EA Gets Ready to Throw Down With Steam - UPDATED

Abedeus

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Sep 14, 2008
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As long as they don't make 1 EUR = 1 USD bullshit like Steam did, I'm fine with whatever.
 
Nov 24, 2010
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Azaraxzealot said:
shrekfan246 said:
Azaraxzealot said:
BlacklightVirus said:
Azaraxzealot said:
valve DOES have a monopoly on the digital distribution side of sales when it comes to PC games
This statement is unjustifiable. To begin there are other digital distributors such as Direct2Drive which ensures that right now Valve does not have a monopoly. Also Valve nor any other online distributor has ever released statistics regarding their market share, however it is estimated at 70% for Steam, which is not a monopoly.
then what makes a monopoly? because i'm sure microsoft doesn't have THAT many people using their PCs when i see plenty of ironic 20-somethings using macs.
mo·nop·o·ly
   /məˈnɒpəli/ Show Spelled[muh-nop-uh-lee]
?noun, plural -lies.
1.
exclusive control of a commodity or service in a particular market, or a control that makes possible the manipulation of prices. Compare duopoly, oligopoly.
2.
an exclusive privilege to carry on a business, traffic, or service, granted by a government.
3.
the exclusive possession or control of something.

If Steam had a monopoly over the digital distributors, GOG, D2D, and even Amazon.com would not exist.
well its the most prominent, to be sure, and since even microsoft, ea, and a few other high-profile companies have called steam out as being a monopoly, i'm inclined to believe it.

now if you'll excuse me, i have a wedding to plan.
You can't make up meanings. Prominent does not mean monopoly. Microsoft and EA accusing Valve of something certainly does not make it true; in fact it is absolutely incorrect for them to be making those statements.

Also you should reference such a quotation.
 

Sinathor

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Mar 16, 2011
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Thankfully there's no point for me on using this as I dislike almost every game EA has released for the past 10 years. And they have quite nicely been going downwards every year. Steam <3
 

FieryTrainwreck

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Apr 16, 2010
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In other news: I'm buying ME3 from a store, skipping BF3 even though I was mildly interested, and buying no future EA-published games until they knock this crap off.

Did they decide Activision had plunged so far into the "fuck you, gamers" abyss that it was probably safe to pull some bullshit of their own?
 

Delusibeta

Reachin' out...
Mar 7, 2010
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I really don't buy EA's excuse, especially considering they were changing their site to say "Only digitally available via Origin" in relation to Crysis 2.

Abedeus said:
As long as they don't make 1 EUR = 1 USD bullshit like Steam did, I'm fine with whatever.
I would expect the EU Origin site to have an exchange rate of 1 EUR = 1USD.
 

CFriis87

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Jun 16, 2011
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Well if signing up for this Origin stuff means I'll finally get to update my copy of Bad Company 2 instead of just getting an unending stream of download errors (or corrupted files when trying to do a manual patch install to avoid the errors), then I'm all for it.
If I still have to use EA's lousy auto-updater then they've made no improvements whatsoever.
 

thom_cat_

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Nov 30, 2008
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BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAAHHAAHHAAHAH
Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaah.
Not gonna happen.

Basically, EA, the thing people hate, trying to take business away from Steam, something that is loved. How about no.
What would make me laugh is if this made PC gamers stop buying EA games.
 

Pandabearparade

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Mar 23, 2011
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Fluffles said:
What would make me laugh is if this made PC gamers stop buying EA games.
That's certainly the effect it's had on me. I was on the fence about getting Mass Effect 3 after the turd that was Dragon Age 2, and now I'm decided. Nope! No more EA garbage.
 

Hristo Tzonkov

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Apr 5, 2010
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lithium.jelly said:
Hristo Tzonkov said:
And boycotting their digital sales because they don't like the business getting monopolised?Cmon you're gonna miss out on awesome games
No, we're going to miss out on EA games. Generally mediocre, with the occasional flash of inspiration that quickly gets buried under too-expensive DLC and extremely poor customer service. And shoehorned-in mechanics that nobody likes - thermal clips for instance.
I'll buy ME3 in a bricks-n-mortar store because I want to see the end of Commander Shepard's story, but I don't plan on buying any EA game that requires me to use Origin.

[sub]Boycotting a big name publisher isn't all that hard - I've been ignoring all of Ubisoft's releases for a long time now and I'm more than willing to do the same to EA. There's plenty of great indie games to buy on Steam, after all.[/sub]
Being indie is a lifestyle choice it seems.Looks like I'm in the minority of people who enjoy EA games even their lolsome adds.
 

Dys

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Sep 10, 2008
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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.
 
Mar 2, 2011
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The one thing I'm curious about is if EA are going to have massive sales like Valve does... I'm not sure. For one, I doubt Origin will have the same size customer base as Steam does so there would be less viability for crazy ass sales.

Also, without sales, Origin would lose steam (excuse the pun).
 

008Zulu_v1legacy

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Sep 6, 2009
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Sean Strife said:
Yeaaaaaaaaaaaah... this idea's gonna tank. And tank horribly. They'll wind up going back to Steam once Origin fails miserably.
Games for Windows Live might disagree.

The big question, in fact the only question I can think of right now is;

"How intrusive will Origin be?"

I like that they called it "Origin" reminds me of the maniacal religion founded by those insane higher beings from Stargate.
 

B-Lavaunit

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Dec 4, 2009
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Irridium said:
why hasn't The Witcher 2 been removed for being on GoG?
GOG is actually owned by CDProjekt (or however you spell it). I would imagine that it is because it is available on other sites, like D2D that it was kicked, not on EA
 

mogamer

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Jan 26, 2010
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Competition with Steam is a good thing. And I really don't think it will hurt EA in the long run. Blizzard only uses it's own system for digital distribution and that certainly hasn't hurt them. EA is a lot bigger than Steam/Valve, and hopefully EA taking the steps to compete with Steam will cause other publisher/developers to grow a pair too and fully embrace other distributers or even sell directly.

The people who say that Steam can't be beat really don't know history. In every industry the big players early on usually become bit players or owned by another party who merely uses the older companies name by the time that industry matures. The reason is that those big guys end up getting the "my shit doesn't stink" attitude, which kills them in the end. And digital distribution still has a long way to go before it enters the mature phase. Plenty of time for new players with new ideas to enter the market. Maybe Origin won't make it. But hopefully it will give someone else an idea that will be successful and better for the consumer (which is what we all want, right?).
 

Andy Chalk

One Flag, One Fleet, One Cat
Nov 12, 2002
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Origin is a new service so there are bound to be some growing pains, and although I personally never buy digital (well, maybe on extremely rare occasions, although I can't think of any off the top of my head) I heartily approve of EA's effort to move into the digital space. In my eyes, it's like a new store opening; I can keep shopping at the old places I know and love but now I've got a new spot to explore and enjoy too.

And really, is market fragmentation really a factor if you never move from you chair while you hop from seller to seller?
 

Dragunai

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Feb 5, 2007
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Sean Strife said:
Yeaaaaaaaaaaaah... this idea's gonna tank. And tank horribly. They'll wind up going back to Steam once Origin fails miserably.
The 1st clue it was going to fail was that it was made by EA and thus will have more security leaks than Sony (High Fives) while maintaining all the functionality of the Titanic post iceberg (Double High Fives)

So kids, the moral here is. If you actually plan to support this idea expect to find you're personal details, credit card info and so on, on the internet before you can say "Lulzsec" while the software crashes because it is only half baked... like everything EA does.