Mass Effect 3 Gives Steam a Miss at Launch
- Thread starter Logan Westbrook
- Start date
I'm not such a fan of the Bioware Points, but I think the argument loses it's weight when you consider that Valve only got it's panties in a twist because it's those and not Steambucks. The whole deal is silly, and exactly the wrong reason to fracture these services either way. As an aside I sort of hate how Steam sells DLC "on the shelf" alongside full games, clutters up the store and makes me wish everything was handled in client.Irridium said:
There was already a forum post about this, so I'm just pasting in my previous response:
Yeah, I find it extremely odd how no one seems to remember how Steam was back when it began. And, if I remember correctly, many people were having similar knee-jerk reactions to it, declaring it spyware (which many people still do), dirty DRM, etc. (By the way, have any of you actually tried to see what Origin "takes" from your computer? These guys did.)
Whether or not people like it, EA has seen the writing on the wall. They know that physical retail won't be around for much longer, and decided that they want to be the first of the big publishers to get into the digital market, with the PC side being their test area. Over the course of the next couple of years (or perhaps even by the end of this one), they'll move their digital distribution to different platforms, with the eventual goal of drastically reducing or even eliminating physical sales of their games.
They also are aware that these first few years are not going to be pretty. Gamers, as they have shown in the past, are crazy averse to any changes in their hobby; a fact, of which, EA has been made aware of more times than you can count. They're betting that, like Steam, it will slowly ease into a space within the digital market that makes the service profitable, once the doomsday naysayers stop believing that EA is out to get them.
EA is only the first. Within the decade, I envision at least 2-3 other big-name publishers releasing their own digital distribution systems, as well as removing any and all support from Steam. It was fun while it lasted, but Valve won't always have the monopoly on the digital market. There will be legitimate competitors who will attempt to take a slice of that delicious digital pie that Gabe has enjoyed all on his own.
Yeah, I find it extremely odd how no one seems to remember how Steam was back when it began. And, if I remember correctly, many people were having similar knee-jerk reactions to it, declaring it spyware (which many people still do), dirty DRM, etc. (By the way, have any of you actually tried to see what Origin "takes" from your computer? These guys did.)
Whether or not people like it, EA has seen the writing on the wall. They know that physical retail won't be around for much longer, and decided that they want to be the first of the big publishers to get into the digital market, with the PC side being their test area. Over the course of the next couple of years (or perhaps even by the end of this one), they'll move their digital distribution to different platforms, with the eventual goal of drastically reducing or even eliminating physical sales of their games.
They also are aware that these first few years are not going to be pretty. Gamers, as they have shown in the past, are crazy averse to any changes in their hobby; a fact, of which, EA has been made aware of more times than you can count. They're betting that, like Steam, it will slowly ease into a space within the digital market that makes the service profitable, once the doomsday naysayers stop believing that EA is out to get them.
EA is only the first. Within the decade, I envision at least 2-3 other big-name publishers releasing their own digital distribution systems, as well as removing any and all support from Steam. It was fun while it lasted, but Valve won't always have the monopoly on the digital market. There will be legitimate competitors who will attempt to take a slice of that delicious digital pie that Gabe has enjoyed all on his own.
Internal use: take system specs/other personal information and plug them into oddly specific metrics.octafish said:
Those oddly specific metrics are now a product of EA that you do not have a stake in. EA then sells the information from those oddly specific metrics just like Facebook does.
Come on now, you cant be THAT dense...
[edit] Shado, you may have missed Activision doing something similar but much less intrusive a year before EA did. And Valve was the first. EA is just a large corporate gorilla with grabby hands.
thats why i dont get my self this game. really a shame. ?A really f***** it up with their spyware origin.
of course they dont like steam, because steam knows how to treat customers right and ?A wants to spy on other peoples pcs. ?A policy is to screw the customer and suck all the money out.
really a shame with ME3, was so looking forward to it. but i will not have origin on my pc.
of course they dont like steam, because steam knows how to treat customers right and ?A wants to spy on other peoples pcs. ?A policy is to screw the customer and suck all the money out.
really a shame with ME3, was so looking forward to it. but i will not have origin on my pc.
Because Steam has gone through it's growing pains and proven itself a useful drm scheme through sales, social intwinement/engagement, and conveniences such as autopatching and cloud support.Daymo said:
Origin could grow into something nice but it'll take time and nurturing. Something I'm not sure that EA is going to give it yet.
They sure have been slack with the engagement portion.
I'll be honest. It's annoying, and I'm disappointed. It isn't Bioware's fault, it's the buttmonkeys over at EA that are the problem. The only thing I want to know, is if I can uninstall Origin after activation. Still waiting priestly's answer on that. If so, great, no problem for me. If not... Ugh. I'm not gonna cancel my pre-order, but I'm going to be running origin in offline mode, and it's only going to get started up when I play ME3.
