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EA has announced that it's consolidating its free-to-play Play4Free brand into Origin. Henceforth, all Play4Free titles, which include the likes of Battlefield Heroes, Command & Conquer: Tiberium Alliances and others, will exist under the umbrella of Origin Free to Play. According to EA, the only thing that will be different for existing players is that the Play4Free.com URL will officially change to Origin.com/free. Later this week, Play4Free.com will automatically redirect users to the new URL.

The reason for the move? "Convenience for players," says Play4Free vice president Sean Decker, as "Origin now becomes your single destination for paid downloadable PC games and free-to-play games alike." Thus far, the available games seem unchanged, though we wouldn't be surprised to see future EA free-to-play games requiring the Origin client to play. Either way, the move isn't too surprising, given EA's continued push to expand its Origin service.

Starting on December 1 and running until December 25, European consumers can take advantage of exclusive daily deals on Origin, including "pre-order bonuses, discounts on top new titles and franchises, partner promotions and many more."

The sale will end on Christmas day with a 50% off deal on the entire Origin catalog. Other highlights include up to 50% off select Battlefield 3 items on December 5, £40 worth of voucher codes when you pre-order Crysis 3 on December 12 and a "buy one, get more" deal on December 22 - buy one game, get 20% off; buy two games, get 30% off; buy three or more and get half-off.

As a retailer, EA's Origin service is also obligated to participate in Black Friday craziness. If you have any money left, you could spend it on a selection of cheap EA games.

For example, Battlefield 3 is $12 to download on PC or $20 physically (on PC, Xbox, or 360). Need for Speed Most Wanted is discounted a bunch ($25 on PC, $30 on PS3 or Xbox, $20 on Vita). Medal of Honor Warfighter is $30 on PC, Xbox, and PS3. The gigantic Command & Conquer Ultimate Edition is just $25. Browse all the deals here.

Origin is also offering Black Friday deals in Europe, where the company felt it necessary to explain the concept of Black Friday: "Black Friday is a relatively new concept in Europe. It traditionally refers to the beginning of the Christmas shopping period and falls on the day after the American Thanksgiving day. On Black Friday, US retailers tend to open incredibly early and offer amazing sales deals for a limited time only."Origin Black Friday sales include cheap Medal of Honor, Need for Speed, Command & Conquer

#origin Origin users—which means anyone who's played Battlefield 3 or Mass Effect 3, among other games—should keep a close eye on their accounts. More »

Origin now features Twitch.tv support, letting users connect their Origin account to their Twitch.tv channels and set up live streams within EA's portal. The new feature is available from today, although EA notes it's in beta and that greater functionality is on the way.

As it stands, players can adjust the stream's resolution and frame rate within Origin, and see an optional in-game "indicator" overlay which displays the number of people tuning in, along with how long the stream's been going.

Interestingly, EA's announcment comes on the same day Activision confirmed YouTube live streaming for Black Ops 2, and hot on the heels of Sony revealing Twitch.tv support for Planetside 2. The whole world is streaming, it seems, and the big guns want in.

#battlefield Sure, Battlefield 3 remains a big deal and Battlefield 4 is on its way, but fans who want to go back to where it all began will need to hop into Battlefield 1942. More »

Are you interested in Crysis 3, but didn't play the first Crysis because whenever you tried to, your PC melted into a puddle? Well, EA wants to help by bundling in Xbox Live, PSN, and Origin codes for Crysis with pre-orders of Crysis 3 on respective platforms.

If you're still gaming on the same PC you tried to run Crysis on back in 2007, then this isn't going to help you. Also, you definitely shouldn't be pre-ordering Crysis 3 for your PC. That's just silly.

EA's digital distribution service Origin now has 30 million registered users, 4.4 million of whom have purchased content via the service. EA Chief Operating Officer Peter Moore revealed the figures during yesterday's earnings conference. Moore also noted 13 million users have accessed Origin via a mobile device, and an average sale figure of $64.

"With the 70 plus developers that are now putting content on the platform," said Moore, "And with our own content itself - Medal of Honor [Warfighter] debuted this week, obviously - our ability to continue to drive stronger commercial engagement as well as community engagement has got to be key, and the metrics all point towards that being a very strong part of our business."

Based on the last revealed figure of 21 million back in July, Origin's user base increased by 42.9 percent in the last three months. EA secured another 13 developers at least for its catalog in that time.

