Origin has just announced that beginning April 4th, 2014, they will no longer be selling boxed games via Origin. This means that any and all games on Origin.com will not be available in both digital and physical form. They are saying farewell to discs:
Starting April 4th Origin will be going all digital. This means the entire Origin game store will be entirely digital downloads for PC and Mac.
What does this mean for you? If you’re among 99% of our users, absolutely nothing. Your shopping experience hasn’t changed one single bit.
But if you’re that 1% who still desires a physical collection, we want to let you know that Origin won’t be able to fulfill that need beginning April 4th. We’ll still be here when you transition your gaming habits to the wonders of digital downloads.
Digital is fast and convenient. Origin’s focus is to give gamers the best experience, and going all-digital will make that possible.
Even though EA will cease sales of boxed games via Origin, they will continue production of physical games. Charlie Sinhaseni, PR Manager for Maxis, confirmed this news via Twitter:
@SimsVIP just to clarify, we're still putting out boxed versions of our games, just not through Origin.
— Charlie Sinhaseni (@Charlie_Sin) March 28, 2014
If you don’t mind purchasing from other retailers (Amazon, GameStop, Walmart, etc), then this won’t affect you one bit. However, there are many of us simmers who prefer retail boxes via Origin for the “exclusive origin” content. We’ll now have to choose between “having it all” and going digital, or “missing out” and staying retail.
