By Lewie Procter on July 11th, 2011 at 9:38 am.
Over the weekend, or at least I noticed it over the weekend, EA stuck up “A list of digital retailers who will be selling Battlefield 3″ onto Battlefield.com. I had a good look at it at, but it’s curiously now been taken down. It included the likes of Gamersgate, Impulse, Direct2Drive, and EA’s own (sort of) brand new download service, Origin. Nearly 100 different digital distributors were listed in total, but conspicuous by its absence, it seems there are currently no plans for Battlefield 3 to be made available on Steam.
Here we go. It’s the next chapter of the ongoing kerfuffle between EA and Valve. We don’t actually know for certain that Battlefield 3 won’t be announced for a Steam release at a later date, but Steam was not on the now removed list. I asked a bloke from EA about it, and they have nothing to say except to keep your eye on the official website for news about the game. Hmm.
Maybe this list will resurface with Steam on it at a later date, but my gut is suggesting otherwise. I can’t remember EA having ever previously put together a list like that, so it feels like they’re going out of their way to make a point.
It’s interesting to note that this is not an example of EA securing Battlefield 3 as an Origin exclusive, like with The Old Republic. From the looks of things it is going to be sold anywhere else that will take it. They seem to be living up to their promises of wanting to offer consumers a broad choice of where to buy games from, but that’s little consolation to customers who might not be able to buy Battlefield 3 from their go to digital distributor.
There’s plenty of signs suggesting this is part of Valve and EA’s disagreement about DLC stuff. Is Battlefiled 3 going to have DLC that is only compatible with copies bought from Origin? It wouldn’t be a first for EA/DICE, the Mirror’s Edge Mario Galaxy map pack only works on retail and EA Store copies of the game.
Or could it be something else? Obviously BF3 is still going to be getting a retail release (how else would they arrange retailer exclusive DLC?), but I have my suspicions that perhaps future EA games will require Origin for installation. They’ve dabbled with this in the past, where certain retail games could be optionally registered on EA Store, but mandatory installation via Origin would be a good way for them to get their client installed on a whole load of PCs. Requiring a separate client being installed for patches and/or buying DLC could be something that is against Valve’s recently updated terms, whereas plenty of the other digital distributors already do essentially that for Steamworks games, so would (presumably) have no problem selling games that require Origin. Will that big list of outlets just be selling serials to plug into Origin?
A point about Origin that should not be missed in all of this: Origin could be argued to appear like a rebranded EA Store, which had been going for years. Poking around the Origin website, they still link to their (now dead) @EAstore twitter account, which then links to the @OfficialOrigin, which then again links you to the actual one they decided to use: @origin_EA. They should probably fix that. (Update: They have done).
I’d much prefer to have seen the energy that’s gone into rebranding their service, focused on developing it. The client is good enough, just about, but updating it is always more of a hassle than it should be, it’s kind of slow to navigate, if you want to download and install a 5gb game you need 10gb free space, and when buying PC games that have a Mac version you only get the PC version. Maybe they could be offering features like cloud saving, or international pricing parity (since they own the entire distribution chain for Origin, it’s their choice, and their choice alone, to practise international pricing bollocks). Hell, even making sure they are the cheapest place to download their games from would be a good start, but right now recent releases like Need for Speed: Shift 2 and Alice: Madness Returns have an RRP of £34.99 on Origin and under £30 on both Steam and GamersGate. I’m dreaming now, but wouldn’t it be nice if they tried to compete with retail pricing for new releases?
Maybe they have new features in the pipeline that will be revealed as the games that use them are released, but if you’re going to launch a new digital distribution service, I’d say it’s probably a good idea to have a new digital distribution service.
We should be glad that EA are taking the PC platform seriously enough to be further pushing their own digital distribution service, but at the moment it’s falling short. Publisher ran digital distribution service can be fantastic, but EA clearly could be doing much better than this. On the flip side, we’re often quick to celebrate indies selling their own games directly, is it fair to have one rule for the little guy, but hold bigger publishers to a different set of standards? Maybe if PC becomes more profitable for them, EA will push more resources into PC development.
The current implementation of Origin lets you play games without having the client running, so that is one clear advantage it has over Steam.
Will you be buying future EA games if they require Origin to be installed, no matter where you buy it from? Would Battlefield 3 not being available on Steam impact your purchasing decision?
Battlefield 3 is, still, looking pretty damn hot.
No Steam and no modding tools?
…uh huh.
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My words exactly
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Does the arrogance of certain games companies known no end?
Digitial Distribution is to all intents and purposes a natural monopoly, steam won that particular battle years ago and yet they persist in launching their own little vanity projects every now and again to the detriment of gamers.
I mean come on, most of them don’t even attempt to compete on price.
To answer the question: If I can get my hands on a proper boxed copy of BF3 I’ll buy it. If I’m required to activate or download it from a digital distributor that isn’t steam I might have to think pretty hard … I’ve loved battlefield my entire adult life, but I *really* hate non-steam downloaders.
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@Alfius: yes, because monopolies are a great thing.
I wish RPS had a :rolleyes: smiley.
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Alfius: why?
Are you telling me it’s less hassle to go to the store and buy a copy, or wait a couple of days for it to be delivered, than it is to go onto Direct2Drive or any other retailer of your choice, download the game, and then add it as a non-Steam game?
I know Valve are awesome and everything, but why would anyone be brand-loyal to a shop when you can still use all their community features on just about any game you bought from anywhere? I’ve bought from Green Man Gaming, Direct2Drive, EA and plenty of other places, depending on what offers me the best deal. I bought Brink from Direct2Drive and added it to Steam immediately. What’s the difference? It’s still rubbish.
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Steam a monopoly? Given that I have bought games off GoG.com, Gamersgate.com, impulse, and Steam in the last 6 months, I don’t think I would say they have a monopoly on Digital distribution. That said, Fuck EA. They have a serious track record of fuckery and it will take a hell of an inducement to even allow their client on my computer to try their service let alone buy anything from it. “We are EA” is not a selling point to me, and I am perfectly happy to not buy battlefield 3 to help make this point to them.
Besides I have this big pile of games that I haven’t got around to playing yet from Steam sales.
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It’s an overwhelming market leader that seems to have created a class of people who adamantly believe “IF IT IS NOT ON STEAM I WILL NOT PURCHASE IT.” It may not be a monopoly yet, but it’s basically one waiting to happen if no worthy competition shows up.
I’m not sure Origin is worthy competition, but it’s at least competition.
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No steam no sale, not a ‘steam fanboi’ but I just CBA with other crap.
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I think one pretty big reason a lot of people (myself included) like to buy games pretty much only from steam, is because the steam client has our friends lists and community groups and all that stuff built in, it ain’t just a means to launching games, its the community too.
I therefore don’t really like buying games through other clients because I ALWAYS have steam open, no matter what… so it just means having extra shit running on top. I’m not saying valve should have a monopoly on this or anything, just that its a lot easier for a lot of people to have everything come though steam.
Anyway, random question, have EA stopped doing the whole “if you buy a game from us digitally, you lose the right to download it 6 months after purchasing” thing still? I remember being given the option to extend that period for a few quid the last time i ordered something on the EA store (a long time ago now…) and it put me off using EA’s online service since.
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My sentiments exactly!
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@Alexander:
“a class of people who adamantly believe ‘IF IT IS NOT ON STEAM I WILL NOT PURCHASE IT.’”
Believe? How is that a form of belief? I go by that notion when buying games, yes, but that’s because I want to have my collection of games in a single, centralized, place with features and a service that rivals that of a console. I don’t want a multitude of sources that all have their own eco-system with no open integration between them. That only creates a hassle on me as a customer that I do not agree with. Screw “monopoly”. PC gaming needs to be able to compete with consoles on a centralized service level as well, which EA, Ubisoft, GameStop and CDP’s actions are against, as far as I’m concerned.
If I can connect a game to Steam I’m all for purchasing it as it gives me the service and features which only Steam can offer. However I do not have a problem with adding my current EA games at Steam on their new Origin store because it allows my single-player games to be played on two seperate computers at the same time.
Anyway, the word ‘believe’ is hardly accurate in this case.
BF3 not on Steam means a no purchase for me. I’m really not that interested in the series for it to screw my wish of having a single centralized gaming source.
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It’s definitely longer than six months now, but I’m not sure if it’s forever or not. Last I checked, it was guaranteed for two years. Which is… progress, I guess.
I don’t know if that’s changed with the rebranding or not.
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I have games in my Origins account that I bought more than five years ago. They are still downloadable.
It’s true that the EA store originally was limited on redownloads (It was being handled by DigitalRiver at the time, a company that handles digital distribution for alot of big companies, like Microsoft) – but no more.
Origins is in many ways like Steam, so for me it’s no bother. I had an EA account before I had a Steam account.
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I use Steam because out of the major digital distributors, I believe that it’s the least likely to screw me over. I’m not a youngster anymore, and I’m willing to pay a small premium to not have to deal with nonsense. I doubt I’m unique in that perspective.
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@ Aemony
“I go by that notion when buying games, yes, but that’s because I want to have my collection of games in a single, centralized, place with features and a service that rivals that of a console. I don’t want a multitude of sources that all have their own eco-system with no open integration between them. That only creates a hassle on me as a customer that I do not agree with. Screw “monopoly”. PC gaming needs to be able to compete with consoles on a centralized service level as well, which EA, Ubisoft, GameStop and CDP’s actions are against, as far as I’m concerned”
I love both Valve and Steam more than can possibly be healthy, but monopolies only go one way, and that is with the end user getting shafted. Just look at Murdoch. Steam have been pretty benevolent so far, but I can’t believe that will last forever. I completely take your point about the Steam ecosystem, but if that is the case the solution is for Steam’s community functions to become open source, or at least licenseable to other operations (which is the kind of deal that has been forced on monopolies in the past by regulators.)
As for your point about the PC ‘needing’ a a centralised service – bullshit. The PC’s lack of such a thing (beyond windows obviously) is what makes it the magnificent land of freedom that it is. The possibilities of it only exist because the PC doesnt suffer the monopolies inherent in console land.
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@TheGooseKing
You do realise the fact that EA has in its ToS that you are guaranteed to be able to download the game for 2 years is in fact better than Steam’s? There is no guarantee at all in Steams, and in fact they have been known to block and remove peoples entire game collects based on 1 disputed title.
It may seem evil that its “only 2 years”, but its better than technically 0 days with Steams.
Unless someone can show me the section of Steams ToS that guarantee the ability to download your games for longer than 2 years…
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@Alexander Norris Yeah its not that I’d never buy from another digital distributor, I’ll pick up a game if there is a good sale or something. But if I’m picking up a copy for a flat price why the hell can’t I buy it at the place that I want? It’s like they banned selling hard copies at stores in a five mile radius from my house. Its an inconvenience that does nothing but annoy me.
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There once was a time where monopolies were universally bad, and competition was the only way to ensure that customers didn’t get ripped off. Those were the days where only large, amoral, publicly-traded companies could typically get into monopoly positions (usually via market bullying) by selling physical products in large quantities such there was a huge cost and time involved in even setting up a (legal) competitor.
We’re now in the digital and social age, where the above doesn’t need to hold true any more. Digital services can start small and scale with their users while maintaining the same price point throughout (often via cloud services that do the scaling for them) so it’s easy to set up a competitor. People can now communicate worldwide and form an aggregate opinion on your pricing and service quality, so it’s a lot harder to be a ripoff monopoly online.
(Furthermore, there’s never really a true monopoly situation online. Due to the low cost of setting up a competitor, there will usually be a dozen or more smaller knock-offs all fighting for the customers that the market leader(s) have alienated for whatever reason. So we’re talking more about “de facto” monopolies here, where there’s one giant market leader and a bunch of tiny competitors.)
What you need these days is a good experience and high customer satisfaction. If those are high, people will flock to your platform. If those drop too far, you risk people flocking to a different platform instead — fast enough and with enough inertia that there’s little chance of improving quickly enough to stop them. Furthermore, that other platform may spring up as a direct consequence of widespread dissatisfaction with your service.
