EA Gets Ready to Throw Down With Steam - UPDATED

[drosalion]

According to the statement from EA, EA had nothing to do with its removal:

"It's unfortunate that Steam has removed Crysis 2 from their service. This was not an EA decision or the result of any action by EA.

Steam has imposed a set of business terms for developers hoping to sell content on that service ? many of which are not imposed by other online game services. Unfortunately, Crytek has an agreement with another download service which violates the new rules from Steam and resulted in its expulsion of Crysis 2 from Steam.

Crysis 2 continues to be available on several other download services including Origin.com."

 

[Projo]

And what the hell is with EA challenging everything lately?

I see what you did there

 

[Wharrgarble]

I find it hilarious they actually think this will work. No, seriously.

They'll be back to Steam so fast it'll make their heads spin.


Edit: So Valve is the reason Crysis 2 was pulled. Oh well, doesn't change the facts that this will not work out for EA.

 

[synobal]

According to the statement from EA, EA had nothing to do with its removal:

"It's unfortunate that Steam has removed Crysis 2 from their service. This was not an EA decision or the result of any action by EA.

Steam has imposed a set of business terms for developers hoping to sell content on that service ? many of which are not imposed by other online game services. Unfortunately, Crytek has an agreement with another download service which violates the new rules from Steam and resulted in its expulsion of Crysis 2 from Steam.

Crysis 2 continues to be available on several other download services including Origin.com."

It's a pretty vague answer and I wouldn't be surprised if it was a load of BS.

What exactly was the violation? Was the agreement with EA to lower their price on the origin system, and not allow sales on steam? If so I can understand why Steam would remove the game. You don't want to sell a game for 60 bucks that Origin is selling for 30 and you're not allowed to lower the price on.

 

[NickCaligo42]

Yeaaaaaaaaaaaah... this idea's gonna tank. And tank horribly. They'll wind up going back to Steam once Origin fails miserably.

XD

Couldn't have put it better myself. Boy, EA sure must hate making money.

 

[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