It seems like just about two weeks ago that EA Senior VP of Global Ecommerce David DeMartini was telling GamesIndustry International that he thought Steam's practice of frequently offering deep discounts for certain games "cheapens your intellectual property." We suppose that means we should consider a good deal of the intellectual property on EA's Origin digital store cheapened today, as the UK branch of service is offering over a dozen games for as little as £5.

The list of discounted titles, as reported by RockPaperShotgun, includes first-party titles like Mirror's Edge, Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit, and Battlefield: Bad Company 2 as well as games from EA's third-party partners such as Batman: Arkham Asylum and Darksiders.

While DeMartini didn't entirely dismiss the idea of discounting games on Origin in his interview, he said specifically that Origin customers shouldn't expect "75 percent off going-out-of-business sales." It's interesting that he cited that specific number, because four titles are being offered at precisely that discount from their normal digital pricing today, with a fifth, Dragon Age: Origins, being discounted by an even steeper 87.5 percent. It's hard to fault EA for the turnaround, though, given the strong evidence that reduced prices often lead to increased revenues for older downloadable titles.

EA doesn't seem to be offering similar discounts for American Origin customers currently, but the US service already offered many titles at prices remarkably cheaper than those on the other side of the Atlantic. Dragon Age: Origins, for instance, was recently listed at £39.99 (about $62) in the UK, compared to a $20 price in the US. American customers can get half off select games on the service by pre-ordering an upcoming title, however.