EA is planning to restablish its Origin platform as "a service to gamers" instead of "a means to drive transactions", according to Andrew Wilson, executive vice president.
Speaking to GamesIndustry.biz Wilson admitted Origin's focus on transactions was a shortcoming that prevented users from seeing the the value it offered.
"I think the transaction component of that service has taken a disproportionate amount of the communication and mindshare of what we really try and provide, and the barrier that that puts in between you and the game that you want to play," he said.
To remedy this, Wilson said the company intends to return to the roots of the idea and present a service that compliments those provided by Sony and Microsoft.
"What we really had in mind in the early days was a service that made your EA games better; a service that made it easy to access games and update games," he said.
"A service that enhanced the experience of playing games, a service that helped you connect to other friends playing games, and a service that ultimately did that across all platforms, not just PC."
"What you want is a complementary service that enhances your game experience irrespective of where you made the transaction. That's the shift you're going to see from us."
The exec continues to say he knows EA faces an uphill struggle in changing perceptions.
"I am not so naïve as to believe we will change that perception quickly," he added.
"It's very important for people to understand that we don't expect that all of a sudden people are going to get up and go 'Oh! Great! We now love Origin!'"
"What we would say is, 'We get it. We understand it. We have heard, we have made some changes already in terms of how we do things, and we're looking at more changes that we'll talk about over the coming months that really are gamer-focused.'"

http://www.computerandvideogames.com...gamers-better/