Being in a monopoly position online isn’t about bullying or subsuming your rivals any more, but rather about pleasing your customers so that they don’t all turn to one of the dozen or more minor alternatives (that already exist, or that will exist if you screw up).
That’s why we’re seeing a lot of these “friendly monopoly” companies like Google, Steam, Twitter, etc. It’s not that “Google can do no wrong”, it’s that “Google had better keep us happy or we’ll flock to the next big thing”. And it’s not that “Steam is a monopoly and monopolies are always bad for customers”, it’s that “Steam is the market leader due to keeping customer satisfaction high via ease-of-use and low prices”.
What I’m saying is, all you “Steam is a monopoly and they need competition or else we’ll all get ripped off” people need to rethink things. Steam hasn’t been ripping us off, and it’s not likely to start — not unless they want to see how fast they can tank themselves.
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@Wisq Wisdom in a comments section? Say it ain’t so!
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“It may seem evil that its “only 2 years”, but its better than technically 0 days with Steams.” Although technically better in practice its worse. I still can download Steam games I bought 4-5 years ago.
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@wengart
And I can play Sims3 which I bought via EADM. What’s your point?
[E]: Also, download.
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@Kaira
It’s great that you can still play the Sims, but I’m not entirely sure what your point is either.
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This isn’t EA denying digital game sales, this is EA denying Steam digital game sales.
I, for one, will get BF3 and enjoy it like I have enjoyed BF1942, BF2 and BF:BC2 before it.
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Very well put point Wisq.
To mention a slightly related issue, I’m still quite worried about having all my eggs in one basket in regards to my game collection. I’m getting close to 200 games on my Steam account and I would be devastated if my account were compromised or Steam’s TOS changed in a drastic manner.
**Sidenote** I think I’m deeply addicted to Terraria after only 2 days…
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Monopolies aren’t bad, bad monopoiies are bad.
Steam is good. They have a monopoly but treat all comers equally and do as much to promote the little guy as the big guy. Super Meat Boy, SpaceChem, Toki Tori, Dwarfs!?, World of Goo, Braid etc etc are all small games that have been given great exposure on steam, all the indys love steam and with good reason. They treat the customers right and the clients fairly.
EA on the other hand, is a giant turd. This is a classic example of their willingness to screw over customers and players just for a few extra percentage points on the bottom line (which ironically they won’t get if the game is not on steam I suspect). You don’t build a platform by bullying people into using it, you build it by offering years of world class support and service. EA left the PC platform to die and now they are miffed because when the consoles are starting to ebb and the PC is in a resurgence they don’t even have a toe in the water.
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The Origin client is good enough? Depends where the line of enough is drawn. It’s tolerably functional as far as browsing products goes, it’s an aberration in almost everything else.
You can’t even pick your own avatar, man!
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Woah woah woah, hold on now, son. The what!?
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I give things silly names. The “Pure Time Trials map pack”. It looks like Mario Galaxy.
http://youtu.be/Jo2NAQ7-DFc
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Aww. It doesn’t even have highly localised centres of gravity!
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Reminds me a whole lot more of the various VR missions throughout the MGS series.
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I’ve actually been wondering for a while if Steam’s new DLC rules (assuming they exist–I still haven’t seen convincing details, but of course Valve has always been quite hush-hush with their contracts for Steam) could be related to the crap with the Mirror’s Edge DLC. Having the DLC just plain *not be compatible* with the Steam version is something of a problem for Steam. Fans of the game who bought it via Steam got screwed, and in fact there are *still* new threads showing up on the Steam ME forum asking about it, last I checked. That doesn’t just make EA look bad, it also makes Steam look bad. So I’d be totally unsurprised at a “if you put out DLC it must be available to users of the Steam version” clause to avoid future bullshit of the same sort.
(And if anybody has confirmed details about what’s really required for DLC right now, I would love to know. So much speculation in a vacuum.)
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There’s several games which have DLC that isn’t working/available with the Steam version. Given their traditional tardiness when it comes to actually getting such things on Steam in the first place, I’d say it’s nothing to do with the DLC and everything to do with EA tying their games into Origin.
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A perfect example of how the DLC rules for Steam has changed:
Either today or in the next few days, the DLC costumes for Super Street Fighter IV will be on GFWL marketplace. Unless you own the Steam version, in which case it will be the end of the month, despite connecting to GFWL.
This sounds like the exact issue of ‘disrupting … ongoing support’ EA is complaining about.
I’m breaking out a little bit of inferring here, but it sounds like Steam is requiring their own content distribution/sales channels for DLC, which obviously irks EA. And for good reason; DLC should be a high-margin release, that gets diminishing returns once Steam takes their cut.
I could go on, but I’ve already made this too long for a blog comment no one will read.
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Vagrant: That really doesn’t tell us anything about where the problem lies. Is it that Steam is doing bad things and that slows things down? Fable 3 didn’t seem to have the same problem. Is that because Steam made their contract worse for SSFIV? Is it because the SSFIV devs did their Steam integration in a worse way, causing them tech difficulties that Fable 3 didn’t have? Is it because the SSFIV devs wanted to have *better* Steam integration, so had to take extra time? What would have happened under the older sort of Steam contract? Would the SSFIV DLC be available earlier via GfWL for all download platforms? Or would it not have been available for people who bought the game through Steam at all?
The truth is, we don’t know. Steam may be throwing their weight around to be giant dicks and make more money at the expense of gamers’ convenience, *or* they might be throwing their weight around to be sure that any game bought via Steam gives the full content of the game, for the sake of gamers’ convenience. With what we can actually see, we can’t know. That’s why I asked for *actual details* as opposed to more examples that don’t tell us anything but promote blind speculation.
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I like Origin. No need to launch it to play games.
If I could somehow transfer all my games from Steam there, I would.
No idea where all this EA hate is coming from.
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Then you haven’t been paying attention for most of the last decade. Not our fault you’re too willfully blind to see how hard EA screws its customers.
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I don’t think its the “oooh EA will screw you over” aspect that’s daunting, in fact by letting you play their games without having to boot up any bloated program they’re doing something good.
It’s more the dread of more publishers/developers opening their own digital distribution platforms, and the consumer will have to download each of them etc, not good.
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Gamersgate also lets you play games without a client. In fact, without ANY client whatsoever, even for install, so by your logic it’s even better than Origin. And BF3 is going to be availible on Gamersgate.
Going by current Origin pricing scheme GG is going to be the cheaper BF3 as well.
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It’s the 21st century–our computing power is enough that a small client program running in the background shouldn’t make much difference unless you are obsessively counting frames-per-second.
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God forbid EA choosing what kind of DRM client their game will run. Everyone seems to be fine with Steamworks, but somehow Origin is over the line? It’s the same bloody thing.
I just don’t fucking get it. What is this “dread of other publishers having their own platforms for their games” being some horrible vision of the future? Well, what the fuck is Steam then? Didn’t it start the same way, as a platform of a company to release their own games?
Quit being bloody hypocrites. It’s perfectly valid to dislike Origin for it’s own shortcomings in service. It is not valid to dislike it, however, just because it’s trying to mimick Steam, for whatever odd “convenience” of having “everything in the same place” that is used to excuse Steam.
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You know what’s nice about having a client? It keeping your games up to date automatically all the time. Also given Steam barely uses any memory (one tab on chrome uses the same amount) I’d hardly label it bloated.
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The client itself isn’t that bad, but they really need to improve their service in a couple of aspects.
1. one license for games that have both a PC and a Mac version
2. a Mac version of the client
3. some sort of optional cloud service, for save files
4. better regional pricing, it seems like the only region, which has good/ok prices is the US
5. special deals / price drops for all regions, not only the US
If those 5 things would be changed, then I would get all my EA games via Origin.
Oh, maybe one last thing: let us to register older retail games on Origin (maybe even for a small fee)
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@Eversor
Steam isn’t just DRM. For me its a service that improves my enjoyment of doing just about anything on the computer. All of my gaming friends use Steam and it’s community features make it a great way to communicate or easily join their games.
I’m fine with a simple download client that I don’t have to use when I buy Battlefield 3 retail, but I don’t want a Steam-a-like. I already have Steam, and my friends have Steam, and they won’t have origin, and I won’t be using Origin if I can help it because it doesn’t offer me anything Steam doesn’t.
“I just don’t fucking get it. What is this “dread of other publishers having their own platforms for their games” being some horrible vision of the future?”
People don’t want an Activision client, EA client, Eidos Client, Ubisoft client, and god knows what else hanging out on their computer. Wanna play some CoD. Let’s launch the Activision client and now I might try some Assassin’s Creed. Guess it’s time to launch the Ubisoft client. It would just be annoying and grating. Whereas I can launch CoD quit out and then launch Assassin’s Creed with no fuss using Steam.
“Well, what the fuck is Steam then? Didn’t it start the same way, as a platform of a company to release their own games”
Steam is a robust platform for PC gaming, and although it once was a simple download client for Valve games it makes no sense to bring that up anymore because that’s not what it is.
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They’re the first to complain about PC game sales, leading to cancellations of most of their big series on PC, yet they don’t even make them available to buy on most download platforms.
By not putting it on every download platform they can, they’re only hurting PC gaming, which is already in the shitter.
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They did put it on every platform they can. if the numbers in the article are to be believed it’s on about 100 different platforms.
Steam is a major omission though. Personally would go through GamersGate if Steam doesn’t get a copy on it’s own.
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They would be harming PC gaming by kow-towing to Steam. By not putting BF3 on Steam, they are actually doing digital distribution a favour.
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Alex: That depends on those pesky Steam contract details, if they can’t put it on steam because Valve is insisting that DLC released later must work for all versions of the game no matter where it was bought, then I would say valve is helping PC gaming more then EA.
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So you think not putting the leading PC title of the last few years, a demonstration to the world of the PC capabilities on Steam which has 70% of the PC market is good for PC gaming? Madness.
It will merely mean that BF3′s PC sales will be disappointing, consoles will outsell PC 15 to 1, and DICE will never repeat the experiment again of having PC as a lead platform.
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Do you really think EA are the kind of people who make a decision like this without doing any kind of market research first? If they’ve made the decision, they have evidence to back them up. If there’s one thing the big publishers are good at, it’s not taking any risks as far as business goes.
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Them having a monopoly on BF3 is not a good thing. It’s good for Steam to have competition, but those products should still be available on Steam, otherwise its just as bad.
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But the thing is, EA doesn’t have monopoly over BF3, you can buy it from Gamer’s Gate for example.
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Right. Because the big publishers are managed by humans, and humans are notoriously good at understanding risk.
If EA sees “doing our game the Steam way” as a big hurdle and “not being able to get the game on Steam” as a minor inconvenience to customers, they’ll pull Steam distribution. If they’re wrong, and the community generally sees “the Steam way” as ideal and “not on Steam” as a major annoyance / outright no-buy, well … things might not turn out like they wanted, but they probably won’t admit they made the wrong decision either. Which brings them back to the “PC gaming is dead” argument, and off they go.
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“Do you really think EA are the kind of people who make a decision like this without doing any kind of market research first? If they’ve made the decision, they have evidence to back them up. If there’s one thing the big publishers are good at, it’s not taking any risks as far as business goes.”
Yes, I do think they’d do that. I realise that MOST companies do those kind of things, but EA are notorious for being, well, morons.
I worked there, I know how it works. Any company that can look at a (Battlefield 2, in this case) bug where you cannot bind the left half of the keyboard to new buttons and classify it as not important, well..
But on to business end – EA Partners are fantastic – it’s EA itself that makes moronic decisions.
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“It wouldn’t be a first for EA/DICE, the Mirror’s Edge Mario Galaxy map pack only works on retail and EA Store copies of the game.” Say what? The gaming biz in general is already heavily fragmented (by platforms), it gets even more confusing with all the exclusive pre-order deals, then we got DLC and now they only offer certain DLC’s to a select few outlets afterwards? What the hell are EA smoking?
This is not how you build one big, happy community that sticks together for years, is open to newcomers and that will happily cough up money for new stuff.
