EA Gets Ready to Throw Down With Steam - UPDATED

[Snotnarok]

Okay so let me get this straight...they want to make more money so they pull their products from a widely popular storefront to put in their new one...

Why not have them in both?

Edit: Seriously, when the game went on sale I was going to buy it, I'm not going to get a second downloader for them. This is going to be really embarrassing when they go to resubmit the game to steam a year or two from now.

And Mass Effect 3 sure as hell better not make this a mandatory install.

 

[Eireronin]

Am I the only person who doesn't think this is all bad?

Seriously insn't one corporation having a monopoly on a market a bad thing?
I don't think that EA's sudden diving headfirst into the market is a good idea and their record speaks for itself i.e. they have fucked up a lot, but personally I'm still happy to see that there's at least one company with the resources to try digital distribution giving it a go. Honestly am I the only person who's happy to see that Valve has some competition, even if that competition is the video-game company equivelent to a retarded cow.

 

[synobal]

and Valve is not competition??? i myself is not supporting EA (since they force you to paid for half the stuff on your game disc and just buy-out companies that make a few good titles and then shut them down)but Steam was back in the day hated by many people because they didn´t wan´t to start another program up.

Look at the games Valve publishes, and owns Portal, TF2, Half Life and L4D. Now look at how many games EA publishes and is produced by studios owned by EA.

Who do you see as your primary competitor? Who do you think will ensure that when you search for games in a specific category on their origin service their games pop up first. Who do you think will try to support third party games as well as their own. It's not EA.

 

[amucha98]

.

 

[w00tage]

I....think it's about time Valve/Steam had some competition. Any monopoly gets fat and lazy and starts to think they should keep getting money without putting in the effort to earn it.

By way of anecdote, I'm a Steam customer and won't buy any more games through them right now because they made promises to keep releasing updates for one of Valve's games, and haven't even patched critical game-ruining bugs (falling through elevator floors to your death n'stuff).

So I think they're right at the fat n'lazy stage as a company, and they need to be shaken out of it for their own good. A major bump in Direct2Drive and other platforms would be great, as well as an all-in-one utility for them (a la Trillian for all of the IM platforms) so that we consumers are spared their battles and can just buy and play what we want.

 

[PG]

Considering the fact that Origin is replacing EADM from which you could already buy their games, yeah this is gonna tank.

 

[spartandude]

Valve via steam kinda own PC gaming atm, also it has alot of fan support as many people see valve as good guys who put a sale on every other day
EA probably will very rarely do a sale (maybe at christmas if we're lucky) and they already have a bad reputation for completely banning a guys account when he bad mouthed EA's influence in DA2. EA will simply fail, especially as historically their PC titles dont seem to be the most stable

 

[spartandude]

I also think this idea of making their games only downloadable from origin (as well as retail copies) is kind of holding their audience captive and will earn bad publicity

 

[Irridium]

On one hand, Steam needs competition.

I don't really think they do. The purpose of market competition is to keep prices low and supply plentiful. Steam already has low prices and supply isn't a problem with digital goods. But I could just be missing something

Steam does have low prices. In the US.

But in the rest of the world, prices are much higher. And there isn't really a good reason for it.

 

[Segadroid]

oooh...

This is gonna be good. Better get some beers in as well.

Who will reduce your yearly sports updates now EA?

Mind if I sit along with you on that? Can't wait to see some heads roll.

Especially EA's own when they realise it's gonna bomb.

 

[drosalion]

I agree with many others that steam having some competition is only a good thing in the long run, and I actually see this as a good thing. Steam/Valve already have a pretty dominant monopoly on the market and thats NEVER good.

Whether or not EA is the best candidate for that competition is up for debate, but i personally dont see anything wrong with it. If they do have 150 games at the launch of origin then i could see them pulling in a great number of users to the service, especially considering some of the games that will undoubtedly be included in that group that will be gaurantee to pull in big numbers (Mass Effect 3, Battlefield 3, The Old Republic, to name just a few).

When Steam first came out everyone _hated_ it. It was absolutely terrible and it started out with a very small number of nothing but valve games on it. It took several years to get to where it is now and at an acceptable level where people actually are happy to use it. I dont see Origin being a success over night, but in a couple of years i think it'll work out better for everyone that there was some competition.

 

[LorienvArden]

That message just made my day.


Setting up competition in a saturated market with a clear dominance of a pioneer with better service, wider range of products, better publicity and support from other publishers. Sounds brilliant !
Antagonizing your customers by removing a game from Steam after its launch ? Sounds brilliant !

I experienced the loss of a game I bought from EA once - new online store after I bought a game from a store, couldn't play it because the f*ing DL code EA sold me in a solid case didn't work anymore. Refund ? EAre you mad ? Nothing !
Not even an apology, just a prewritten email that told me that my code was invalid and could not be used to dl the game. I should buy a new copy.

