Migrating Your EA Games from Steam or Retail to Origin

A little known fact about EA’s Origin gaming platform is that most EA titles purchased outside of the service can be registered within it. The problem: EA doesn’t offer a good list of supported titles, preferring to leave it up to gamers to figure out. Thanks to that, we’ve been compiling our own list, and welcome submissions to help it become definitive.

EA’s digital gaming platform, Origin, received a major boost to its user base in late 2011 thanks to the release of Battlefield 3. At the time, fans of the series weren’t pleased. In effect, EA was forcing them into using a gaming platform which, let’s face it, was lackluster when compared to the competition (in this case, Valve’s Steam).

A lot of gamers don’t even care for Steam, or game launchers in general. But if you’re going to be forced into using one, wouldn’t it be nice if it delivered on modern expectations? Well, since its release, Origin has gotten a lot better, but compared to Steam, many would argue that it still has a lot of catching up to do (come on, EA, at least let us make simple backups of our games!).

There is one way to improve your Origin experience just a wee bit, though: Importing EA games you’ve either bought at retail or on Steam. Granted, this is going to have limited appeal, but there are a couple of perks. Own a game that supports co-op or multiplayer, but doesn’t require online access? Do I need to say more? Or, it could simply be that you need or want to install a game out of Steam for any other reason. Fortunately, if it’s an EA title, chances are good that you’ll be able to activate it on Origin and treat it as if you purchased it there.

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