Electronics Arts recently announced that their Origin system will be the only digital carrier of Star Wars: The Old Republic. That doesn’t mean that Origin will be a ‘Steam-like’ requirement for the game to run.
“While Origin will be the exclusive digital retailer for Star Wars: The Old Republic, that does not mean that Origin is required for you to access or play The Old Republic,” said BioWare community manager Stephen Reid. “Origin is a digital storefront, and the desktop application is there to give you quick access to Origin exclusives and deals. However, you won’t need to launch the Origin application to run The Old Republic, nor will you patch the game via Origin. Once the game is on your hard disk, you’ll be connecting to our servers to patch and launch the game, and Origin does not have to be running to do that.”
Source: swtor.com {link no longer active}