I don’t have any issue if BF3 wouldn’t be released on Steam though (it would be odd of course and they’d lose money because of it). Steam isn’t the holy grail and more people should start to realize this. If Blizzard can say they only release their own digital stuff from their own store then so can EA. Only the service, value-for-money and quality consumers get back is very different between EA and Blizzard.
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Might be worth adding that Shift 2 DLC is only available at Origin. It’s free to be exact, but you need to register to Origin and download the client to get them.
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The problem with you saying that is, Blizzard only sells their game through their store and retail, and Blizzard has quite a good history with their consumer base.
EA have a horrible history, especially towards PC gaming, and now they are basically offering to sell their games everywhere BUT Steam, and Steam has quite a good history (understatement much?) with its consumer base.
Thats what makes it seem like a dick move compared to Blizzard’s system.
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Another thing is that Blizzard is a developer, not a publisher. Yes, they’re owned by Activision, but they do not (yet) sell non-Blizzard Activision titles through the Blizzard store. The Blizzard store sells only Blizzard games, and is the only place you can buy Blizzard games online. They’ve also established a great deal of customer trust by allowing you to enter *really* old CD keys on that store to register your old copies of SC, Diablo II, WC3, etc.
In essence, Blizzard has set themselves up as a “premium brand” here. And they can manage it, because everybody wants their stuff.
Anyway, back to the dev not publisher thing: While the world in which every game must be purchased directly from the developer is just as painful as the world in which every game must be purchased directly from the publisher, they’re a little different. One primary thing is that long-lived developers like Blizzard (and, yes, Valve) *live* based on the loyalty of their customers. They can move between publishers, and their fans follow them. Aside from tinfoil hat paranoiacs, people think of Blizzard as being something separate from Activision. Yes, they’re linked, but Blizzard is still apart from the run of the mill developer that publishes on Activision.
Now, all that said, if Activision pushes to use the Blizzard store as their beachhead into digital distribution and requires all of their devs to support it and also starts making things exclusive to their platform, that will be shitty beyond belief.
See, in all of these cases, there’s one important concept: Trust. A retailer depends on trust. If someone came and said “Let’s expire peoples’ old games from Steam”, they would be killing the very thing that makes Steam valuable: the trust of its customers. LIkewise if Blizzard removed their old games from their online store and said “you have to buy our new shit, instead”. People might still buy Blizzard stuff, but the Blizzard store? Nope. And both of these go against core values of the franchises: Steam, that the long tail is valuable and full of goodness, and Blizzard, that supporting games for 10+ years after they came out inspires insane loyalty.
Both Steam and Blizzard, in other words, thrive on keeping old games alive: either the ones they’ve written, or the ones they’ve sold.
Now let’s compare that with EA’s track record. As a publisher, EA appears to be motivated to get people to buy their most recent stuff in the largest quantity possible with the largest margin possible. Hence: People don’t trust the shiny plug nickels they’re handing out. (And won’t trust Activision, should they take over the Blizzard store, for the same reasons.)
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I managed to take a look at the list and for Finland they had listed, among other very minor download services, a site that only sells games for kids. For kids around the age of 5 to be exact. They also had a link to a site/organization that isn’t even selling anything yet – just planning to sell something in the future including possibly games. Not just that, but it was a local/localized site so they weren’t even planning to sell to the majority of Finnish people (all five million of us!). So an extremely small site with probably a dozen visitors a day.
The absence of Steam was something they really wanted to emphasize. On a quick glance they had something like 15 different sites for Germany and France and those lists didn’t even include the major sites like Gamersgate, Direct2Drive etc. that are available to most people.
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But, what does it matter? Bad Company 2 uses its own updater, it doesn’t use steam for anything. What makes us think BF3 would? Especially considering EA’s doing their own thing now.
Does BF2 use anything in steam? I haven’t actually played it since I bought it, but I figure no.
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Irrelevant, I want to purchase it off Steam, instead of giving my credit card details to yet another company.
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Steam-bought BC2 copies use steam for updates.
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BF2 is miserable on steam, it doesn’t install correctly and punkbuster thinks the steam overlay isn’t allowed. It’s a mess.
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I don’t think that EA doing direct digital distribution is the same as indies doing it. Mostly because I can’t see indies trying to lock you into their “service” anytime soon. Whereas you can tell that EA are not happy that Steam is the de-facto standard for digital downloads and *they* believe they should have that monopoly.
I suspect every major publisher will push forward with digital stores as they see console sales dropping off. Some might even get smart and aggregate their products away from steam, but for a single publisher? I don’t think even EA has enough clout to drag people away from steam.
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Does Origin still have the bullshit 6 month re-download time limit?
Did anyone at EA actually crunch numbers on that one? Gotta be PEANUTS Steam is spending on allowing us to download our own games in perpetuity, but it’s a great service, having made me buy games FOR A SECOND TIME to get rid of spinning media. Frakking bean counters.
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The EA Store has never enforced the 6 months limit. It’s shit that it’s in the TOS, but if people are going to shout down everyone who ever says “hey, the Steam TOS say they could shut down your account on a whim!” on the basis that Steam has never done it, there’s no reason to be attacking Origin for a policy it has never enforced and which therefore, for all practical purposes, does not exist.
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That’s (almost) even worse, since they took money from people to extend the 6 months to 2 years. Practically racketeering!
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I have no clue if they have, but they sure kept it in their store forever. Not a very user friendly move and they are probably the publisher most likely to drive a 12″ blade into my back when they get a chance. Heck, if people think Valve’s monopoly is bad, then just wait until we get EA..
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That limit was never inforced, and still isn’t. I have games I bought from the EA store over seven years ago that I can still download and play.
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http://www.ea.com/1/service-updates this right here is the root my EA-online trust issues
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@Torm: No kidding it’s not enforced. It was removed about two years ago. Now they have a policy that if your account has been inactive for two years, they have the right to terminate it. Meaning, all your games are gone, your account is deleted. Thanks for playing! Press PAY to restart.
People bitch about Steam being able to take away your games, but that only happens if you violate their ToS and are doing something shady. EA could take away your games just for not logging in after too long. How some do NOT see that as “totally fucked up” is beyond me. Granted, it takes a good deal of time, but a good friend of mine was recently relieved to see his games still on Steam after not logging in for over 3 years. I told him, “yeah, Steam has said that your account and your games will be there forever. Unless your account is banned or Steam goes under. Even if it goes under, they will unlock the service and make sure the games playable in offline mode.” citation
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If they decide to not release on Steam is huge, huge news. I mean, huge. The biggest PC game release of the year, specially in terms of marketing budget is not going to be sold in the biggest retailer in the PC market, wow. All that marketing money and they are going to force us to install a new client just for it.
I understand their push for Origin, but this seems more brute forcing the customers into their shop rather than competing with service and features.
I am a regular (and bad) BFBC2 player and I await BF3 with excitement. But I am also very Steam-centric and feel extremely comfortable with it. My friends network is in Steam too, and darned if I am going to get BF3 to play with out my friends.
We’ll see, but I hope it is all just rumours.
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Thing is, you’ll still be able to buy BF3 from the place with the lowest price or best extras, and then add it to Steam as a non-Steam game.
The only way EA loses in this non-Steam scenario is if people on Steam are ignorant of BF3 and never see anything about it. Given BF3s marketing budget and the way word-of-mouth operates in the PC game community, they don’t need a Steam Sale to make a profit the way lots of indies do.
BF3, if it’s good, will be a massive success whether Steam sell it or not. Nobody I know with Steam would ever refuse to buy it just because it’s not on Steam, especially if all their friends are playing it. That’s not how gamers think.
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Both BF3 and MW3 are multi-platform releases, and I’m pretty sure MW3′s marketing budget is bigger. BF3 is going to be a pretty big release on all platforms, but it’s hardly the biggest.
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BF3 will sell well, but console sales will dwarf PC 10-1 or something.
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@Richard: I completely disagree with you, there are a lot of gamers that do not want to have many resident clients, do not want to hassle with a lot of login and passwords and do not want to have to rebuild their friends list once per client. And yes, I know you will be able to “paste” BF3 into Steam, but you will still lose the automatic updates and the “join game” option in the friends list. So it is not exactly the same thing.
Losing a window into the PCs of more than 2 million gamers who connect to Steam every day and then spending 100 million dollars (http://www.thesixthaxis.com/2011/04/07/battlefield-3-marketing-budget-to-be-100-million/) in marketing seems to me like an interesting (and very, very original) strategy.
But hey, what do they care for service and convenience, as you say it will be a massive success.
@Alexander Norris: Do not be so sure:
http://news.tgn.tv/battlefield-3-and-next-cod-marketing-costs-will-be-a-couple-hundred-million-dollars/
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Starcraft 2 is a PC exclusive game that sold extremely well and isn’t available digitally anywhere but from battle.net store. Didn’t really fail because of lack of a Steam version, did it?
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Are Valve games available on other digital download services? I can’t see Half Life 2 on gamersgate anyway.
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Valve games are Steam-only; the retail copies have basically been Steamworks since HL2.
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Interesting related note – Gamersgate have been staunchly boycotting Steamworks games for a long, long time. Only recently have they started selling those games, and even then Steam or Steamworks are never mentioned by name, just that you’ll need to install a third party client to run the game.
(Same goes for Direct2Drive, I believe, although I never really use them myself.)
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Not planning on buying stuff in Origin any time soon. Bought the new Alice there, since that’s where I could see to pre-order it, it wasn’t on Steam, and I figured I’d give them a chance. Then, of course, a week after release it showed up on Steam.
Origin was pretty lackluster, and failed in two major ways (didn’t compress the transfer at *all* as far as I can tell, and didn’t allow for preloading the preorder. Hell–couldn’t even pre-download Alice 1 which came with the preorder–what’s the point of bundling the old game if you won’t let me play it until the new game comes out?)
Anyway–given the fact that the experience was pretty crappy and that the timing of all this recent stuff implies to me that it’s all EA dicking with Steam (and who cares if the customers have a good experience?), I’ll be avoiding it like the plague. (Which is to say: only slightly less than I avoid Impulse since GameStop took it over.)
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About the Impulse-Gamestop thing, is it me or has the amount of Impulse spam increased sharply in these las two months?
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International pricing parity. Wouldn’t that be a dream come true? All the bullshit reasons for stinging us UK gamers with higher prices just don’t exist with digital distribution, but it still happens.
Also, for many big titles, I still find it easier and cheaper to pre-order the game from a retail website and have a physical copy drop through the letterbox the day before the game is released/activated.
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Higher prices? UK prices are pretty much exactly on par with US prices. Literally, £35 maps to about $55; and that’s without counting the titles now getting preorder discounts to try to match them up to Amazon’s £25.
If you want higher prices, look at Europe and Australia/NZ. The UK really has nothing to complain about when it comes to game prices.
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Yes, mainland Europe tends to get shafted, especially compared to US prices.
But just when we Europeans are starting to feel sorry for ourselves, we remember there’s always Australia, and its ludicrously inflated game prices.
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The last thing I want is to be known as a crusader about this, but the exchange rate is not an accurate indicator of the value of a currency in real terms. There’s a theoretical currency called the “international dollar”, and any currency’s theoretical exchange rate with that is the only indicator of the currency’s true worth. It can be confusing: The US dollar is 1:1 with the international dollar, and yet another currency’s rate against the international dollar might be different from its rate against the US dollar, but that’s kind of the point. The international dollar exists to eliminate the ‘noise’ caused by fluctuating currency markets.
Actually, what you can buy for that currency (excluding currency trading) is the only real indicator of a currency’s true worth, but the international dollar “exchange rate” is designed to reflect that.
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Shit – you’re right! Guess I haven’t checked prices in other countries for a long while (Probably since pound sterling was riding high, which was a long time ago). Hardware prices are still lacking parity though, as is digital music. I get my tunes from Hong Kong of all places, cheaper and 320mbps quality…
Then again, we’re talking about PC games…My bad.
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Whenever you feel bad about your prices, remember that in Australia we pay minimum $AUD80 for a PC game, up to $120 for consoles.
