While plenty of folks have a beef with EA's Origin, one Florida-based builder of custom gaming PCs has a particularly unique problem with the digital delivery service: People keep mistaking them for it.
Origin PC is not a digital delivery service. They are not affiliated with EA. They make quality gaming PCs and laptops, like the laptop I reviewed earlier this year, or the gaming rig Crecente purchased last year.
EA does not make gaming PCs. They make and publish video games for all the good little boys and girls. Games like Battlefield 3, which currently has PC gamers launching the Origin service on a regular basis.
But both deal with PCs and gaming, so Origin PC has been having a rough time of it, according to the company's marketing specialist Matt Fisher.
"We receive numerous phone calls and emails every week with people asking billing questions about the games that they ordered on Origin", Matt said. "We have to point out that they are calling ORIGIN PC, custom PC builder, and not EA Origin."
The issue extends beyond the workplace as well. Matt tells me employees on the street or at trade shows wearing Origin PC t-shirts have been stopped, asking if they work for EA. Other PC industry companies have inquired about a possible agreement or affiliation between EA and Origin. They've even had journalists set up meetings thinking they were going to talk about downloadable PC titles.
"Someone contacted us before Quakecon and asked for a meeting," explained Matt. "We asked them to confirm the subject matter prior to the meeting but they never did. We had time to meet with them so we scheduled the meeting and when they showed up they started asking a bunch of EA Origin questions."
To help Origin PC out, I've compiled a helpful little video to help people tell the difference between the gaming hardware builder and the PC gaming platform. It probably won't do much good, but I tried.
The only comfort I can possibly offer? At least they didn't call the company Scrolls.
You can contact Michael Fahey, the author of this post, at fahey@kotaku.com. You can also find him on Twitter, Facebook, and lurking around our #tips page.