Origin seems to "need" to update almost every month. And when it updates it takes forever. I'm waiting now because I want to play my game and it's just sitting there making the slowest slowest progress I have ever seen. I don't use any of the online-interactive features, but some of my games are digital "downloads" (obviously they lied about that, because if the game was fully installed on my machine they couldn't hold me hostage like this).

Otherwise, I've been enjoying my game except when I mess it up by overambitious fiddling.I've gotten four out of six of my existing imaginary friends to be real and I have seven alien offspring of two different pollinators, so I'm well on the way to building up my imaginary alien founding population. Though work on the world I'm planning to put them in has stalled, because if anything's more painful than Origin, it's CAW.

Origin is horrific and invasive. I have it set to not auto update ( I like life just fine on 1.67, thank you) on both the Origin settings and the EA/Launcher one, or whatever one it is, but I still don't trust it. I go offline every time I start and play my game. I have Origin set to not start on comp. start and that works. What irks me the most is that it continues running in the background after I do a "Save as" and then quit. Shutting down it's desktop icon doesn't kill it either. I have to task manager it to the depths of hell where it belongs...and even after shutting it in task manager if I go to shut my comp down in the next minute or less , odds are I get the "waiting for background programs to close"( anyone want to venture a guess as to what program is listed?) notification. I've come to expect nothing less from the company that lied about secuROM.

I have it set so that the Origin window comes up when I close a game running through Origin. Then I choose log out, that shuts it down. Just closing it doesn't work.

I've just had my first, and I hope my last encounter with Origin. Normally I don't use it: my game was installed from discs, I'm on patch level 1.67 and that's where I'm staying. But yesterday I wanted to download Dragon Valley. So, I have my code ready, I click on 'get bundle' and am instantly taken to Origin. Which needs to update - it won't let me not update. So I let it update. And as OP said, it takes an age! Then I try to enter my code, but I find that you don't enter the code there, you enter it in Sims 3 Store! So what was the freakin' point of going into to Origin?!!! And all the time I'm downloading and installing DV, I'm wondering, 'Am I going to regret this? Will it insist on installing the latest 'updates' (in other words the infamous PATCH)?". No, fortunately not. So, it's in, I've finally got Dragon Valley - alleluia!

Oh, yes, and Origin was still running after I closed the game and I tried shutting down my laptop.

I am tremendously glad I have the steam version of Sims 3, which means Origin can go bleep itself.

I will NOT buy an Origin-only game.

because there's any big difference between Steam and Origin, maybe?

OK. It is - Steam is less klunky. A bit. The idea is very the same.

What infamous patch?

My main irk right now is that Origin opened and is taking ages to log me in right now. F off, Origin, I just want to play Sims 3.

The beloved 1.69 patch.

Yeah, that one! Should have specified, I suppose. Sorry

OMG, my hate on for EA began at that time. They took a great game series and ran it into the ground. (Garriott's company had little control over the travesties that were Ultima 8 and 9.) I feel like holding a funeral each time EA gobbles up a game company!

Agreed with you. EA just messes up everything they touch. The perfect example is the poor SimCity 5. It's an awesome game, but EA ruined it with server issues and the uhm.. Origin. The discounts are jokes compared to Steam and many other sites. They're money hungry, lazy. But they're made some very cool games like Battlefield etc.

Yes, the idea is the same. But Steam has a lot more to offer, and the prices are a lot more friendly and the discounts are bigger (sometimes). And it's not forces you to log in immediately after you start the game.

And the Steam version of Sims 3 means you don't get pushed to 1.69.

I'm still on 1.67 and my sims3 is listed on origin.

Steam vs Origin? The latter is just a bunch of commertials for it's own products. Steam offers a community with mods etc. I take Steam any day.

Steam is very welcoming and has a much bigger community tbh. And when it updates, it's very quick for me. Origin slows down my computer and takes up so many resources and it's almost a daily thing. There is absolutely no need for it, EA.

I wrote - "it's less klunky", still a devil's child.

BTW - Steam forced me to log in while playing F:New Vegas (but maybe it was because of some mods, I cannot be sure), and while prices are not so brain-insulting like EA's and they apparently gave up that absurd 1$ == 1€ equation, still it's *just a bit* lesser evil.

OK, I just hate "the digital f*ckups" - take that as kinda mental illnes