There has been almost constant gamer rage since the Aussie dollar past the US dollar and prices remain the exact same…
Thank god for imports
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I honestly can’t comprehend why EA would omit releasing their game on Steam over something as petty as DLC disputes. The profit loss alone of the potential 2 million+ users on Steam is enough to render nearly any argument they might have null and void.
Am I the only one who thinks that this is turning into some massive pissing contest that is only going to serve to damage the PC gaming market further then all the other problems already plaguing it ?(DRM, Day One DLC, Retailer Specific DLC etc, etc)
As much as I like the concept of a little more competition in the online digital distribution market, I can’t help but be a little worried that the newly formed competition is coming from EA, a company infamous for its poor decisions regarding DRM and anti-piracy measures that have alienated their consumer base. Let’s not forget that this is the same distributor that only a few weeks ago was planning to lock weapons away as part of a purchased DLC pack.
Say what you want about Valve but I don’t recall them ever forcing people to buy separate DLC in order to gain the full experience from a game. On the contrary they introduced an excellent hatastic novelties market that has no impact on actual game play while still managing to garner a good profit that gets recycled partly into further improving game play. THAT’s the kind of retailer that I trust with my purchases.
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Because those 2+ million Steam users do not buy exclusively from Steam.
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I bet a fairly high percentage do though.
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I’d bet about 5% tops of those who who are thinking about buying BF3 are those who would buy it only from Steam.
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It’s all about leverage. Fundamentally EA want you to start having Origins on your machine and active so that they can start to sell to you directly without having to give Valve a cut (or any other DD outlets). The downside to this approach is that EA also feel the need to keep street retailers happy, thus their digital titles are always sold at RRP, which is a bit of a joke, because almost no one (not even street retail) actually sells games at RRP these days anyway. It’s much cheaper to order the BF3 whatever special edition from GAME online than it is to order it via Origin.
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Re: pricing. The EA Store people are completely hamstrung by the EA retail people. In a company that size, things don’t happen in a normal way. Different departments compete for budget and primacy. The prices on the digital download service are forced high because they don’t want to piss off all the retailers they have cosy relationships with.
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See but THAT’S a massive problem. EA has become such a monstrosity, company wise, that its actually beginning to work against itself in ways that will ultimately hurt the consumer base. If you look at some of the smaller companies like CD Projekt Red, they bend over backwards to provide as many free addons and support features as possible (Even stripping DRM) because the consumer matters to them, meanwhile EA and the other gaming giants trudge on stomping over their users with dollar signs in their eyes.
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I hate to be a cynic, but everyone’s trying to make money. EA need to keep GAME, Play.com etc happy by not competing with them directly (remember EA is a publisher, not a game retailer) so that Game and Play.com will advertise and push EA’s games for them. That’s money, right there.
Likewise CD Projekt Red want to make money, too. They may well be very nice guys who do it for the love AS WELL, but money is their primary driver. They can’t beat other people on price or with a huge advertising budget, so they’ve decided that their USP will be service. Personally, I love that kind of company and will stay loyal if I am treated well, but it is still a business tactic like any other.
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“Would Battlefield 3 not being available on Steam impact your purchasing decision?”
If I was a Battlefield fan (which I’m not), it absolutely would. It would mean I wouldn’t buy the game.
I am, however, a Mass Effect fan.
Your move, EA.
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This is exactly how I feel. Considering Mass effect doesn’t use steam for dlc anyway (there are other examples too, why is this even an excuse?) I’m interested to see how this will turn out.
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I don’t like having to install steam so I’ll don’t like to install origin to continue playing my games. it’s all “sierra utilities” for me. These malwares will be accepted only when I’ll be able to uninstall them once I finished downloading my game.
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I’m assuming that’s how Origin works… you don’t need Origin running to play your game, just to install. You could likely remove Origin after install, and play your game without it.
So, choice made for you?
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Plus, classing Steam as “Malwares” is just plain retarded.
Look up the definition of Malware..
Run ANY Anti-Mal/Spyware program and see if Steam gets picked up by either.
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BF3 will be remembered as a good game surrounded by shady and greedy business practices. They haven’t even dethroned CoD yet and they’re getting arrogant. Corporations have killed the shooter for me.
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I will buy from origin, As lovely as valves service is, I am very scared of monopolies. I don’t want steam to get ‘too big to fail’ or become evil. Maybe thats just because I am a socialist though.
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evanpoland: I’d say you would send a better message on that point if you bought the game from another digital distributor that competes in a free marketplace. EA store isnt going to be that.
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Technically a monopoly on virtual goods (digital distribution) is not possible, in the same sense as on real life goods.
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Dana: technically, what you would get is a monopoly on the means of distribution.
Which still boils down to a practical monopoly on digitally distributed games, of course. :P
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I remember reading an analysis of origin’s ToS, and there’s a line there that says that EA have the right todelete your games upon 2 years of inactivity or something like that. Now, this isn’t to say that Valve’s policy isn’t draconian, but at least it makes sense, somewhat. Just bear that in mind.
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To be fair, Steam doesn’t have that, so they could delete it the day after you bought it. EA has a ‘guarantee’ that it will last at least 2 years.
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To be fair, Steam doesn’t have to say anything like that. The ONLY way you will ever lose your Steam titles is through an account ban. Yes, people have had titles snatched away because of a SNAFU in regional releasing dates, but that’s fixed as soon as the proper date comes around. Even with Crysis 2, you can still redownload it on Steam at any time you want. Prey has been removed from the store for a while now, and yet I’m downloading it right now!
If it’s understood that the policy is not going to be enforced, then EA shouldn’t even mention it. All it does it worry people and make them suspicious of Origin.
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I use Steam. Can’t be arsed to move to another digital distribution service. End of story.
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I am in the same category. I am an avid BFBC2 player – but I am simply too lazy to change to another distribution system.
Whether people think I am ridiculous or not for having that attitude doesn’t really matter. EA has still lost a day 1 purchase from me, if it is not on steam.
Convince me to move to Origin by providing a better user experience – NOT by limiting my choices. That is simply going to cost you money.
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edit*
:)
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As I understand it: EA want to contact customers outside of Steam (via email I guess) to let them know about content updates and pester them to buy the new DLC. Valve don’t allow that.
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EA stated something along the lines of a DLC dispute involving Steams updater and Valve has remained silent on the issue, take from that what you will :<
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If it’s not Indie then I will not buy it if is not avaliable on Steam: simple!
I’d rather buy the Xbox 360 Version: in fact, my friends are going to so I probably will…
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Get PC friends! :)
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Wow, you’re such a tool. No offence, but you really are.
It’s like having the opportunity to eat at a nice restaurant, but choosing to eat from a trash bin because you don’t like the face of a waiter serving you.
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I don’t get this attachment to steam, I still buy some games off amazon because they’re cheap and they arrive in about the same time it takes to download.
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Here’s something funny – most Steam supporters had Steam forced down their throats with the launch of Valve games since CS and HL2. Basically, Valve did something brilliant – they FORCED Steam upon people, taught them to live with it, lured them with sales so the number of games on their Steam accounts would rise.
Now, it’s really difficult for some to accept there are alternatives to Steam when they’re tied to the service for good.
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Steam also did some dumb shit like have friends lists, profiles, chat client, in-game web browser, voip client, forums for each game [series], screenshots, anti-cheat client, and some other lame crap that no one ever uses. I mean, what a waste! All I want is some crap-assed web store and a PoS downloader that, despite being mind-numbingly simple, still manages to crap out and screw up my downloads.
Seriously, though, Steam showed us how PC gaming can be, and now EA and this Origin shit is acting like it’s still 1999. I DON’T want to have to use Ventrilo to voice chat with my friends. I’d rather open the voice chat client in Steam and do it there. And also be able to browse the web without minimizing, etc. Even if it’s a non-Steam game, add it to Steam and I can use many of the perks (most of the time). Seriously, there is a reason why people like Steam, and it’s not just because they’re fanboys, sheeple, or whatever bullshit people throw out. People like Steam because it is a solid retailer and the client itself has a lot of things that simply make gaming easier. I see NONE of that in Origin. All I see is a mundane web store, that doesn’t even have great savings, with a broken shithole client that hasn’t changed in the three damn years that I’ve used it. Origin is simply EADM with a web store. That’s it.
Yes, there are plenty of alternatives if you’re solely interested in just buying the game. But if you’re looking for something to compete with the entirety of what Steam has to offer, I can’t think of anyone even close. So, until someone can create a service that truly does rival Steam in both the retail and software/client ease-of use/feature-set, I will continue primarily using Steam for both retail and the robust features that it provides.
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Lets look at the competitors shall we?
EA: Known for attaching draconian DRM measures and generally screwing the pooch when it comes to players.
Valve: Finishing up a week long sale on practically ever major game its offered in the last 2 years or so more or less DRM free and offering free goodies through a little campaigning.
Yes, clearly this will be a very tough decision for me /sarcasm
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“more or less DRM-free”
Now that’s a funny way to spell “client-tied horrible DRM”.
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I do not want my games split across multiple digital distribution platforms. That’s the end of that discussion, for me.
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Yes, it’s better to put all of your eggs in one basket.
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Just to check, when you buy eggs, do you actually put them into lots of different baskets?
Sometimes, convenience wins out. Or even putting those eggs in secure packaging. I’m not saying steam/valve is the greatest thing ever, but that statement misses the point entirely.
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@Vague-rant
You Sir, win 100 internets
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@Vague-rant:
The operative word being “all”. But feel free to keep pumping all of your video game money into Valve. There’s no point to being sensible on the internet, after all.
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Buy a hardcopy from an online retailer (usually cheaper than digital distribution), install from the disk, add CD key to Origin so I can download it if I ever lose the disk, add shortcut to steam, done.
Not sure what all the moaning is about.
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Origin.
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It really saddens me that publishers and online distributors seem to have an urge to complicate things for us gamers all the time.
If it’s not GFWL, then it’s a horrible piece of DRM, a publisher-specific downloadclient, or some mandatory piece of “social hub”-membership.
I just want to play the game I paid for, hazzle-free. And I don’t want to be social either, I’ve been social all week. Today I just want to drive my Bugatti Veyron around the Nürnburgring. By myself.
Take my money and stop bothering me.
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So let me get this straight, this game which is meant to compete with COD is not being released on arguablly the biggest digital distribution system in the world……
Who the hell is donig there strategic planning for this game? Just how many customers do you think will not notice its out? yes they will advertise it but I bet quite a lot of sales come from “ohh thats looks cool, didn’t think it was out”.
COD WILL be on steam and highly advertised on steam, now if i do get BF3 it will NOT be from origin, it will be retail just to annoy EA as much as possible. Just seems stupid to deliberatly hamstring themselves.
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Just found out its DX10 only so no buy from me for now, still on XP and won’t be able to upgrade until xmas time :/
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I’m not sure you quite understand. How will you buying the game make EA unhappy? They really don’t care whether you buy it from the EA store or not, to be honest. They just want to sell as many copies of the game as possible. If you buy it, you’re doing what they want. End of story. Doesn’t matter where from. Or even if it’s on the XBox 360 or the PC.
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Except through Origin, they get 100% of the money, not 30% or whatever.
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As skinlo said, if you get it via origin they keep all the cash as its there own system (minus whatever the running costs are but they would have to worry about htat no matter where i got it from).
Buying it retail also annoys them even more as its one less person buying digital so they can’t shout “no-one buys retail, must go digital only”.
Basically (if it supported dx9), I would have got there game but given the least ammount of cash to EA for it , effectivly sticking two fingers up to them, but buying the game so they can’t cry “PC fails”, and not pirating so they can’t say “Piracy is destorying us” (as both of those shouts are as idiotic as the people that shout about game being the spawn of the devil)
BTW by not releasing a DX9 version of the game they are cutting out 20% of there potential userbase instantly according to steam stats which is also stupid (as they are also not releasing on steam they are doing good at cutting potential userbase), I might have to do the unthinkable, and get the console version!
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Ok, fine, I’ll buy it on day one for 15$ in Russian retail.
