EA to phase out Origin brand with renamed desktop launcher

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A month after renaming its Origin Access subscription service to EA Play, Electronic Arts is set to completely pitch the Origin brand with a revamped desktop app called EA Desktop.

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Mike Blank, the senior vice president of strategic growth at EA, revealed the upcoming rebranding during an interview with gamesindustry.biz. He also noted that the EA Desktop app won’t simply be a name change, but will arrive alongside a revamped launcher.

The overhaul is meant to “to create a more frictionless, fast, socially-oriented experience for our players, where it becomes the best place for them to connect with the people they want to play with in the games they want to play”, Blank explained. The new app is said to provide players with a more seamless experience, with fewer clicks to navigate games libraries, new features such as time spent playing and more.

The phasing out of the Origin name also aligns more closely with EA’s overall direction towards a more “consistent brand”, Blank noted. “It’s not just a name change. It really signals an ethos that is critically important to us and that we know that’s important to our players.”

Besides Origin, Blank also spoke about the company’s decision to finally make a number of games from its extensive catalogue available for purchase on Steam, alongside the ability to subscribe to EA Play through the platform. “One of the things that we value is democratising gaming, which is: how do you enable more people to play? And how do you make it easy for them to do so? And by bringing our games to Steam, we are doing just that,” he said.

The EA exec also revealed that the company intends to “bring more subscriptions to more platforms in the future”, namely the Nintendo Switch. “I think if there are opportunities for us to bring our subscription there and bring an even larger portfolio to the Switch, we will do so,” Blank added.

Earlier this month, Microsoft announced that EA Play would be made available to Xbox Games Pass Ultimate subscribers for no additional cost. Members will be granted access to EA’s service sometime during the upcoming holiday season.

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