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That doesn’t mean Call of Duty is bad…”

EA has likened the difference between digital platforms Origin and Steam to the difference between Battlefield 3 and Call of Duty.

“Battlefield 3 isn’t Call of Duty. Battlefield 3 is great, it’s a shooter, but it’s a great shooter in its own right. I want Origin to be the exact same thing,” Origin boss David DeMartini told Gamasutra.

“That doesn’t mean Call of Duty is bad,” he continues. “I don’t want to see Steam become bad. They’re a partner of us. They do a lot of good things. What I want is I want Origin to be differentiable and better as a service, which is similar to what Steam does.”

Last week DeMartini raised eyebrows when he promised that Origin wouldn’t copy Steam’s popular 75 per cent off sales because, in his words, they “cheapen IP”.

The battle between Origin and Steam has raged over the last year, but both EA and Valve agree that Origin has a long way to go before it offers as good a service as Steam.

“Well, give us a few more years, and maybe we’ll be better than Steam,” DeMartini told Gamasutra.

“That said, right now we’re not. Steam took eight years to get where it is. We’re not going to take eight years, but we’re going to get there and go beyond.”

According to DeMartini, the plan is for Origin to become a “viable alternative” to Steam. That, he believes, is “what people want to see”. “They want us to differentiate in a way that sets us apart.”

Origin will over the next 12 months focus on features that will realise this goal. “We need to take full advantage of that multiplatform capability that EA brings,” DeMartini continued. “We need to be able to visualise that in the service in a way that allows you amongst your circle of gaming friends to differentiate yourself or demonstrate your skills multiplatform versus other people you game with or who you are interested in their opinion.”