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I was never going to pay £35 to get it on Steam anyway, considering Amazon’s going to be £25 or less. That, and competition in digital distribution is something we need a lot more of.
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Ohh come on, who cares? Origin is good enough, i max my bandwidth with it and have way more stable Overlay. I don’t see why people are overreacting, be glad its not Steamworks, else if something go wrong with your transaction you loose every game you paid for. Plus for me Steam kills the performance, i play my BFBC2 standalone, even though i bought it from Steam. Why? Because i can.
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EA can get lost they really can, we don’t want your stinking download service, we’ve got plenty.
Challenge Everything I suppose….
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Games available on Origin – 138
Games available on Steam – 3490
Will I get something from EA if they are the only source for it? Yeah probably – if I want it enough.
Will I go to Origin first when I am in the market for a new game? At this stage – most assuredly not.
EA are coming to my door offering the same features but with less choice?
ummmmmmmm…… no
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I’d rather use the Pirate Bay online distribution service, than Origin.
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I never buy proper retail games on Steam anyway, unless there’s some insane price reductions going on (and even then I can usually find them cheaper on Amazon or Play, so no…). I like Steam because of the whole social aspect of it, but it’s far from integral to my gaming experience and if a competitor offers a better deal I’ll grab it. Plus, I almost never buy retro stuff on Steam, that’s what GOG is for.
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Are you seriously asking that question, or just rambling out loud..? I mean, surely it’s inherent to the distinction between indies and large corporations that we would use a different set of standards?
That would be like saying you’d hold up the same standards for a Gamestop (or equivalent of that) as a independantly run shop.
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Origin lets you play games without having the client running? Then YES, I will gladly buy it on Origin.
It’s bad for the friendlist I already have established on steam, but there can be worse than that.
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Hey, you could always use steam to ask around who will be getting BF3 and how to get in touch with them through Origin/BF3.
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Or ‘Add a non-Steam game’ so you can use the Steam overlay.
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@The JG Man
Yeah… Run it in Steam, with the Steam client running, using up resources, after he’s bought it through Origin because, and I’ll quote him here, “Origin lets you play games without having the client running? Then YES, I will gladly buy it on Origin.”
Do you see the problem, for him, of running it through the Steam client and having the Steam client running? Do you?
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The op sounds like he would like to run it through Steam (due to friends using Steam) while at the same time not wanting to run two different clients (Steam and Origin).
Also who in the hell has a computer so short on resources that they can’t run Steam while playing a game. Especially when this game is Battlefield 3.
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Steam not allowing other clients to install is a dick move, that might as well ruin their great run. Steam’s success and continued popularity has never been due to weeding out the competitors.
If it’s really the reason BF3 hasn’t been announced on Steam yet, they’d play into the EA hand.
If they would allow Origin to be installed through steam it would be treated as Games for Windows, a hated necessity. Some people might be turned down from purchasing the game, but not due to Steam. It would paint Origin as annoying overhead that people would use to comment on how bad EA is.
If they won’t allow Origin to install and therefore BF3 will not get published on Steam, it would mean a lot of good customers installing Origin and realising that it’s “like Steam”. If some of these customer would only play BF3 and nothing else, they might disappear from the Steam shop completely.
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I think it makes sense for EA to want its own digital store, and would wish them the best if this particular move wasn’t so mind numbingly stupid and destined for failure (withholding your flagship title from the largest most popular e-retailer? Really, EA?).
This said, I very much doubt they’ll manage to corner a meaningful percentage of the market. Steam had years to make its presence known and it offers community services beyond the buying and launching of games. These services are IMO what defines the platform (the prices are pretty rubbish in western europe, sales not withstanding) and what really make userbases un-transferable, on top, of course, of the hassle of maintining accounts across multiple platforms.
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I’d think EA’s flagship would be The Sims given it’s sold more than any other game barring perhaps WoW. Odds on Sims 4 being tied to Origin …?
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See a lot of comparisons to Steam as it is now, not when it started. Does noone remember that?
If I had to pick between Origin as it was released & Steam as it was released, EA can take my money.
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Except Steam isn’t just released, so I’ll stick with Steam thanks.
No use saying what it once was, as it isn’t now. Plus, theres been 7 years of technological progress since Steam hit more mainstream with HL2.
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The EA store / Downloader / Origins have been around for that long as well.
The downloader part works just fine and have not given me low download speeds, unlike Steam. It’s only the social features that was recently added. The name Origins is simply a marketing ploy since EA Download Manager doesn’t sound as sexy.
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Lets have 3.5 million users on Origin during a massive sale then see how that copes.
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Origin’s been around since 2005, and it kinda sucked back then too.
EDIT* Gah, Ninja’d!
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I think maybe the sticking point here is simply that if EA wants to run updates and DLC from a client that is not part of the game then that client would be messing around with steam game files with out steam knowing what is going on. Unlike GFWL which is part of the actual game .exe. So it’s understandable that valve does not want 3rd party clients effecting their service in that way.
It’s the only thing that makes sense as it’s the only thing EA want to do that is not already being done on steam. So given it was only EA games that have been pulled and EA is the only one wanting to do this new type of thing that is understandably something that valve does not want to deal with.
It would also explain why EA are the only ones talking about it, they have seen a chance to make a PR move to spin this in their favour and make valve look like the bad guys. Why valve haven’t responded yet I don’t know but maybe they are working behind closed doors on a deal and they don’t want to risk talking about it just yet.
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Valve double standard. If games with steamworks require a Steam install, after some talk of boycott from other retailers they gave up. Now if EA or other publisher includes a steamworks like client in their games, Valve bloks it, they do that because they are a clear number one, but if Ubisoft, Activision do the same as EA they probably will change they police like the other retailers did.
Love Steam and is the first place I go to buy a game but they are wrong in this one.
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Except they haven’t blocked GFWL, which is a Steam like client.
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Yeah, theres a lot of funny business going on with the whys and hows. Another example: the Sims 3 has a launcher that liks to a sims store where they sell dlc content.
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Choice and competition is great. I would like to have the choice of buying this on Steam, because that’s where I do the majority of my gaming. Whine, puff, and huff about the evils of Valve all you like, but that’s the choice I would like to have and if I can’t have it, then I wont buy it.
Simple as that.
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Hey, it’s your choice. It just seems a little silly to me to not buy a game you’d really like to play because it’s not on Steam.
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I’m not really burning with excitement over the game, though. It looks great, I liked BC2, and I would buy it on Steam, but it’s not the end of the world if I can’t have it. I have roughly one hojillion games on Steam and about thirty from GOG. I’m not interested in adding another digital distribution platform to this.
There was a time when everyone looked at WoW and went “Ooh, look at all that lovely money! We must have a MMOG of our own too!” and sank millions into MMOG’s, which mostly ended up on their arses. I think having a digital distribution platform is the new MMOG, so to speak. Everyone laughed at Steam in the beginning, but now they see the money and the greedy little buggers are scrambling to get their own. Blizzard has one, EA has one, Valve has one, etc, and there will be others.
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Why should any self-respecting PC gamer care?
Valve used Half-Life 2 and Counter Strike as a means to install a trojan horse on everyone’s computers – the trojan horse without which said games won’t even launch. Now THAT was a nasty move, one many people, me included, still find it hard to forgive.
Now, EA is just launching their game via retail, Origin and countless other DD channels excluding ONE, Origin apparently doesn’t need to run in the background for EA games to even work… So, what’s the problem? Ah, I forgot – those Valve fanboys and their “no Steam release, no sale!!!!!!!!!!11one!!!!11″. Well, it’s about time some told them that Steam =/= PC gaming.
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lol
Wondered when you’d show up. Yes, “many people”. I think you need to wikipedia what a Trojan Horse is btw.
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Yes, “many people”. More than you might think. In my country, you’ll find more people screaming “noooooo!” whenever it is announced that game X requires Steam to work than those who are happy about it.
I use Steam, because I have to. I buy digitally from everyone else whenever it is possible. Sorry, but Steam has become almost dangerous with its rabid supporters who would love to see the PC work like a “console” – “Steamworks or GTFO!”. How about NO.
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Where do you live then? :)
Where I live (UK), the general consensus seems that Steam is probably a good thing so far for PC gaming.
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Digital distribution (Steam in some peoples mind) has done two things for me :
1 – It lets me slack and not visit the electronics store.
2- I overspend on titles I don’t really have time to play just because it’s on sale. (My Excel spreadsheet says I spent about 19.000DKK (Roughly 2200 GBP) last year on games, and online MMOG subs)
#2 I could do without (For instance, I just bought Total War : Shogun 2, spent 12 hours downloading it due to low Steam speeds, installed it and played it for 15 minutes before I remembered why I didn’t play Total War : Napoleon more :P).
But #1 is critical still. I still curse at Relic for making me preorder their upcoming title Space Marine from GameStop because I want the Black Templar skin. I haven’t visited that store for over ten years!
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“In the time it took you to tell me there was no demand, steam sold 50 copies.”
(or x copies, I forget how many..)
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I don’t see why people get so attached to Steam. I’ve started using it, but that doesn’t mean that it’s necessary for my enjoyment of a (any) game, surely?
Of course, it’s good to take a look at any possible arguments between EA and Valve because.. well.. it’s news. But if EA do a good job with Origin (or in the way it’s playable/obtainable through other services), why should anyone be complaining?
The question then is whether they will do a good job with that.
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Was never going to buy this from Steam, and will not buy this from Steam if they get it. I love Steam, but what I love more is buying new games, day one, for nearly half the price Steam sells them at (and installing them immediately upon receiving the disc).
I can pre-order BF3 for around £25, which equates to about €28. Compare that with the price Steam would likely charge for it – between €49.99 and €59.99 – I’m actually shocked people are willing to spend the extra €30 for the “convenience”. Apparently installing a retail copy of a game is hard work for these people.
Let’s forget about the pricing, and just consider the fact that people are annoyed because they can’t buy this game from their favourite shop. I cannot fathom what attachment people have to Steam that makes them so hesitant to use any other download service. Is it because seeing an “official” list of games in your Steam library gives you a warm and fuzzy feeling? Is it the patching/update process? Because those are the only two things I see buying from Steam actually gives you. All of their other benefits can be used with non-steam games simply by adding them via the “add non-steam game to my library” option.
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Wait, people buy full price games from Steam? What is this madness?
I always wait for sales before I buy any game.
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Same here. I almost exclusively buy games on Steam only if they’re on sale (not including €9.99 or similarly priced indie games and the like).
For a game like Battlefield though, and considering the people complaining are probably the people very much looking forward to it, you have to imagine they want to start playing it close to the release date to get into the multiplayer while its fresh. I think they’d be waiting a long time for it to go on sale on Steam (and could probably end up still paying more than they’d pay buying it retail on day one!).
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Yeah, I buy all my new games from online retailers, get them much cheaper and often earlier. I buy a lot of budget/indie games and games on sale on Steam.
I really don’t get this rabid steam love, it’s cool and all and has great sales, but for new games it’s awful. Is it the chat? I just use skype, I have no desire to talk to randoms. As long as I can play my games when and how I want I don’t care what it uses.
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Having cheaper games than steam would be a great start. Ask $50 instead of €50 for BF3 and I might buy it from your service.
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This is fairly simple for me.
I had intended to preorder and love this game. If it isn’t on Steam, I will not.
Bad call EA.
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Of the games I own that I couldn’t serial key into steam, i’ve rebought in steam sales. Civ 4 awaits but the 20 or so cds/dvd’s I’ve bought over the years are now linked to steam. BF2 is the one game that isn’t and lo and behold I’ve not played for years. I detested the need for games for windows live for age of empires online but i already an account from DOW2 so wasn’t too bad. Valve aren’t AWESOME but they are good and useful. It’s a pita on it’s own that you would need something else to run BF3 but adding this pettyness of sole control over patches/DLC just makes me think I won’t go near BF3 at all. It stinks.