Origin has a buy one, get one free deal going on select PC downloads right now. The only catch is that that the select titles are different for the "buy one" and "get one" parts of the equation. The titles that must be bought include the likes of Darksiders 2, Battlefield 3, The Witcher 2 and Saints Row: The Third, among others.

Available free titles include the Dead Space games, Dragon Age games, Battlefield: Bad Company 2, Mirror's Edge, a few Sims 3 expansions and more. The deal ends on November 5.

#wiiu Since 2011, all of EA's games released on PC have been tied to Origin. PC gamers who wanted to play Battlefield 3 or Mass Effect 3 logged in through the orange-hued Steam competitor, and now it seems that Wii U owners will do the same. More »

EA hosted a survey this past weekend that, when finished, awarded a nice prize: A code to download one free game, under $20, on the company's digital distribution site Origin. Just a few things went wrong, however.

It turns out the codes distributed weren't matched up to a specific Origin account; they could be used by anyone. Oh, and the codes worked multiple times, which means users could download as many under-$20 games as they wanted. Oh, and one more thing: Reddit figured all of this out.

As you can imagine, all hell broke loose on Origin, as what must have been thousands of users downloaded games like Dead Space 2, Burnout Paradise, Sim City 4, and Mass Effect 2 for exactly zero dollars. The site went down, and when it came back up the codes (which were supposed to work until October 21) had been disabled.

There's no word on if EA will still honor the codes from the survey, or if there will be a new system in place at all, but we can almost guarantee that whatever solution EA comes up with, the IT team will probably have double- and triple-checked it for security, just to be sure.

#ea Over the weekend, some gamers received a special code from Electronic Arts as thanks for completing a survey. That code allowed them to download a free game from Origin, EA's online store for PC games. More »

N7 HQ, the Mass Effect 3 online portal briefly mentioned during BioWare's last multiplayer briefing, is now online and operational. Available for anyone who's purchased the game (and visible to the general public), N7 HQ allows players to view their multiplayer profile, track their progress through ME3's recently added Challenges, view leaderboard information and assess the state of the Galaxy at War.

User profiles contain information on every character an account has made, including character level, XP and skill tree allocation details for each character. As profiles are public unless otherwise specified, it's now possible to look up the builds of people you encounter online so you can steal their ideas emulate their successful layouts.

Progression through Challenges can also be closely monitored via the Challenges tab (natch), which tracks advancement through both individual and meta-Challenges in three categories: General, Aliens and Weapons. Once gold-level challenges have been completed, the titles and banners awarded can also be managed online.

Checking in on your Galactic Readiness is accomplished through the Galaxy at War section, which displays a familiar map of the galaxy (and its various stages of readiness), as well as information regarding increased readiness from external sources like Mass Effect: Infiltrator.

Unfortunately, N7 HQ doesn't have the ability to tell members of the Alliance Military that the war ended months ago, and that they can all come home. Oh well!

Before Command & Conquer becomes a nebulous free-to-play platform thing, EA is giving you the opportunity to just buy the classic games the traditional way - all at once.

The Command & Conquer Ultimate Edition is a retail or downloadable bundle that includes Origin downloads of seventeen games (listed after the break) representing the full history of the series, from Command & Conquer to Tiberian Twilight, playable in Windows 7 and Vista.

The retail version, which would be an enormous box if these games were on discs, also includes exclusive "commemorative art." Both versions include a "Best of Command & Conquer" music collection and early access to the new thing. Both the retail and download packages will command a $49.99 price when they arrive in October.

The digital distribution plot thickens. In the beginning, there was Steam, and it was… not great. But it slowly trended upward in its tiny virtual vacuum until it expanded into the empire we all know and mostly love today. And people noticed. So along came Origin, with its EA stamp of approval and not much else – though slow progress has seen it take a few steps in the right direction. And now, surprisingly but also not surprisingly at all, Ubisoft’s clambering into the ring alongside those two heavyweights with Uplay PC. Admittedly, the Assassin’s Creed publisher probably could’ve picked a better name.

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#thesimpsons I don't tend to enjoy city-building social games. I try them, and then I end up disappointed in my inability to advance quickly and I end up walking away rather than giving them my money. More »

Over 21 million users have signed up for Origin, EA COO Peter Moore revealed during the publisher's annual Gamescom keynote - Origin currently has over 500 games from more than 50 publishers. But more exciting than boasting figures was the news that the service would be available to Mac users sometime this year.

It's part of improvements coming to the platform overall, improvements which include the integration of achievements and adding free-to-play gaming. Not only that, but EA is bringing its digital distribution platform to, well, other platforms, like Android and Facebook.

