I recently upgraded my PC (old one was 10 years or so and had an i3), and I was thinking about getting some games for it now that I can actually run them. One game in particular is Battlefront EA, but I was concerned about the required Origin DRM, as I have heard accusations of Origin having spyware. Is Origin still that bad? I'd rather play Battlefront EA and Battlefront EA II on PC than console because I don't play online enough to make PlayStation Plus or Xbox Live worthwhile. Thank you, and please discuss.

I don't think it's that bad. I use it to play SIMS 2, and I can pretty easily do that in 'Off Line' mode which is very very nice and simple to turn on, or is it off? :P

There are other things you can sign up for in there but screw that; those other things are what look to be DRM heavy and so long as those are optional I'm pretty happy.

as for games not terrible as some people blieve although you need need internet anyways if your playing multiplayer games as for single player most games don't require it but for a few Always-on DRM is terrible though and dumb worse then just plain DMR which is mainly so you don't pirate and such

"As of October 2015, always-online games with single player modes that now have had dead servers for six months and longer are now exempt from DMCA prohibitions on circumventing copyright protection.[11]" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Always-on_DRM

EA does have games that require online like Command & Conquer4 but titanfall2 has single player which you can play offline

I don't know the specifics of the DRM attached because I've only really played Mass Effect 3 via origin, but the client itself is complete trash.

The somewhat recent update is the cause of it all. It underwent a major revision in style and whatnot. Version 10 I think was the number. Since that update I was getting constant friends list problems (not rendering, constant spinning circle, telling me online people are off and offline people are on), problems with games "not in your library" when connecting to friends games, and general "it runs like shit" problems.

An example of the last bit: I had fraps running to tweak some game or another. I went into origin to talk to someone and noticed that fraps seemed to think that Origin was a game that should have its FPS measured.
The act of typing lowered the framerate to 40 FPS.
The. Act. Of. Typing.
Typing.
Into a chatbox.
40 FPS.

Granted I'm running a shitty laptop with a lowly i3 and 4 gigs of ram, but still, this is supposed to be something that runs in the background not taking up a lot of resources.....

It will probably be a long while before I purchase an Origin only game.

My experience with Origin DRM (including on the Command & Conquer Ultimate Collection) is that it doesn't get in the way and it isn't a big problem. It doesn't use kernel drivers or other things that slow down your system if you aren't running Origin (in my experience anyway) and the DRM itself isn't hugely intrusive (on the games I have played, its clear the DRM isn't doing anything at runtime or slowing things down during gameplay)

Obviously on newer more important titles there may be additional DRM on top of what I have seen,.

My personal experience of Origin is that it is more Family Friendly that Steam, as when a second instance of Origin is launched the first will be put into offline mode with out affecting the game currently being played.

I've been told it does affect some games, but none I've got and not ALL as steam does.