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Rofl, quit your internet boasting, all of you. Every single one of you will buy this game if you had already planned to and you know it. For those of you absent of logic, why would EA release this on Steam anyway? It’s arguably their biggest release in quite some time and Steam is a direct competitor of their Origin program. What better way to get people to migrate to Origin than by requiring them to try it out in order to play a game we all want. You don’t see Sony jumping through hoops to release God Of War on Xbox 360. It is utterly hilarious that all of you are decrying freedom of choice in the defense of Steam’s hegemony over the download market.
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Yes, this is true. Unfortunately, well though out comments like yours will be drowned out by “IT’S NOT ON STEAM, I NO BUY” even though most of those people weren’t going to buy it until it was $10 anyway.
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My guess is that they can’t confirm that if they’re going to release on Steam or not until they clear up the Crysis Crisis.
They probably will, and then this thing will all blow over.
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Installing 2142/BF2, the expansions, then patching it properly was a nightmare. As was using EA’s downloader. I’ve no reason to assume they’ve gotten better, but someone at least trying to challenge steam is a good thing.
BFBC2 was reluctantly successful on PC after the first one wasn’t even released on PC. My faith in BF3 to continue in the vein of the first battlefield games is diminishing all the time. Hopefully the marketing and corporate strategy won’t impinge on the game design (or at least not the multiplayer, which is, let’s face it, the only reason most of us will buy it) but in my heart I know this won’t be the game us old PC fogies want it to be.
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What it isn’t going to be is BF2 in a new engine, and for that I’m glad. Hopefully it will take the best parts of BF2 and BC2, and mix them together.
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How did Shakespeare put it… “Much ado about nothing”. That’s how I see this thing.
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Insert MW2SteamBoycottGroup.jpg here.
It’s one of the biggest games to be released this year, of course people will pass through Origin to play it. Like people went through Steam to play HL2.
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WHERE IS MY STARCRAFT 2 STEAM RELEASE, HUH? I MUST HAVE ALL MY GAMES ON STEAM! NO, I CAN’T PURCHASE A PHYSICAL COPY! STEEEEEAM!
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You guys (RPS) really need to write that Steam article.
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I will have to buy BF3 wherever it comes, although I would very much like if it where on Steam.
To me, not releasing BF3 on Steam will make EA look more like douchebags than they already do. Granted, I do not know anything about what’s going on behind the scenes between EA and Valve, and Valve could very well be the bullies in this whole situation.
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You know, I’m not quite so against this as everyone else(the majority here, don’t burn me.)
It seems ok, at least an improvement over GFWL, and hell, I tried that once, even finished a few games with it, uninstalled as fast as I could though.
So I will give this one a chance, the most annoying thing with this (for me) Is the passwords and different accounts, I have different accounts and passwords for everything and it’s just getting fucking stupid tbh, I have to have a little notepad with all my computer-related passwords written down in the drawer next to my computer, and to a lesser extent not having a universal type friends list, community kinda sucks, but I’m sure I can live without that part.
And yay it’s not gfwl*
*To be proven, may or may not be as bad/worse than gfwl, if it is worse, run, because the apocolypse is nigh.
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The fact that they simply aren’t being competitive as a service in comparison to steam, and are singling out steam for not carrying it, makes me really second guess getting BF3.
I’m a huge BF fan, and have been pretty keen on buying bf3 from when I started hearing about it. I was even almost considering buying the karkand thing, because classic bf2 maps are great stuff. Now, I don’t even know that I’m going to buy the game.
Show us your war face EA. We’re not impressed.
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why not, you can get BF3 off of Gamersgate, D2D, retail, ect, hell, maybe EA will release on Steam, after all, they took down the original article about the retailers. Just because a game isn’t on steam is No reason not to get it. Just think about Starcraft 2.
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I’m glad there’s at least one major developer against Steam. Nobody bitches that Valve games are Steam exclusives.
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That’s because Valve are considered “the good guys”, everyone else is “evil”.
Valve can never act wrongly, everyone else trying to do what Valve does is EVIL.
Just like in the 90s – “MS is awesome, Windows rocks, everyone else including OS/2, go away”. The same people who used to act like that are now screaming: “MS SUXX! Xbox evil!! Windows must go away!!!”.
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I’m not buying it if I have to use Origin.
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I’ll just get my first Modern Warfare game instead I think.
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@Visualante At least IT will have Steamworks integration! :)
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Well, I’m going to buy a physical copy. Call me a Philistine, but my ISP probably already hates me. Not to mention the neighbours.
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No mod tools AND no steam?
No sale then, I’ll probably enjoy red orchestra 2 more anyways.
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no surprise really. I’d probably still buy it even if I had to use impulse but seeing as my computer is old and quite crap now and I probably won’t even be able to play BF3 on low at a decent FPS it’s all a moot point really.
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I couldn’t care less if it required installing Origin as well, as long as I can continue being lazy and content with Steam. But of course, that’s not ‘agressive’ enough marketing for them. Bloody Americans and their silly marketing gurus.
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I wish EA’d stop being a pain. I’ve decided I want to buy their game, I wish they’d just allow me to choose where I buy it from.
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With the exception of Steam, if the (now taken down) list is to be believed, most major digital retailers seem represented, so lack of choice doesn’t really seem to be an issue. You certainly have more choice than if you wanted to buy, say, a Blizzard, or a Valve game.
As much as I generally leap at any opportunity to slag EA, I can’t really fault them here. The Steam hegemony over digital sales isn’t good for anyone except Steam, and it will take a major publisher like EA to really be able to challenge them, even if it is purely for self interest. I like Steam. But they need to be taken down a few pegs.
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@Abundant_Suede
This last week I bought 9 games from Steam for about 45$. Regular price would have been 145$. How exactly is Steam bad for me?
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@Wengart
I didn’t say say Steam was bad for you. I like Steam well enough. I think that they have been reasonably responsible for the most part, considering the power they have, but I’d never wager on any company’s ongoing good intentions. Personally, I don’t believe in retailer-exclusive titles, of which Steam is a repeat offender, and all else being equal, I prefer the “less DRMy” model of some of their token competitors where possible, but they’ve been relatively benign for the most part, as far as I know. However, any single retailer having the amount of power they do over a specific market, is not a good thing in the long run.
Your argument is the same one people use to defend retail monsters like Wal-Mart in the U.S.(who, unfortunately for my argument, are in fact facing growing competition and struggles for the first time in decades, but the the oppressive power they held during that time was considerable). In the long run, everyone else pays when developers and publishers are held in sway by a single retailer, even if the true costs and consequences are hidden from public view.
All I can do is speculate, but who’s to tell what kind of specials you might have been seeing the year round if there were more parity in the retail power of the various digital outlets, rather than the couple times per yer Steam decides to drum up sales with its retail events? Who’s to say how inflated those original prices were in the first place? Price points in the digital realm are incredibly dishonest, I find, fabricated by handshake in order not to alienate some other retailer somewhere. I’d personally like to see digital pricing set less by all these back room deals, and more from honest, cut-throat competition from motivated retailers.
What about smaller indie developers/publishers who have little choice to avoid steam if they want to tap in to its retail power, and pay the sizable cut that Steam demands? What if Valve decides that games need to be developed a certain way, for instance to support X feature, or *not* support a competing feature? I’m not saying they do this, but how far are we from a point where a smaller PC developer or publisher would have no realistic choice but to comply?
Steam may not be a de facto monopoly…yet. But I would like to see their market dominance reshuffled a bit on the playing field, and since major publishers like EA are the only ones who might still retain enough market influence to challenge Steam’s digital retail power, even if they are doing it out of typical EA self interest, I dont care if they thumb their nose at Valve a bit. If I take the article at face value, EA isn’t limiting the availability of their game to a single digital retailer, like Valve routinely does. So I’m tentatively rooting for EA, even though I will have to take a bath now that I’ve actually typed that out loud.
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@ Abundant_Suede
“The Steam hegemony over digital sales isn’t good for anyone except Steam”
“What about smaller indie developers/publishers who have little choice to avoid steam if they want to tap in to its retail power, and pay the sizable cut that Steam demands?”
I’ve heard that Steam takes about 30% of each sale, which I wouldn’t call a sizable chunk.
People don’t use Steam just because there are good deals. Most DD services have good deals. They use it because it provides a valuable community interface. That’s why its such a powerful DD retailer. If I keep Steam up to chat with friends and play games with them I am also going to see their storefront on an almost daily basis. For the other retailers I think it’s often out of sight out of mind which means that without a strong community interface to keep people on their clients that just won’t see the business Steam sees. But on the other hand that means Steam needs to keep offering a reason for gamers visit their client, and I suspect that it if Valve started to institute more draconian policies both gamers and developers would move on to other services. Because while Steam is big right now it has competitors and these competitors although small aren’t going to be pushed out of the market place by Steam, and will continue to offer an alternative source for DDs.
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@Wengart
You seem to want to frame this as if I’m against Steam in and of itself, which I think I’ve been clear that I’m not. My argument would be the same if Steam’s overwhelming digital market power were switched with any other digital service. Give GOG the same overwhelming market power as Steam in some extremely unlikely scenario, and I’d be arguing against them here (although I’d let them slide a lot further, because they are awesome). It is inherently unhealthy for any single outlet to have that much power over the digital market. Unless you’d like to argue to the contrary, I dont really think you’re addressing my point.
Re: “The chunk”. As long as we’re speaking of “things we’ve heard”, then I’ve heard that whatever that chunk is, it is more than other alternatives. And even if it isn’t, the point is it could be almost whatever Steam wanted within reason, and most people wouldn’t have a choice, any more than than AAA publishers could risk alienating Wal-Mart in the age of retail dominance (and still dont), or the music industry can bypass itunes.
We also differ on why Steam is powerful. Steam is powerful for the same reason i-tunes is. Because it was the right service at the right time, the early entrant that was able to build a peerless catalog against which there was no real competition (and a monopoly on digital sales of some popular games didn’t hurt). The token competitors simply didn’t have the games. It rode that early market position into market dominance, while developing a reliable, familiar infrastructure, and there’s very little chance of real competition with it on a price/catalog basis any more, in any ongoing meaningful fashion. Unless, of course, the few publishers with the market muscle left to do it (I’m pretty sure you could count them one one hand), shake up Steam’s catalog. Other than that, the only way to supplant Steam would be to out innovate it in leap-frog fashion, and any innovation that large is likely to fundamentally change the retail landscape anyway.
Price points seem so artificially set in the digital distribution realm, compared to the retail realm, where we see real competition, and lower prices in general on games year-round than in digital storefronts. All these prices are set in back room deals. We’ve all heard the stories in the past about why digital stores have to charge such and such a price, and cant release any earlier than such a time to avoid alienating prominent retail outlets. But if the news reports are to be believed, digital distribution has pulled even and then some with retail sales, on its way to being the dominant outlet for PC games. A growing number of publishers dont even bother with any mainstream retail distribution any more. And yet the situation hasn’t changed. Prices are still generally higher than retail, with no real cut-throat competition between digital stores.
If digital distribution is now dominant, who is the 800 pound gorilla in the room now that no one can risk alienating?
I don’t have anything against Steam per se. I use it frequently, but mostly when I dont have a practical choice (like with an exclusive, or when something gets bundled with Steamworks, since I’m stuck with with Steam then for it anyway). Otherwise I tend to opt for less intrusive options (not that Steam is *overly* intrusive, compared to some alternatives but it is *more* intrusive than others). Ironically, the social features bloat you enjoy does more to drive me away from Steam than almost anything else.
I am, however, for anything that shakes up the status quo, and knocks Steam down a couple pegs. If EA’s typically asinine behavior happens to do that in this case, then so be it. They’re one of the few people left that can, and in the long run I think I will benefit more from Steam being less dominant (granted, this is only a drop in the bucket towards that end). Steam gets no tears from me. There are no “little guys” here, except you and me.
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I’m not sure if this has been mentioned much (every time I update there’s another page of comments!) but have people considered that the next Call of Duty game will likely be on steam? I hate COD as much as the next elitist PC gamer, but really, EA are making a massive mistake for not going “wait a minute, if we… then they’ll… and that’s bad because..”
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Exactly. EA in their petty grudge match with Valve have limited Dice’s capacity to have Battlefield 3 be a COD beater… This is entirely do to the piss poor management of EA.
