Poll: Origin v Steam with battlelines drawn, where r u?

[Prince Regent]

So where's the "Powerd Sandwich Man" option.

But really I couldn't care less. Likely having more than one online distributer is a good thing. At least for the consumer anyway.

 

[Korolev]

I would like to know WHY people are so emotional: While it is natural to gravitate towards a service which is better for you (and so far I've seen nothing in Origin to make me want to prefer it over Steam), I don't understand the need for the emotional language being used in this debate.

Neither Steam or Origin are "evil" or "good". They are software services offered by private businesses. The vast majority of people on this forum have no financial ties to Valve or EA (especially not Valve as you cannot publicly invest in Valve). The vast majority of you didn't create either service or have any personal ties to anyone who did. Steam and Origin don't praise you on your grades, take you out for ice cream, sit with you on a rainy day and neither will attend your birthday party or wedding. These digital store fronts are just... lines of code. That's literally all they are.

Now, of course, I can understand why you would debate which service is superior - consumers obviously want the best available service. But to couch the debate in such emotional terms - why? What do you gain by calling either EA or Valve "Evil", when they are clearly just private software publishers/developers. Tell me exactly what moral rule has EA or Valve transgressed by offering these digital stores? Because I can't think of any moral rule being transgressed.

So EA wants a bigger slice of the pie from digital sales of its games. That's a greedy motive, but they're a business - what did you expect? And since it's THEIR games that they are talking about, why DON'T they have the right to distribute it in a manner that they see fit?

And so what if Valve pulled Alice Madness Returns or Crysis 2 from Steam? It's their service, and if the EA games violated those terms of service, don't they have a right to pull the games from the store? It's THEIR service - not EA's, not yours. They are the ones who made it and maintain it and decide what to put on it. What moral rule have they transgressed by removing Crysis 2 from Steam?

Right now there are children starving to death in Africa. Think about it. Get emotional over THAT. Not over which bits of code or digital store front for games you prefer. By all means debate which service is superior. But the level of hostility and scorn being expressed in this forum is unwarranted and illogical.

 

[Valiance]

I'm probably going to have both if necessary.

To be honest, I don't really like either or the concept of either, but hey, I can put up with them if I need them to play my games. I'd rather have a box, a disc, a manual, reference cards, whatever, but if I'm paying $10 for something someone else paid $50 dollars for, I think I can go without.

 

[mjc0961]

I hope origin crashes and burns.

Mostly because I have a deep loathing for EA.

This, and because the problem with EA keeping their games on one service that they run means they get to be like Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo and keep prices for their games insanely high due to no competition.

 

[aegix drakan_v1legacy]

I am a Steam Punk. (terrible pun intended)

I really like steam, and think that origin really doesn't stand much of a chance. Steam has a massive head start, tons upon tons of games, and ridiculous sales all the damn time. I honestly don't see how EA can hope to compete.

It's like Trying to dethrone WoW. It's gonna take monumental effort just to make it even!

 

[Jegsimmons]

all right heres what you do...you make a downloadable 3rd party action/war game for xboxlive, steam, psn, and origin. heres the catch, its cross platform and its a four way battle. which ever team dominates the servers is the winner. heres the best part, since the score boards all ways change and no one distributor can claim victory for more than a little while, there is always competition.


problem solved.

 

[XDravond]

Somehow I doubt that Origin stand a chance against Steam. To put it simple Origin EA's games, Steam Valve and loads of other (big and small publishers) who might win? I also kinda doubt EA's support and prices will stand a chance against Valve (love the huge sales on Steam... not sure about EA's thoughts on slicing of 75% on year old games or better..)

But still competition is great keeps Steam from staling to much.. so keep on going Origin but stop removing games from Steam thats just stupid and mean towards people that's already bought them there (thinking about problems with DLC and updates...)

 

[Rednog]

Yea...there is no point to draw "battlelines" steam sales are ok, I just buy from whoever gives me the better deal or use whatever platform I have to in order to run a game. Ever since I got screwed over by Vavle's region locking I really have no super love for them. Sure they win some people over with their sales, but they really have to change up their deals, seriously we've seen some of these games on sale over and over.

 

[teqrevisited]

Steam is infinitely better than Origin. It's a reckless venture which will only serve as a money sink.

 

[Smooth Operator]

Fuck indeed. Maybe they'll be availeble through retail without the need to install origen.

You are kidding right?
Origin will be a requirement on all EA games from this point on, they won't pass up on the opportunity to shove their money milker down everyone's throat.

Luckily some young men of the PC world always find ways to disable bullshit DRM, but on multiplayer you still get fucked.

 

[Da Orky Man]

That's all it is, a piece of software. Hard for me to get all "emotional" over lines of code someone else wrote.

I'll tell GLaDOS you said that.

 

[MetallicaRulez0]

I need only say 3 words to describe why Origin can go suck a dick as far as I'm concerned:

EA Download Manager
*shudder*

Unfortunately I'll likely be forced to do business with Origin since The Old Republic will not be available on Steam, and I'm far too lazy to go out at midnight and wait in line at Gamestop.

 

[DeathsHead419]

As far as I'm concerned they can both go right down the drain. I only buy physical copies of games, because I like actually owning things rather than owning them in theory and trust the internet as much as a dingy back alley.

I own precisely one steam game, Civilization V; and if I had known that it required steam installation twenty minutes before I was confronted by the steam installer on my screen, the number would still be zero.

 

[Bajinga]

I think if anything, Bioware is losing out with all of their sales here.
I hope that one day, they get rid of that horrible EA tag on their shoulders.

Edit: Steam is also pretty much cross platform with the PS3. Origins is going to need a lot more than motivation to get themselves to that standard.

Also, didn't EA work with Valve to get the Orange Box onto the PS3? Why do they feel a need to compete in a war that has already been won?

 

[ProfessorEkim]

Besides all this dispute over how EA's only hope is that you have to use Origin to play EA games, I know Steam will live long and prosper.

Valve is very community friendly, letting players mod their favorite titles, which can even lead to employment in the company, and games like Counter Strike, Team Fortress 2, etc.

EA on the other hand might try to hunt you down once word gets out that you modded one of their games only to fix an annoying bug.

 

[Wicky_42]

I've always wondered...

Why are amazon's prices for games ALWAYS lower than digital distrubution prices? It makes no god-damn sense.

Yeah, always find that amusing... pre-orders for a physical copy can often cost less than pre-orders on Steam - it makes no sense XD, and Amazon seems to be consistently lower than Steam for general sales. Of course, Steam's sales are just awesome, and take the point out of buying anything there at full price XD

OT, go Valve... despite the insidious lack of ownership you allow me... hmm, I guess I support them because I like them, whilst I don't trust any other publisher-turned-digital-distributor; Microsoft's attempt is a misery, and I honestly haven't heard much better from people's experiences of Origin.

 

[Scipio1770]

Onlive FTW!!

Seriously though as much as i like Valve, if Perlman's new DIDO tech works we're talking ultimate cloud gaming.

 

[Shoggoth2588]

I do enjoy some powdered toast...

but this doesn't really concern me. I stick to disc-based games...on consoles.

 

[easternflame]

FUCK EA AND THEIR DRM POLICIES.
No seriously, I don't want THE EA machine to succeed, they want to take down steam, a good, cheap service that allows indie devs to show and sell their games.
So yeah,
Down with the EA sickness

 

[Nouw]

Can't they just co-exist?

I'm supporting whoever gives me more free stuff, so currently Valve.

Valve gives us free-stuff? Isn't it cheap stuff? I mean they had Portal 1 for free once but were there any other times? Not sure myself.