I hope that their Origin will prove to be their final destination as well.

 

[Aprilgold]

Am I the only person who doesn't think this is all bad?

Seriously insn't one corporation having a monopoly on a market a bad thing?
I don't think that EA's sudden diving headfirst into the market is a good idea and their record speaks for itself i.e. they have fucked up a lot, but personally I'm still happy to see that there's at least one company with the resources to try digital distribution giving it a go. Honestly am I the only person who's happy to see that Valve has some competition, even if that competition is the video-game company equivelent to a retarded cow.

You do realize that steam is mostly 3rd party based, so most games on there are 3rd party, I have an analogy just for this, lets say that Steam is a Wearhouse, and dev teams and publishers games were art, all of it up for bids, the art is being sold, a small bit goes to the building, rest to the publisher / dev team, having every major company making their own buildings with the same premise, but with only their art SEEMS ok until you realize, that having to click, log into and drive to all of these takes a while, lags up your day and is utterly making it harder JUST to play games you should be able to just FUCKING PLAY! Do you understand how this could go wrong now? I mean no hurt, man, but this IS a huge flaw with everyone stating that its not a bad thing, when really, other publishers will do the SAME THING EA is doing if it succeeds, causing way to many programs to run to play your own games, its going to be ridicuouls, waste money up the ass, KILL STEAM, and probably kill anything else caught in the cross fire, so it failing is a bigger YES, then it not.

 

[The Lugz]

Ea are just morons, they've made pr stunt after pr stunt, advert after advert, and now they're messing with their games and services.. they're just Over-active.. calm the crap down ea!!

and yes, i've had the ea down-loader fail to give me my crysis warhead so i refuse to buy ea software from ea.. stupid hua?

 

[spartandude]

Another disaster in the making. But EA is so full of themselves they can't even see how hard this is gonna fail. Either that or EA is gonna try shoving Origin down our throats until the bitter end. So much for customer service.

EA doesnt know the meaning of "Customer service", they once banned someones account permanantly (he would have to make a new account and buy everything again! to be able to play) because he bad mouthed EA for rushing Bioware on DA2, thats as friendly as they get

 

[Double A]

This would be a good idea if people actually liked EA as a company. And the only people who are even close to liking EA are generally console-only players because EA gives even more of its crap to PC players than console-owners. This is gonna take a dive, and fast.

So, what about people who bought it, and other EA titles on Steam? Will they still be able to play it?

Not exactly looking forward to how this turns out, since EA doesn't have the same amount of care for its customers that Steam/Valve does. As evidence by how they say they have the right to ban you from playing your games if you say something naughty in their forums.

And what the hell is with EA challenging everything lately?

Because it's EA: Challenge Everything.

 

[Somebloke]

Competing with better service: fine, great.
Competing by *forcing* customers to come to you, through exclusives... Well, that just says: "Yep, we're evil, you got it allright", doesn't it?

Not that the pot and the kettle shine all that differently.

 

[ascorbius]

This is why I hate the idea of a service where you're not in charge of how you play a game.

With a DVD, you're the boss.. you're also responsible for updating it.
With Steam, you need to be authenticated against a service which has to be available (which will only be available while their business model holds up - it's done well for 10 years because of the Halflife Universe - without any real competition...)

With Origin, again you need to be authenticated against a service which will be dropped like a hot rock as soon as the EA Execs decide that it's not making as much money as they hoped.

If Steam or Origin end, how will you play your games?

Also, consider this... It occurs to me that there is a very real risk that this generation of games will disappear into the ether with no way to play them as soon as their service shuts down or if they're dropped by their service when no longer making any money.

There will be no retro gaming with this generation of PC titles.

 

[synobal]

Can't tell if they're covering their asses or if it's true that this is a Steam decision, not one of theirs. [http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-20071213-1/updated-eas-crysis-2-new-alice-game-gone-from-steam/]

So the story on IRC is it happened something like this. Crytek signed a deal with EA to only support the Origin version of Crysis 2 with future updates (bug fixes) and DLC. Rather than sell a game that is gimped and won't be receiving updates or any more support from it's developer only because of the fact it's on steam. Valve decided to remove it from their catalog.

 

[Zeraki]

I seriously can't find the words to describe this stupidity accurately. They might as well have shot themselves in the face with a ten gauge.

.

Also, if Mass Effect 3 is Origin-exclusive, there will be blood.

Or at least, you know, angry spittle.

I'm sure it will be, since Mass Effect is BioWare's biggest franchise right now. If I were getting the PC version, I'd be a little murderously enraged.