Well, it's a situation where the perception of a conflict is bad, but I think it does exist. You can't do the things EA has done without there being a conflict.
At the end it's about money, basically EA wants to make monster profits off of each individual game they sell, STEAM seems to be increasingly about volume sales. Things STEAM does like put all of thier games up for deep discounts doesn't fit with EA's vision of increasingly raising prices and asking for more and more money which goes directly into profits. From the way things look from the outside, I'm not entirely sure that those who are on STEAM's platform really get a choice about what games go on sale and for how much. While I could be wrong about that, I've picked up a few things here and there about companies being unhappy with games being discounted like 50% a few months after release. This isn't to say that STEAM isn't pretty greedy on it's own, it's simply a differant strategy, on how to make money, a few big ticket items or volume sales for a much smaller profit, it's ironic here because we're seeing this conflict on the same basic profit. EA is kind of right (irregardless of what kind of say they might get) that STEAM does devalue IPs, by showing what they are actually worth, and presenting them as a volume item rather than a high priced luxury item.
There is also the issue of control, and simply put everyone in the industry right now wants to be "that guy" that controls the platform and has the power. STEAM being so entrenched means hat it remains pretty much in control of digital distribution, and companies are more or less forced to compete with their business model.
EA does have a valid point though about patches and updates and such, from various things I have read, it would be nice if STEAM did make it a bit easier for companies to work on their games, at least for patches. There has been a few annoying moments where a company has had a patch up, but I had to wait to get it for the steam version.