I'll be running ME3 and Origin behind a Virtual Machine. Suck it E.A, suck it and your bloated spyware.
Ya, id bee fine with this if origin wasn't bugged severely. I have over 20 games on steam all have always worked. I have 2 games on orgin, which I bought a t a store. Neither work and I refuse to spend anymore time with their help service. I am done with Orgin, ill play it on console.
And yet another reason why I haven't bought any ea titles since DA2 came out. Ea, calling Valve the bad guys? Fail, so, hard.
So? Who says they can't trade the info away or give it away for free on the promise of a returned service or favour later down the line?octafish said:
I am all for Origin. I don't like it as much as Steam, but I do like that fact that they are at least trying to get PC gamers money. At least they are showing attention to us and recognizing that the platform is not dead or dying.
But for the love of god can they just fess up already. It's not on Steam because they are competing with Steam and they don't want Valve to make money on their game. That's totally cool and fair. But just say that, it sounds so obvious an fair that I don't think anyone will say otherwise. It is the weird way that they are trying to hide something that make people angry and suspicious.
Honestly it is like if the police show up at a dudes house, and he wouldn't let them look inside, was trying to hide his hands, tried nervously to laugh things off, and blamed a bunch of shit on his neighbor across the street who always has nicer Christmas lights. The cops get suspicious pound down his door and find out he just really didn't want them to know he was making cookies for a bake sale.
No one is mad at you for making money EA, we are mad at you for being weird about it.
But for the love of god can they just fess up already. It's not on Steam because they are competing with Steam and they don't want Valve to make money on their game. That's totally cool and fair. But just say that, it sounds so obvious an fair that I don't think anyone will say otherwise. It is the weird way that they are trying to hide something that make people angry and suspicious.
Honestly it is like if the police show up at a dudes house, and he wouldn't let them look inside, was trying to hide his hands, tried nervously to laugh things off, and blamed a bunch of shit on his neighbor across the street who always has nicer Christmas lights. The cops get suspicious pound down his door and find out he just really didn't want them to know he was making cookies for a bake sale.
No one is mad at you for making money EA, we are mad at you for being weird about it.
shado_temple said:
I think the biggest problem here is that Valve gives the feeling that they're not a bunch of businessmen trying to make money off of something they don't really care about.
EA hasn't done that very well.
Looking at what valve has done, and what games valve has released, and then comparing it to EA, you can see how some people may be distrusting of leaving their entire digital library in EA's hands.
Valve created what a lot of people consider as some of the best games of all time, like the half-life series and portal. They've always shown that they care about making good games. Look at TF2. It's deadline was like a decade ago, but they delayed it to make sure it was a good game. They took forever, but the result was amazing. Yeah sure they had their greedy moments (left 4 dead 2), but they generally show that they care about their games.
Then look at EA. While they do make good games, a lot of people remember them as that company that sells slightly upgraded sports games every year for full price.
And personally i still blame them for dragon age 2. The game screamed "i was going to be a good game, but they didn't give me enough time. I hope you don't mind all these cut corners".
I don't believe that EA would put spyware in their program, but that doesn't mean i can trust EA to handle my game for me. Especially after the little banning spree they had.
Is anyone really surprised over this? EA wants to be in control of the sales of their PC games and choose to not share the market with their biggest competitor? From a financial point of view this makes perfect sense, they're trying to make their service more popular than Steam and that wont work unless they got exclusive titles. Saying that Steam is too restrictive is a load of crap though. If that was their problem they would never release it to Xbox since Microsoft makes companies pay to patch a game which is why the PC and the Xbox 360 version of Team Fortress 2 are so incredibly different.
EA has proven that they're not averse to removing your ability to play a game that you've payed for because you said something mean about them on the internet. Why would I want to give them control of my game library, when I can't trust them?
MisterShine has a quick easy answer for you:rudolphna said:
MisterShine said:
Anyone else feel that their year would be made if GOG announced that they were selling it as one of their "new games"...? Oh well, I can dream 
I would have bought it in a heartbeat on Steam as an absolute lover of the first two games, but to be frank I just don't want to sign up for any more processes than I have to. I trust Steam because of Steam Guard etc etc but Origin..? No.
So I guess that this, combined with finals and money, mean that I'll be giving ME3 a miss for a long long time. Maybe I'll get Jade Empire or a different Bioware game instead to tide me over. Because I have nothing against them, just recent EA policy.
I would have bought it in a heartbeat on Steam as an absolute lover of the first two games, but to be frank I just don't want to sign up for any more processes than I have to. I trust Steam because of Steam Guard etc etc but Origin..? No.
So I guess that this, combined with finals and money, mean that I'll be giving ME3 a miss for a long long time. Maybe I'll get Jade Empire or a different Bioware game instead to tide me over. Because I have nothing against them, just recent EA policy.
