Electronic Arts which is known to have produced so many reputed PC games has jumped on to the Social Media bandwagon in a big way. The company has launched a Social Gaming Network with a cross-platform twist to it, which means users users can access this new gaming social network to interact with friends and post their game score for games played both on the desktop computer and their mobile phones.

Origin - Social Gaming Network from EA (Electronic Arts)

Titled Origin, the gaming network doubles up as your game store as well as social network. So you can purchase games from your mobile phones meant for the Desktop and download them later and vice-versa. This digital distribution part directly competes with other popular game distribution networks such as Valve (of Counter Strike fame).

Another cool thing which you can do, with the games that are compatible both on Desktop and mobile platforms, is that you can save your current gaming state in one platform and continue from where you left, in another platform. Scrabble is one game which has this capability. Suppose, you were playing a game of Scrabble on your desktop and need to go out, you just have to save it on Origin, and you can continue playing it on your iPad while you are on your way to work.

With Origin's social network capabilities, you can find and add your friends to your network, play various Games with them, compare your scores and let other friends know what all games you are playing. Not only this, you can also share your scores with your other friends on Facebook & Twitter.

In-fact you can import your friends into Origin right away from Facebook! All this can be done both from your desktop and your mobile device (Android, iPhones, iPads etc.) Cool, isn't it?

During the launch of Origin, EA's Senior Vice President Chip Lange demonstrated the Need For Speed Shift 2 game on an iPhone and an iPad and also showed how the scores get updated on the universal Origin leaderboard once you finish playing a session of the game.

This new social gaming network from Electronic Arts will definitely have some impact on the already existing gaming networks like OpenFeint and Valve. OpenFeint is more famous among the gamers on Apple devices and has been integrated in to many popular games. However, EA need to show developers a way to have their games listed on the Origin network else Origin will remain limited only to the games developed by EA.

Do, let us know about your opinions in the comment section.

via UberGizmo