EA Blames Dragon Age 2 Disappearance on Valve

[GrandmaFunk]

EDIT: And all this seems eerily similar to the TF2 console situation don't it? Microsoft wanted Valve to charge console players for DLC for TF2. Valve said no and walked away with all of it. So now the PC version of TF2 gets showered with DLC on a monthly basis while the console versions haven't even seen a drop of it for years, and they're still the poster boy company that can do no wrong.

it's not similar, it's almost the opposite.

Valve gives their DLC for free, but microsoft doesn't allow free DLC. Valve doesn't think it's console users should have to pay for something their PC users get for free so they refuse to sell it.


I don't get why you'd get all angry and hateful because the company is trying to give you stuff for free. /shrugs

 

[ecoho]

ok this is BS and it will hurt BF2 when it comes out but if you think this is gonna hurt the sells of ME3 im sorry to inform you but most of its sells have always been on consoles and now its on 2 instead of 1 so they lose 500k purchases (if the entire pc market doesnt buy it over it and i have my doubts) they will still sell over 5 million the first week if its good (bioware i swear if you screw this up...)

 

[Micalas]

It's funny because despite it's issues, DA2 was superior in many ways to DA:O.

 

[tautologico]

steam is not a prophet of chirst (which the greater PC gaming community believes valve to be), if they do something questionable or bad it means they're just as fallible as any other game company!

It may very well be that Valve is "in the wrong" here (these are business decisions, not really right or wrong).

But don't you think it's fishy that only EA games (and only recent and well-sold ones) are being pulled out from Steam? I've bought plenty of DLC outside of steam for games I owned in Steam, like Mass Effect 2. In this thread many people mentioned examples of games that sell DLC outside of Steam. Yet no one else is complaining and pulling their games from Steam.

You accuse people of blindly following and defending Valve, but maybe you suffer from the reverse problem, and your hatred for Valve/Steam is clouding your judgment.

 

[Not G. Ivingname]

Snip

What are Valve's rules for publishing a game on Steam?

 

[TheDooD]

This is damn low even for EA...

 

[Wolfenbarg]

If the article is right and Valve wants a cut of the DLC that EA included in-game, it undermines Project 10 dollar and they were right to leave Steam. Why should you have to purchase DLC for a steam copy through Steam when you could get it directly from EA? They were both getting greedy, but EA is completely in the right here.

 

[Shadow-Phoenix]

If this were a problem for me which it's not i'd go out and buy a hard copy since i will never be going to Origins side.

 

[Continuity]

I think the only relevant question here is Why doesn't EA just comply with the Steam rules, whatever they are, they can't be that onerous and EA is just loosing sales by not being on Steam... the only answer to this question is that EA is quite happy not to be on Steam, otherwise they would make whatever little effort is required to comply with the steam rules.

Why is EA quite happy not to be on Steam? there is only one answer: Origin.

 

[Danpascooch]

Valve has never taken this position with any other games from publishers that utilize their own distribution network, also Valve has nothing to gain from pulling the games if they didn't break contract because if anything that HELPS EA since their network will be the only place to buy it, they certainly aren't going to get more profits that way.

You obviously are not very attentitive now are you. Have you ever actually looked at the shit some of the valve fanboys spew out? Valve could literally come out and say ya we took it down because we dont like EA starting their on DD service and the fanboys would still blame it on EA.


The problem here is valve wants a cut of the money regardless of wether or not the dlc was sold through steam. EA said go fuck yourself and so valve is being a little child and removed the game. The reason this isnt happeneing to other companies is because they are all to small to argue with valve or they dont actually have their on DD service. Up untill now valve could basically say what ever they wanted and developers would be forced to agree to their terms because for some idiotic reason PC gamers worship steam like a god. EA is tired of valve being a greedy bastard and has finally challanged them on it.

You know why there are so many rabid Valve fanboys? Here's a clue, it's not because they covered a dartboard in developer's names, and threw a dart at it while blindfolded, it's because Valve has built up a reputation for being a fair and honest in their practices, and making quality software.

Steam allows a game to reach a wider audience, that service is literally worth money, and they deserve a cut of what gets put on it, that's how it works, EA is trying to use all of the advantages of Steam while cutting it out of the loop when it comes to contractually obligated profit sharing, and they were well within their rights to drop the game.

With EA's massive legal team, they would have to literally be retarded to not know they were violating the terms, but they did it anyway because they wanted the game exclusively on their service, and this was a convenient way to pull it from steam while clumsily trying to direct the negative PR at them. It's the only explanation that makes any sense

 

[Doom972]

OK, now I know EA is lying.
With the case of Crysis 2 they said Crytek made an agreement with a distributor that was a violation of Valve's terms. Fair enough - Even though they didn't specify what sort of term was violated.
This time - they say it's the DLC system. The same one that's being used for Mass Effect 2 and Dragon Age: Origins. These two games that are still on Steam.

Theory: When games are sold through distributors, the distributors get a big share of the money the consumer is paying. What EA wants is to sell the games at the same price and get both their regular share and the distributor share. They could sale these games at about 10$ less and make a great profit and thus make more people buy it online but they are just too greedy (plus there is that whole download limit shit that really makes it not worthwhile).

 

[Pinkamena]

Awwww, poor EA. Not.

 

[Max_imus]

Can't say this affects me very much, I prefer my games as "hard" copies, even though I'm probably one of a dying breed.

