Since launching in June EA’s own digital download service, Origin, has reached 4.2 million users worldwide, a figure that could well double in 2012.

Senior vice president of global online David DeMartini revealed the stats to Gamespot this week. His confidence in next year’s growth comes from EA’s plans to add features to the service like cloud saving as well as the arrival of a wealth of new EA titles like Battlefield 3 and Mass Effect 3 on the store.

“I would not be surprised if we experience another 100 percent growth over the course of the year in our users,” DeMartini said. “We’ve already processed more than 1 million transactions so far this year.”

In reference to third-party support on the service, he teased: ”In the very near future, we’re going to have some rather significant announcements with regards to some of the additional titles that will be available on Origin.

“We really do believe in a fair and open marketplace,” he added on the topic of removing certain games from Valve’s Steam service. “We strongly believe that customers should be able to buy a product wherever they want to buy the product. If they want to buy the paid DLC from some place other than where they bought the original product, they should be able to do that as well. And if they want to buy microtransaction content from somewhere else, they should be able to do that.”

As such, DeMartini confirmed that people who buy games on Origin will be able to buy DLC for that game via other outlets.

Expect Origin figures to shoot up towards the release of Battlefield 3 at the end of next month.

Posted: Sep 28, 2011 12:29 pm

Source: http://www.thatvideogameblog.com/2011/09/28/origin-users-at-4-million-could-double-in-2012/