#origin Following up on this morning's news of SimCity coming to Origin for the Mac in February, the Origin client proper is coming to the Mac as well, giving apple gamers a taste of the fresh new features coming to EA's online service. More »

#simcity SimCity returns to the Mac in February 2013, when EA releases the city builder as a digital download via Origin. Seeing as many of us first played Maxis' storied franchise on an Apple system, this is grand news. More »

#review When Origin PC sent me their EON15-S laptop for review, time and time again they stressed that while I was getting a plain cover unit for the system, they were also available with a shiny colored plastic lid, special molded to evoke futuristic technology. More »

Electronic Arts announced today that its Origin digital distribution service has 21 million users, which includes 9 million mobile members. A dramatic increase from numbers given in May, which the publisher noted at 11 million.

The company stated recently that it has had 12 million downloads and counts 50 publishing partners among its catalog, details it has now updated with 57 independent developers.

Electronic Arts has posted a notice stating that its Origin servers will be offline tonight from 10 p.m. until 11:59 p.m. Pacific. The notice adds that Origin will only be available in offline mode during the maintenance and that multiplayer in Origin titles will be unavailable. Presumably, this applies to both the PC and console versions of titles that require an Origin login. Furthermore, any Origin purchases made during the outage will only be fulfilled once the maintenance is complete.

EA notes that regular maintenance allows the company to prepare Origin for "for bigger changes in the weeks and months ahead." Such updates could include the promised additions and fixes that will be implemented in Origin 9.0.

EA is preparing to update its Origin client to version 9.0, which seems designed to make the experience of using the Origin client as painless as possible.

The upcoming update decouples the friends lists into its own little window, so you can move it around or hide it. The library view can now be customized. The help menu has more options, as part of a redesigned pulldown interface.

"Many of you will also be happy to hear that we've heeded your requests and moved forward production of our in-game clock," EA notes in the announcement, answering a request we didn't realize was common.

You can get a preview of this exciting new clock and other features by opting into a beta of Origin 9.0. Even more exciting: you can then use Origin to purchase and play video games!

#hoodwink Slow jazz? Check. Disheveled office? Check. Intimations that someone will walk through the door at any moment? Check. All the signs of a classic film noir-inspired game are well in play. More »

Well here’s some pretty huge news. The Court Of Justice of the European Union has just ruled that people should be able to resell downloaded games. In an environment where publishers are trying to destroy basic consumer rights like the ability to resell physical products you’ve paid for, this is one heck of a setback. And that’s no matter what it might say in the EULA. This could have absolutely enormous implications on how services like Steam, Origin, GamersGate and the like work, and finally restore some rights back to the gamer.

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#kingdomsofamalur I didn't always feel sad when I started up Origin. Vaguely annoyed, perhaps, with the way it always defaults to "Store" instead of "My Games." Somewhat grumpy, when confronted with bugs. But lately, I feel a little pang of woe. And it's not really from Origin at all. More »

For PC ME3 players, Origin has now been updated to include the Extended Cut, for free, under "Game Add-Ons." Go get it! More »

#origin So, you've successfully rallied hundreds of strangers to pay for your brilliant game idea on Kickstarter, IndieGoGo or some other crowdfunding site. Now you need to make the damn thing. But an even bigger problem looms after you develop and test Amazing Game X: getting it to everyone who wants it, including backers. More »

EA's Origin is jumping on the Kickstarter bandwagon - no, not by Kickstarting an EA game (that would be hilarious) but instead, by presenting itself as an ally to crowd-funded games.

EA announced today that it will waive distribution fees for crowd-funded games for 90 days after launch. The offer is extended only to "fully-funded, complete and ready-to-publish games designed for digital download to PC platforms." InXile's Brian Fargo and Pinkerton Road's Jane Jensen voiced their support in the press release.

"The public support for crowd-funding creative game ideas coming from small developers today is nothing short of phenomenal," said Origin SVP David DeMartini in the announcement. "It's also incredibly healthy for the gaming industry. Gamers around the world deserve a chance to play every great new game, and by waiving distribution fees on Origin we can help make that a reality for successfully crowd-funded developers." EA also gets a nice patina of indirect indie cred by supporting Kickstarted games.

EA's Origin service has a registered 11 million members and has generated $150 million in non-GAAP revenue during the fiscal year from March 31, 2011 to April 1 this year, EA reports.

EA's Nucleus, its cross-platform community network, now has 220 million members, EA says.

EA recently allowed all 11 million members to provide feedback on Origin, its digital distribution service.