EA announces games on Origin for Macs

It looks like everyone is slowly opening their gaming services to gamers on a Mac. Electronic Arts (EA) has announced that its digital distribution platform, Origin, is now available to Mac gamers. This includes all Origin related services such as cloud storage for game saves and social connectivity via friends list.

The biggest feature, though, is that Origin games will have dual-platform play. This means that for some EA games that are available on both Windows and Mac, you only have to buy a game once on Origin, and you get access to both versions of the game.

The Mac catalogue includes titles from both EA and its publishing partners, including Warner Bros. and Sega, and has titles like Dragon Age 2, Batman: Arkham City Game of the Year Edition, Lego Harry Potter, and The Sims 3.

Valve’s Steam has been doing this for more than a year now. The company had kicked off its support for Macs as a gaming platform with its own Source-based games, including Team Fortress 2. To further entice gamers, Valve even included cosmetic iPod earphones for Team Fortress 2 characters.

Games on Origin are now also available to Mac gamers

Back in January, Indian digital distribution platform downloads4u had announced a partnership with publisher Aspyr Media to offer AAA games on the Mac. This includes titles like Borderlands 2, the Call of Duty series and Roller Coaster Tycoon 3.

Before this, the only way for gamers with Macs to play new downloadable games was to fork over cash on Steam. As we all know, the prices on Steam follow the US system, where a single AAA title could cost upwards of Rs 2,000. Using downloads4u could cut the price down to half of what Steam charges. You can check out the Mac catalogue here.

The company has also announced plans to publish games from independent studios in the future, along with newer games from big publishers like EA, SEGA and Square Enix.

This would make downloads4u the first digital distribution platform in India to offer games for Mac. This lets the service compete with Valve’s Steam, as Steam also publishes games for Mac.

Game4u first announced downloads4u back in October 2012. Game4u became the first Indian electronic retailer to feature a digital distribution service in India.

The rise in India’s Internet penetration from 80 million to an estimated 376 million by 2015, coupled with a projected 39 million PC broadband connections by 2015 will augment the online community of PC gamers in India. This set of consumers also forms a large part of the 11 million users transacting online, slated to reach 38 million by 2015, thus creating a huge opportunity for growth in this sector.