It's actually E A Sports, it's in the game!, not Challenge Everything (I think that's the old EA slogan, it was in Battlefield 1942 at leastGamingAwesome1 said:
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EA Gets Ready to Throw Down With Steam - UPDATED
- Thread starter Andy Chalk
- Start date
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Taken from a purely-pragmatic point of view: Exclusives are exactly what EA needs to launch Origin.Undead Dragon King said:
What incentive do I have to play on EA's Origin when I can get it somewhere else without their bullshit attached to it? I can practically guarantee that it will be much more intrusive than Steamworks (based on EA's previous attempts at enforcing draconian DRM).
Also, it might not be up to Valve. EA owns the rights for licensing their published games. Unless they're already locked into a contract with Steam (with the appropriate inescapable clauses), they can choose who does and does not get to market their game on a First Sale Basis.
I agree that from a purely economic standpoint that EA should not limit sales to their new system, but at the same time they have just created their own conflict of interest in doing so, at least in comparison to Steam.
They may make an exception for Mass Effect 3, but certainly not for all of their future titles afterwards.
Perhaps a more appropriate comparison could be made to Blizzard's Battlenet 2.0, which sounds functionally similar to Origin.
Brink already tried compeating with an established valve product. In the end, it came nowhere near as awsome as TF2. So what makes EA think this will do any better against steam?
The fact that EA doesn't wish to discuss Steam's required agreements makes me want to side with Steam. I hate these sorts of shoddy press releases where they give just enough information to make it sound like they're in the right. Come on guys, until you let us know WHY you conflicted with Steam's agreement, it really speaks poorly about you. And even if releasing these details causes some blame for you, at least do it so we can say you handled it without deception. I'd rather hear "We nullified the contract, but it was a business decision" than "We're going to be just vague enough to make you think it's all Steam's fault".
However, whatever the case may be, I'd love to see a modern Digital Distribution system that will be able to compete with Steam. You know, one that isn't utter garbage [http://www.gamesforwindows.com/en-US/].
However, whatever the case may be, I'd love to see a modern Digital Distribution system that will be able to compete with Steam. You know, one that isn't utter garbage [http://www.gamesforwindows.com/en-US/].
Let's see, Steam, which is owned by Valve, a superb gaming company with outstanding customer support and a nearly flawless library of games, has near-constant sales, promotes the indie developers, and is safe and reliable.
If EA thinks it stands a chance against the company that made perhaps one the greatest single-player FPS' ever made, then every person in that company deserves a gold-plated Darwin award before they are annihilated by their own stupidity.
If EA thinks it stands a chance against the company that made perhaps one the greatest single-player FPS' ever made, then every person in that company deserves a gold-plated Darwin award before they are annihilated by their own stupidity.
Ah ha, it's all so clear now, nearly had me fooled there EA... You tricky bastardsbombadilillo said:
The plot thickens...and the Valve fanboys keep cheering on the monopoly while remembering EA is always evil of course.
Oh, my bad, i hit the part about 3 computers and stopped readingsynobal said:
Now in this case it is a truly fucked up system
Ya I mean downloading a game takes at least 3 or 4 hours for me typically, and I'm not allowed to restart the download later with out using up 3 of my ten installs? It seems to me EA has put the cart in front of the horse. Get your DRM solution fixed and user friendly before you launch a digital distribution service. There was a reason why EADM didn't work it was because it sucked. Rebranding a turd still makes it a turd.Bonelord said:Oh, my bad, i hit the part about 3 computers and stopped readingsynobal said:
Now in this case it is a truly fucked up system
THERE we go! Exactly the thing I was looking for. This can't possibly be considered an unreasonable request. I mean, it's possible that Steam could make the patch addition difficult, but what reads stronger to me is that EA are only committed to providing the best product to customers who deal exclusively with them. Which, of course, means that Steam removing the game from their lineup is perfectly reasonable, as keeping it implies they would otherwise be offering an inferior product through no fault of their own.synobal said:
And Blizzard is wondering why most of South Korea is still sticking with the original Starcraft...Atmos Duality said:
Despite EA's idiotic sales tactics, the only thing that they're concerned about is the bottom line. That's why they launched Origin in the first place- they want a bigger cut of distributor prices than what they were getting for their games on Steam. However, Origin is next to unknown compared to Steam, and limiting hot games to it would hurt sales. And a comparatively smaller cut of the sales is better than no sales at all.
I agree that EA might make an exception to Mass Effect 3's exclusivity, and its odds are better than many people think. EA is running exclusive download disribution rights on The Old Republic as a field test for how effective it can be. This is very risky, as MMO sales and subscription fees literally keep the game alive. EA has dumped more money into this game than any other of its titles, so it might be killing TOR before it even began with this tactic. Perhaps in order to save such an enormous investment they'll be forced to crawl back to Steam for increased ranges of sales. At least they'll still get the subscription fees. And if it fails, Mass Effect 3 will be up on Steam.
Or I could be wrong about this. Perhaps Origin could take off to a flying start thanks to TOR's exclusivity. If it does, you can bet that Steam won't be seeing Mass Effect 3. And, personally, I won't be too bothered by it. I think that many gamers just love complaining about trivial little things like where they get their games from. My library consists of games from Steam, Gamersgate, Direct2Drive and Gog.com. And I'm sure that plenty of others have diverse sources for their PC libraries. For me it won't be a big deal to add one more distributor to where I get my games.
In the end, it comes down to how well TOR will do on Origin.
Oh dear EA, i'm afraid you won't have me as a customer... this is the same issue i had with ME1, i'd installed it too many times on the same machine mind you, it was just that my machine at the time was abit unstable and also i did like replaying it quite abit, my copy is now ruined, i have to run a cracked .exe just to play a game i legally brought.synobal said:
As for Origins, unless they can compete with Steam price wise i more than likely will never go with them, i prefer Steam automatically now just because of what happened with my ME1, i'm not going through that again unless i absolutely have to (as in if Steam doesn't have ME3, the stores and other vendors are very expensive in comparison).
So i take it all EA games are being pulled from Steam now if one of theres has this issue then i'm sure all the others would (unless they sign an individual contract for each game), if they do i think there fools considering Steam is pretty much the biggest.
The problem is it won't fail. If horrible things like GFWL still exist I can't imagine this will die.Sean Strife said:
