever. Free demo, then?<\/p>\n I play for a couple of hours before I remember that I don’t own the game. It’s a pity, but I really do seem to be enjoying myself. I enjoy adding fresh evidence to the the “EA ruins everything” narrative. I hate to admit it, and I really resent that these clowns have been entrusted with the exclusive rights to make Star Wars video games, but I have to review the game I got and not the game I anticipated. Whatever problems I have with Wilson et al<\/a>, I can’t claim this game is bad.<\/p>\n (Don’t be disappointed. I’m still going to spend thousands of words complaining about this game someday. I have my gripes, but this game isn’t a cringy, obnoxious, microtransaction-filled mess with tacked-on multiplayer. I may not appreciate all of the creative choices this team made, but they were still creative choices and not corporate sabotage. I mean, aside<\/strong> from the whole Origin Trojan Horse thing.)<\/p>\n This is sort of a funny position to be in. I’m playing the game just fine now. But once I exit, I’ll never be able to launch it again.<\/p>\n So now I need to review this game, which means I need to buy this game. It doesn’t make any sense to buy it again on Steam. Moreover, Steam won’t normally let you buy a game you’ve returned.\u00a0So I guess I need to buy it on Origin. I hate to reward EA for their Trojan Horse bullshit by adopting Origin directly, but it’s either this or nothing.<\/p>\n There is a bright side to this. I need to make sure I use Origin now and again to keep an eye on the platform. I spend a lot of time coveringComplaining about.<\/span> the PC Storefront Wars, and part of that gig is using the platforms in questionExcept for Uplay, because Uplay isn’t even a real platform yet. I don’t know what it’s supposed to be, but right now it feels like a version of Games for Windows LIVE that doesn’t crash all the time. It has all the cost \/ convenience concerns of a platform without any of the benefits.<\/span>. So I’ll just treat this as one of my twice-yearly Origin purchases for the purposes of staying informed on the platform.<\/p>\n I launch the actual<\/strong> Origin program and try to buy SWJFOEA™©®, only to discover that the platform thinks I already own the game through Steam.<\/p>\n Sweet mercy. They’ve created a system the requires competing platforms to co-operate. This is the stuff of nightmares.<\/p>\n The upside is that the game is $7 cheaper on Origin. Good job, EA! It only took you seven years to figure out what I was shouting at you way back in 2012<\/a>: Since you’re saving money by selling on your own platform, you should pass some of that savings onto the user to give them SOME reason to switch to your smaller, less popular platform.<\/p>\n Assuming EA doesn’t get some sort of sweetheart deal from Valve, then the Steam Tax on a $60 game would be $18USD. In an ideal world, I think EA ought to split that with Origin users, but whatever. $7 is close to $9. It’s certainly better than the $3 discount GameStop offers for used games. Seven bucks is stills a non-trivial savings. I’ll take it. <\/p>\n So now I just need to figure out how to get these chuckleheads to sell me the dang thing.<\/p>\n I poke around the EA™ Origin™ Help Center of Extreme Unhelpfulness™ and discover that the help center has many, many suggestions on how to solve problems that have nothing whatsoever to do with my problem. I have to dig for a long time to get past the protective layers of keyword-driven “help”, but I eventually discover real, actual support. Annoyingly, it’s chat-based and not email. Also, the system warns that there’s a 40 minute wait queue. That sucks, but I’ll take what I can get.<\/p>\n
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