I don't know what this is going to cost EA, but this may end up being a good thing. People hate Origin but more importantly, all their games are already on Steam, so they just continue to buy from Valve. This might get a few people to keep Origin installed on their computer and help the Origin network effect out. Up until now, EAs only strategy has been to make their big name franchises Origin exclusive. This will probably work better and may not end up costing them much.