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Aren’t EA going to have all the same issues with Microsoft? It’s not like MS will let EA install Origin on everyone’s Xbox is it?
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THE BOYCOTT HAS STARTED
http://steamcommunity.com/groups/bf3boycott
JOIN US TODAY
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“The current implementation of Origin lets you play games without having the client running, so that is one clear advantage it has over Steam.”
What’s funny about this is that I just end up running every game I buy through Steam so I can talk to my friends while I do it. XD
So when I bought Alice: Madness Returns from Origin (for the original game to be included too) I just made a shortcut through Steam.
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Just out of curiousity Clockwork, has the HD remake of the original aged well?
I bought Alice through Steam and don’t particularly miss the original given there are ways around the DLC lockdown. I do wonder if I’m missing something special however…
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“No steam no sale, not a ‘steam fanboy’ but I just CBA with other crap”
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No Steam version eh? Guess it’s going to go the same way as Crysis 2. Will not be purchasing. I do all my major PC purchases via Steam. If it’s not there, I’m not interested. They sure going do defeat Modern Warfare 3 like this (a title that *will* be on the largest digital distro platform on the market)
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As no one knows truly why Steam dropped Crysis, no one can comment on this situation without major qualifications to their points.
I believe that the reason is that EA was planning to offer DLC in a way that made it useless on steam copies. Many games on steam, such as Burnout Paradise, have in game DLC shops, this is not an issue. Picture a moment however you buy a game on Steam only to find that you are entirely unable, in any way what so ever, to get a DLC for it simply because the publisher chose to say no to your platform?
If this is the case, Steam is being a champion. This could easily however NOT be the case.
Additionally, I know of many ‘Steam games’ that work without Steam running, though this is not advertised. Steam’s DRM has many optional levels that a dev can choose to use and if they use none of it, the games can be run without steam simply by running the EXE manually.
As for other party’s downloaders and launchers and such in Steam games. One of the aircraft games, I think it was ‘IL-2 Sturmovik: Birds of Prey’, uses a god awful downloader and launcher that uses open bit-torrent protocol and other packages and errors like mad in addition to being supported by a system in Russia that does not give a flying crap about non-Russian customers. (I could have the wrong game of course.) Many of the free MMOs now on steam not only use launchers but handle their own files outside of Steam. Steam either gives just the launcher or a bunch of files that are often out of date but a good starting point for the contained launcher to update from or just supplies the launcher.
MANY of the arguments being made against Steam simply make no sense. They either claim to KNOW why Steam is acting in the way it is toward EA (or EA toward Steam) or claim Steam does not allow X, Y, or Z, most all shown blatantly false by the above examples.
I am going to admit, I like Steam. I got into it when I bought the Orange Box, and its growth from there corresponded perfectly with mine, as I got a job, got income, and became able to buy more. I continue to use Steam not because it is all I know but because in a virtual world, the new business model is not to squeeze the others out but to keep your users happy else another will rise. These are electronic goods, common solid good practices such as monopolies simply don’t work. The only reason Windows is so popular is because it comes build in to 90% of computers, physical hardware.
In the event Steam becomes malicious, literally, I could start a competitor, succeed, and become bigger than they are now. That is how unstable and perilous net business is. You have to keep your customers happy or they will drop you like a stone and instantly pump another up to, or even beyond, your former stature.
Now, at the moment, Steam has my trust, and so too do the community of users. For it is the users whom decide what direction Steam goes, not the company, unless it wants to crash and burn. Unlike modern politics, lobbying doesn’t really work here. The companies have to bend over backwards to keep the customers happy.
Steam is the only DRM client I wish to use, not because it is my first, not because it is where I have the most, but because of its positive track record. Off the record, it has even been noted that in the event of some situation, it is possible for Steam to kill all the DRM systems they use and allow full use of the games (this was however pre-heavily friend integrated games like L4D). I understand that this is in no way stated legally, it would be a legal nightmare, but the very fact they bother to put that out there puts me at a bit of ease.
I will have to look into some other services, I hear a lot about GOG and I want to try it. In fact I have a FAVORITE game, 11 years old, that I know would be great for services such as GOG, but horrible for Steam (many unofficial patches, one from this month, by some of the old dev team, whom BTW split off when EA bought their firm, etc). I will be avoiding Origin best I can however. I have a great disdain for EA, what they have done for my favorite titles, and what they have done to my favorite companies. Compared to Steam their track record is abysmal.
I will admit. If Origin is not another example of EA stupidity, I would have no issue with it downloading in addition to a game I bought on Steam, either as a light weight wrapper or as the full Origin system. As I noted, some game, I suspect an ‘IL-2 Sturmovik’ sequel, LITERALLY installs a Steam like client when installed from Steam, that uses their own service.
I HIGHLY doubt this is anything more than EA being greedy and trying to get 100% of the profits rather than their normal high cut from Steam sales. That is one last thing to note, NO ONE knows the cut Steam takes for sales. My understanding is that their cut is FAR below any retailer, and even more so their publishing of new games does not require a full sign over of all rights and massive upfront costs like any other company (if I tried to publish my game via EA for example). Steam may even take a smaller cut then other services such as D2D, but we simply can’t know that. I know, based on a review of the Steam Process by an indie developer that was published on the net, possibly even RPS, that the steam cut is small and publishing the game has either no, or vastly lower upfront costs. I am sorry I cannot find a link for that right now.
I urge people to think about what they truly know, about Steam, EA, and the entire situation, before they form opinions or even worse vomit them all over a public forum with no qualifications to their assumptions.
PS:
On the note of prices, publishers set the prices. The only prices based on region that anyone can take offense with Steam for are those on Valve games, as Valve chose those prices. And if anyone else noticed, the sales that are done, sometimes the publishers get sneaky and raise the base price during the sale so what looks like 50% off really isn’t. Steam didn’t do that, the publisher did.
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Another reason, when it come to PC, the Europeans, with the much more attractive customer service and trust of their customers means they will be stealing more and more of the PC market for the likes of EA, etc, and that”s about 25% of their profit stream!
The European companies are quietly going from strength to strength and no on is taking them seriously, just the way they want it, I bet!
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So 60€ price, no modding tools and not on Steam?
My answer: no buy
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WAHHHHHHH WAHHHH WAHHHHHHHHH!!!!!
Bunch of whining babies you all are. You guys sound just like the childish console fanboys you often like to criticize.
Seriously, Grow the fuck up.
I USE STEAM,GOG,IMPULSE,AMAZON DOWNLOAD, AND ORIGIN (PREVIOUSLY CALLED: EADM).
For this purpose I’ll use the 2 most popular choices that I use; STEAM AND AMAZON DOWNLOAD + ORIGIN (aka EADM) since that is the topic at hand.
ORIGIN is nothing new, it has been around for a long while and used to be called EADM.
OF the THREE PROGRAMS I CHOSE FOR THE DISCUSSION, STEAM IS THE MOST INTRUSIVE OF THE THE 3.
Amazon Download and Origin for the most part are just client installers. Once you install the game you can close AmazonDL and Origin out and run the game on the spot.
On STEAM you have to take the extra step of having to RUN THE GAME ONCE ONLINE, then go OFFLINE if you want to play the game “supposedly” by itself. But truth is Steam still tries to contact the server even in offline mode (PEERBLOCK reports the Steam address being repeatedly blocked) and if you want to get the ONLINE features of steam again, then you have to switch to ONLINE again….
Right away, the 2 other programs are already less intrusive.
Steam has issues with certain games, especially those with Punkbuster. Many times PB will find Steam itself and steam overlay as an intrusive program and kick you from games and YES IT STILL CAN PB KICK YOU OUT EVEN WITH STEAM OVERLAY OFF. I have yet to see that for games I have downloaded through Amazon DL and Origin(aka EADM) that use PB.
Origin does have some social features, but just like Amazon Download it is mostly a simple and efficient installer client.
I like Steam don’t get me wrong, but it IS NOT THE END ALL BE ALL SOLUTION. I HAVE 200+ GAMES ON STEAM ALONE and I still am not a fanboy like you delusional pricks.
As another point, why the HELL would EA provide one of their most popular PC MP franchises to their main competitor when they have ORIGIN to DISTRIBUTE it with, this is their way of starting up their own digital distribution company and making it big.
AND BEFORE you say anything, VALVE DID THE SAME SHIT WITH STEAM. ALLLLLLL THEIR GAMES REQUIRES STEAM, ever since STEAM was introduced.
STOP TRYING TO PROTECT THE SAME MONSTER you are criticizing. THEY ARE THE SAME. Your blind loyalty to Steam is very obvious.
I already mentioned that i have 200+ games on steam, most of them being bought from sales. I never buy new or high priced games on steam.
Origin being a large rival to Steam is a great thing because it brings price competition and also brings competition in the business background as I am probably sure Origin will have a lower %(percentage) cut from the publishers and developers because they are fairly new and want to make it big in this market. THIS HELPS BOTH CUSTOMERS AND DEVELOPERS/PUBLISHERS because it brings competition on the sales floor and in the office.
STEAM “used” to be that awesome program that valve brought up and provided amazing deals, but just as expected, once that cute monster becomes a giant corporate monster, they start to get money hungry and greedy.
I’m 100% POSITIVE they ask for a larger %(Percentage) cut now than they used to for each game sold, and I’m sure they are looking to maximize profits now by using cool schemes like digital goods during the SUMMER STEAM SALE to get customers to buy games for the tickets and by introducing TF2 as a F2P game w/ lots of hats and microtransactions, more “free” customers = more chance to gain profits. It is also a smart decision to get non-steam people to finally get it so they can play TF2… Do you see what I am seeing.
THEY HAVE BEEN DOING THIS FOR A WHILE. IT first started as just “WINTER/SUMMER” sales, then obviously it gradually changed to enticing customers to buy xx games to get xx tickets for a 1 in a few millions chance to win “free games” (digital goods which have a infinite supply) etc.
AM I THE ONLY ONE WHO USES STEAM AND NOTICES THE OBVIOUS BUSINESS TACTICS OR IS EVERYONE ELSE JUST A CLUELESS IDIOT?!?!?!?!?
I have no loyalty to anyone except my joy for games and the amount of money I can save between these companies.
Remember all, Valve is a company and like every company if it controls the market alone too long and grows too large it will be difficult for others to compete with it later on.
Competition in any business is ALWAYS a good thing for everyone, on the business and consumer end, remember that.
/END RANT
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Well said, good sir. That omnipresent Steam fanboyism is honestly annoying.
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Well that certainly was a rant.
A lot of what you say is either assumption (‘Steam must take a bigger cut now’) or conjecture (the TF2 thing).
TF2 was a successful game that sold well. Everything in their micro-transaction store can also be attained in the game normally. I for one will probably never use the micro-transaction store, but I don’t mind it.
Your bit about Steam still contacting Steam IPs just wreaks of general ignorance of how such programs function. Let alone the fact that there are several web viewers inside of the Steam client on different tabs, the Details view backgrounds and the game images come from the Steam servers, hence even if offline an attempt will be made to pull this data. The point of offline mode is that the system does not talk constantly about account data, not that it doesn’t bother to try to load a background. If it did stop all contact, you would probably be complaining about things as minor as a screenshot or leader-board missing when you are in ‘offline mode’.
I can run many of the games I have bought from Steam, specifically the ones from the ‘common’ folder, without Steam running at all. Only when they integrate Steamworks or Steam DRM do I have to use the client.
For note on me specifically, in case someone tried to shoot down my comment with ‘lookz at the Steem fanboyz’, I am not a fan boy, I am a happy customer. I like the community features but I do not feel the need to remain exclusive to them. As a Computer Scientist if I have any issues with isolation of community I simply write some sort of aggregation. I have written several plugins for my multi-chat program just so I can keep everything in one place. I am not saying others can do that, I am simply saying that if my reply to this is read, it should be taken with some level of meaning because I am not a rabid fan-boy but a happy customer whom has the capability, if I wanted, to start my own ‘Steam’. I say this preemptively because of the number of good notes made, with citations, that get shot down with the call of ‘steam fanboy’.