But this does reek of a publicity stunt for Origin. God help those who want to buy stuff there, EA is gonna find a way to make its DRM even more annoying...

 

[bjj hero]

I love how all of the valve fan boys cannot entertain the idea that valve are being shadey. EA's greed would not let it pull a title and lose sales for no reason.

 

[bootz]

2 Points
1. Bioware PC DLC is the hardest thing in the world to get. I have to find the web page (took me forever its not in the games)I found the sight from yahoo answers (it wasnt on google) sign for it (took me forever) Then I have to search for the DLC If I didnt want it really bad I wouldn't have gotten it. I had to buy points instead of just paying real money for the dlc. (they don't tell you how are link to buying the points) Its a Reallly Really bad waste of time. There is no way they are getting impulse buys.

If the did it through steam and it was seemless there sales would make up for the lost revenue given to steam.

2. BF3, I know My group of friends realreally wanted that game but we are not because its not on steam. They lost 6 sales just because of that. I love being able to join in a game with people but I don't want a seperate buddy list and background program for one game .

 

[Bags159]

You know, this whole Origin vs Steam, EA vs Valve thing is one of the few times I'm glad to be a lowely console player. I don't have to worry about where I will get my games.

EDIT: I'm not anti-PC gaming at all. I'm just saying that "Not having to deal with DD services is a plus for me"

I can see where you're coming from with that, but there is also the plus side of stuff like Battlefield 3 supporting 64 player multiplayer that makes it totally worth putting up with all of this bullshit. Hopefully the next line of consoles will be able to support that stuff.

You say 64 players like that's a lot.

Anyhow, other companies sell DLC through VALVe just fine.

Valve has never taken this position with any other games from publishers that utilize their own distribution network, also Valve has nothing to gain from pulling the games if they didn't break contract because if anything that HELPS EA since their network will be the only place to buy it, they certainly aren't going to get more profits that way.

You obviously are not very attentitive now are you. Have you ever actually looked at the shit some of the valve fanboys spew out? Valve could literally come out and say ya we took it down because we dont like EA starting their on DD service and the fanboys would still blame it on EA.


The problem here is valve wants a cut of the money regardless of wether or not the dlc was sold through steam. EA said go fuck yourself and so valve is being a little child and removed the game. The reason this isnt happeneing to other companies is because they are all to small to argue with valve or they dont actually have their on DD service. Up untill now valve could basically say what ever they wanted and developers would be forced to agree to their terms because for some idiotic reason PC gamers worship steam like a god. EA is tired of valve being a greedy bastard and has finally challanged them on it.

You know why there are so many rabid Valve fanboys? Here's a clue, it's not because they covered a dartboard in developer's names, and threw a dart at it while blindfolded, it's because Valve has built up a reputation for being a fair and honest in their practices, and making quality software.

Steam allows a game to reach a wider audience, that service is literally worth money, and they deserve a cut of what gets put on it, that's how it works, EA is trying to use all of the advantages of Steam while cutting it out of the loop when it comes to contractually obligated profit sharing, and they were well within their rights to drop the game.

With EA's massive legal team, they would have to literally be retarded to not know they were violating the terms, but they did it anyway because they wanted the game exclusively on their service, and this was a convenient way to pull it from steam while clumsily trying to direct the negative PR at them. It's the only explanation that makes any sense

Sounds right to me.

I love how all of the valve fan boys cannot entertain the idea that valve are being shadey. EA's greed would not let it pull a title and lose sales for no reason.

Uh, you do realize they have their own store platform now, right?

 

[newwiseman]

I hate Steam, and I won't list my reasons for so again when I have already ranted so many times before. Any new game that doesn't force me to use Steam is one that may actually get a purchase from me.

 

[Twilight_guy]

Well I know why they want to avoid steam for their DLC, money money, but Steam is more convenient for buying DLC in my mind. I don't like having to track down a website for each game to find DLC information, Steam centralizes it in the same way it centralizes browsing for games. I understand EA but I wonder if they'll wind up losing sales because of it and thus money.

 

[Krantos]

What "restrictive terms of service" was there exactly that prevents download off of Steam?

Steam requires all DLC for games to be purchased through them. EA is trying to cut the middle man out of their games by making the DLC purchasable through the games themselves. Any DLC purchased this way completely bypasses Steam, meaning Valve gets nothing from the sale.

Now, honestly, I would support EA in this if they sold DLC cheaper this way. They don't. All they're really trying to do is cut out the distributors. Given the fact that EA has started releasing 75% completed games and charging extra for DLC that should have been part of the main game..... You can see the issue.

Steam's entire reason for existence is as a Distribution client. Now, EA's trying to cut distributors out of the loop but still charging full price for DLC. That's a huge market share that EA is trying to keep to themselves.

Speculating a bit here, but my guess is, the reason the other distributors are allowing this is because they don't want to be locked out of EA games. If Impulse, for example, decided not to allow this, EA might just stop offering ALL their games over that client. That's not something they're going to do with Steam. It's just too popular.

 

[mjc0961]

Yeah, sure EA. I believe you! It couldn't at all be because Steam is the biggest digital marketplace and thus the biggest threat to your Origin service, and you think that taking your games off Steam while going "HEY GUYS WE HAVE OUR OWN STORE NOW IT'S CALLED ORIGIN HINT HINT" will get you more sales. Or rather, you're just purposely doing things you know will get your game pulled so you can blame Steam and look like the victim instead of outright pulling the games like you want and looking like dicks. Even though you pretty much look like dicks anyway.