Origin for Mac

The EA gaming platform for Mac

Origin for Mac is Electronic Art's gaming platform that's finally available for Mac. It allows you to buy and download EA games in the same way as Steam. Origin for Mac was launched in Alpha in North America and the United Kingdom in January but was given a full release in February 2013.

If you prefer to buy digital copies of games instead of buying them at the shops, you need Origin for Mac. As well as managing your premium downloads, Origin also runs the installer and launches it. If a game requires a DRM (digital Rights Management) license, this will be acquired by Origin too. Note that you cannot run downloaded games without Origin, as the DRM system requires it to be running. As well as games, Origin for Mac also keeps you up to date with patches and updates.

Origin features many of the same features that Steam already has, including game save sync, automatic patching, and friends list. EA also plans to bring Twitch.tv live streaming support to the Mac client as well, but it's not included in the Alpha. Although EA aim to make the Mac version of Origin as similar to the PC version as possible, this doesn't mean that game selection will be identical on the different platforms. EA is leaving it up to the developers to see if they want to port a game to Mac, meaning the games library for Origin on Mac could be significantly smaller than the PC version. The big question is whether FIFA 13 will finally come to Mac as many fans were lead to believe when it launched on PC.

The Origin for Mac interface feels a bit like its been taken directly from the PC version although this will probably improve as the app becomes more popular and more games are available for it.

For Mac users, the arrival of Origin for Mac means some exciting times ahead for those that are fans of EA games although the initial selection is quite limited.