Gametek said:
Dys said:
Everyone seems to think this is going to fail....I don't see how or why.
Steam may be the biggest service, but it's horribly flawed and generally way overpriced, it has apparently has restrictive limits on what developers can release (hence crysis being pulled). Assuming EA aren't flat out retarded, there service will succeed, at least as a medium for their own titles...If battlefield 3/the old republic/the sims/any of EAs other massive franchises are origin locked a lot of people will get origin.
Steam can be flawed all you like, but it's not so overpriced as you say. And for the restrictive limits of what Valve publish n it, Crysis 2 is the very first game they are pulling out. The story that Valve did so because the game signed up is distribution with another online down loader is fishy, as Steam is not the only one, and many other posses on their list the AAA game.
Nope, I'm pretty convinced that steam is offensively overpriced.
A quick look at their main page shows the following in the Australian region:
The witcher -$74US
Duke Nukem -$79.99US
Brink -$89.99us
red faction -$79.99
Even the rip off local department stores generally match those prices (or beat if you consider the cost of bandwidth), the more reasonably priced independent stores charge closer to $60au (~$63US) (which is well under the steam prices, and still more expensive than ordering overseas for $50au and paying a few $$s postage).
As for steam being flawed, while I'm sick of constantly pointing this to fanboys, it:
-Has a terrible update system that
installs files from packages that have not been completely downloaded (ie A game cannot be paused mid download and played)
-Does not store any user credentials on the machine (cannot re-log in if it's cache is cleared).
-infrequently (but frequently enough to be significant) crashes. This wipes the systems cache....
-forces its advertisements on users
-constantly updates
-reverts settings to 'default' options on some updates (including the 'do not update this game automatically option- great fun if it starts updating a single player game that you want to play but don't have the bandwidth to fully update).
etc.
Crysis 2 is not the first game to have been hurt by the conditions of steam. Usually, developers choose to use steam and submit to its agreements (as it's the biggest fish) and neglect the smaller platforms. That is why so many titles are absent or only have limited availability on the smaller platforms.
And, Ea is being a dick with is (PC) customer from so long that it's like they are trying to aid the piracy, let's forgot their commercial campaign [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/extra-credits/2794-An-Open-Letter-to-EA-Marketing], the fact that they don't sale you game but license -that they *have* the right to take away from me-, and usually look their customer as dork [want to see my inbox on the Ea forum? Well, you can't because I was banned because I start modding Dead Space 2!], on the Origin term of use there is politely write that blocking the download of the game more than 3 time in a time laps of ten day end up wasting a license for the game.
Valve have been dicks to PC
AND console games for some time. Remember the german kid they deceived into thinking he had a job then had arrested? How about them blasting PS3 gamers as inferior? What about
starting the trend of forcing draconian drm on gamers with steam?. Yes, EA have a track record of being assholes, but criticizing them for the "you don't own the game" train of thought while simultaneously defending valve is absurd - When steam first cropped up only a tiny portion of its users purchased their games through it, the system was designed as a DRM that forced users to register their game online and effectively stopped them from being able to trade in or resell their copys of half life 2. It worked rather well....
Again I say, while valve have successfully forced steam onto consumers, even convincing many that the service is a
good thing (which, despite it's flaws, it probably is) there's no reason why EA can't make their system workable (provided they are not stupid). People will buy popular EA franchises just as they bought the popular half life sequel. If the system is good[footnote]By good I mean "not so shit that it's completely unusable" (like games for windows live).[/footnote], and they are forced to use it anyway then it's hardly going to fail.