Personally if there was a way to make all the clients play nice together, I would have no issue. For Steam this would be darn easy. For any other system, I have yet to even see a WebAPI that isn’t a piece of garbage.
I am not saying your opinions are invalid, I am however asking you, and more so everyone else, to please either back up their claims or state their assumptions. What if an assumption is wrong and it is touted as a fact? Then you either spread ignorance or look pretty bad yourself.
Perhaps I should write a high-level client that can sit over Steam, Origin, and others and call them up as need be. I don’t have the time for that right now but maybe it would clean up a lot of the social bull-crap and allow a true discussion of the issues at heart. It is not what is provided so much as what the track record of each respective company is.
From here it looks like EA is at war with Steam, unprovoked and irrationally, and is shooting itself from nearly point blank in the foot. I am sure most of us can agree EA is a grinder mill of sub-par sequels of IPs cannibalized from former smaller developers they eviscerate. Their support structures are laughable, their DRM harsh (far harsher than Valve/Steam’s), and their practices ancient.
tldr;
There is no short version, I write a lot because I want to be as clear and articulate as possible to the point I cannot be misunderstood. All misunderstandings of what I write come from a failure to read it all.
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These are experiences I have dealt with personally. I have 200+ games on steam, why the hell would I not play them??!?! Playing them and experiencing Steam and its infrastructure is a all in one experience a “Steam user” cannot avoid.
My current main game that uses PB is COD:WAW. As I said earlier, getting PB kicks happen “often” I never said it was “always” doing that.
I LOVE STEAM, why the hell would I continue to buy from them if I hated the overall experience. But Steam has flaws fanboys seem to turn a blind eye on.
Yes I understand your response for offline mode, but even if steam is contacting the server for basic things like images and such, the honest truth is… IT REALLY ISN’T OFFLINE then is it.
I forgot to mention that Steam downloading is god awful slow at times, especially at busy times, not so much for origin and amazon dl.
Yes it is due to the large user base Steam has but if they really cared, they would’ve obviously spent money on more servers because they got the money and are well aware of that issue yet fail to remedy it. I also already discussed how Steam being a monopoly can harm this business sector that is digital distribution and a bunch of other things. I have become a huge fan of Amazon DL because often their prices are actually cheaper than steam sale prices for Steam sales, doesn’t happen all the time, but when it does you save a pretty penny.
Here are a few examples. During the December sale in 2010 (last year) Arma 2: combined operations was on sale for $30 on steam. Amazon usual likes to compete so many times users report to them or they find out themselves of sales on titles amazon has in their digital lineup of pc games. Usually prices change the day of in the afternoon of competitors sales (usually steam) or the next day. Once amazon knew Arma 2: combined operations was on sale they slashed their game price to $12.50!!!. I saved a large percentage of money on that game just because I shopped smart instead of having blind loyalty to steam only.
In May of this year, Steam had a EA sale week and Ubisoft sale week later on. I only remember mass effect 2, assassins creed 1 and 2 because they were the only titles I bought.
AC 1 and AC2, on steam $6.80 and $10.20, on amazon it was $5.44 and $8.16.
Steam had ME 1 for 5 bucks, amazon had it for a buck less, ME 2 was 10 bucks on steam, amazon had it for 8 bucks later on the day and following the rest of the week. They change prices often and like to fluctuate but also keep the sale prices longer than normal even after their competitor has already finished the sale. Smart business practices on their part.
I have personally have experienced with EA’s Origin (previously known as EADM) customer support. I made a mistake order and requested a refund. The reason was I bought the latest group of Command & Conquer games from them but the day after Steam had a better deal. I didn’t tell them of course though.
THEY HAVE A NUMBER TO CONTACT A HUMAN BEING!!!! A HUMAN and he was an AMERICAN EMPLOYEE, spoke perfect english and no outsourced accent.
NO BS with emails only contact that STEAM HAS, NO 1 time only refund rule that STEAM HAS…… Refund was easy, no questions asked and GUESS WHAT! I got a $20 store credit just because of the inconvenience, even though it was a mistake on my end!!!! This was during the december digital sales happening everywhere. EA was promoting then EADM, now Origin during that time. I got BC2 and the expansion and dlc for 15 bucks while it was on sale on steam for 25 bucks. Because of the crazy promotion going on I got many free games, Simcity 4 cost money on Steam that time while on Origin (aka EADM) gave free copies to everyone (digital goods having a virtually infinite supply is amazing isnt it). Mirror’s edge was also free too while it was sold for a asking price on steam. Overall I got about 5 free games and a bunch of other free goodies.
LEARN TO SHOP AROUND, dont just look at steam and you will find gems everywhere and better deals only select ppl will find because they dont have a blind loyalty only to Steam.
I just have to say it again STEAM customer support is SHIT!!!! absolute puke shit. Their return policy is crap and you really can’t say otherwise because you only talk through email. At least you have a chance and larger understanding when you talk to a REAL human being on phone like I have experienced with Origin (aka EADM).
Back to the subject.
The general message I am trying to point out is the obvious hypocrisy the steam fanboys are saying about their “GODLY” program while if another company uses the same tactic Valve has used in the past they CONDEMN THE COMPANY and say “no buy” and stupid shit like that?!?!?
If you really wanted to have a discussion between me, it would fare well if you actually read what I wrote instead of saying “All misunderstandings of what I write come from a failure to read it all.”, because that really doesn’t help you on your end.
Shit… seems like another rant
/END 2ND RANT
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@ tixxx
I read everything you wrote, even if it made my eyes bleed a bit. I can understand capital letters for emphasis but, dang. You took my comment about reading my entire message wrong, which sort of defeats the purpose. I made the note about tldr simply because I looked to see I had written about as much as the original article, and have had lots of experience with people reading one word of what I say and taking it wrongly, even when the next sentence would have fixed that misunderstanding. I have had this issue many times. It appears this time that very act of extra caution has cause a misunderstanding. I was not personally singling you out in any way, I was trying to be preemptive to issues anyone might have with reading my writing.
About OFFLINE MODE. Offline Mode in any application simply means that said application will still function if disconnected from the internet. It does not however mean that it will entirely cease all attempts to use the internet, just that it will not require it. Personally I call a mode that does not even attempt to communicate outside an ‘Autistic Mode’, but that is from watching too much GitS.
Steam’s downloading can be slow because of demand. I tend not to have that issue but I know it can be notorious for others. Other services are better simply because they have lower load. Steam is in the process of rolling out more improvements to the system to allow for partial file updates rather than full file replacements in updates and reduced effort needed on the part of developers in constructing their patches. I suspect this will be a variation on version control. Steam has and is still spending more and more money on servers. If you are getting a bad download speed, maybe you should select one of their many other servers instead of letting it pick the closest and in your case I guess most congested.
I have dealt with Steam support and EA support several times and my experiences make me give Steam 5 stars and EA about 2. Though, I do not doubt your experiences. From your written word I get the feeling you would be much better with a voice based support system, while I prefer text simply because I may go back and adjust what I say or re-read what someone else says. I think that might be an introvert vs extrovert situation. Both systems have you talking to a real person, though one is text and one is voice, neither is a robot. Two key experiences I will cite are with Steam, having lost my Global Agenda key because of the new F2P system they added, and despite their tremendous support ticket load at the time, getting timely and apologetic service for the delay. With EA, there was an issue with BF2142 Northern Strike which never was resolved. They somehow got the expansion on a different account, that they made, leaving the base game on the first, after we had a simple patching malfunction and contacted them. The expansion remained unplayable for a long time and might still be, they ceased support contact with us with no resolution.
EA offering games for free if not nearly free? I am reminded of Steam offering Portal for free for something like a month, and even more so making TF2 free forever (thought I feel a bit burned for having purchased it and only getting a hat for it, they made everyone who bought it get flagged with a ‘Premium DLC’ entry that is likely to have some meaning in the future).
The problem is I think that you are seeing posts by a few Steam fanboys (and a few EA fanboys too) and then taking every pro-Steam comment as a fanboy. I am not a fanboy, but I appreciate the system. I have the technical knowledge to replace it if I want to try, but I know that right now, the system is good enough that people will not leave it, and I don’t want to leave it myself. Many people are also unhappy with this Origin system and their clear ‘at arms’ pose toward Steam simply because EA has a track record no politician could even survive.
I have about 600 games on Steam, but I feel no need for a pissing party on who spent the most cash on one service. The truth is I have that many because I did shop around, and I chose to buy from Steam vs the others because of package deals, other services, and general support strength (in my experience).
You have to understand, I have to read your rant several times just to make sense of it. In-eloquent is putting it lightly but I do not feel I should delve into a critic of your writing as I want to discuss the points and not the people.
And yes, that was another rant. If you want to see me rant, ask me privately about nuclear power or something, but I don’t have strong enough feelings to rant on this subject other than to say that EA is a force of general evil that has harmed my favorite developers, some of whom I talk to daily (and that is a privilege I tell you). Steam has nothing but good blood with me. I have never had an issue that was not promptly and cleanly resolved by their support. In the event of a delay they apologized like there was no tomorrow to go on to and still got me helped clean and simply.
PS:
Please note that while I have read all that you have written, and you took my general comment to do so personally, to read what one says is not to agree with them. It is not that I did not read what you said because I did not agree, but that I did because I did my best to offer a counterpoint to everything I could think of in the hope of stimulating a discussion.
Man, they aren’t kidding when they say digital battlefield are they?
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Why did you spend an entire paragraph explaining why Steam servers might have been slow… I have already explained the reason why it was slow, due to a large user base. And yes it is something Valve is very much aware of but fail to completely resolve. You don’t need to regurgitate what I have stated out in a simple few words as to the reason why the problem exists.
As for BF2142, I have that installed for a long while (same for bf2), in fact I currently have the game tied to my Origin (EADM) account. I just ran it right after reading your comment. Runs fine and I just click on the Game shortcut icon on my desktop w/o needing it to run Origin, even though it is a EA GAME!!! I don’t get some popup window like the proprietary steam program does for its valve games.
The recent summer sale is a prime example. Its basic supply and demand. Obviously they are not providing enough supply to the requested demand at certain peak times/days, such as the sale we just recently experienced.
Again, it sounds as if you are only defending Steam because of my unbiased negative opinions on them. Steam isn’t perfect and neither are the other digital distribution companies, but people need to fully recognize Steams flaws which many seem to turn a blind eye on.
Slow downloads at certain times, often auto paused downloading during peak times or outright not being able to download due to “server error”
Steam deals can often be beaten by other competitors.
Steam Overlay and Steam itself can be a problem for picky games
Installing/Running games although easy enough is not as quick/easy in comparison to competitors as they use a more simple and straightforward client.
Some games have difficulty running mods due to the way the game may be tied to Steam
Sometime it is difficult to modify a game such as mods or rolling it back to a previous patch without it causing some kind of confusion between steams files within the game directory as the game is trying to start up
Don’t care what you call it, but offline mode is nothing like a program that is actually not running (no process running in task manager)
And the number one most important of all is the “customer service” they have, or should I say lack there of.
Refund process feels as if they are DOING YOU A FAVOR.
Basic customer service with a customer service database full of pre-written sentences they just copy and paste to you for “real human conversations” the and for the “favored” customer.
Here is a copy and paste message from a copy and pasting customer service helper. A refund I did early March of this year.
“Thank you for contacting Steam Support. As with most software products, we do not offer refunds or exchanges on games, DLC or in-game items purchased on our website or through the Steam Client. As a ONE-TIME customer service GESTURE we will issue you STORE CREDIT for the amount of your purchase into your Steam Wallet. The credit will also remove the title or item from your account. Please confirm that you would like us to proceed with this credit. ”
store credit only, and as a one time “gesture”…. such bullshit.
Call it what you want, but talking to a live person on phone beats texting to “someone” through emails only. Getting service through a phone, done in within half an hour at most (usually within 5-10min)
Getting service through email, send it and wait for response that you get at the end of the day, then you respond and wait till next day for slow back and forth communication across a whole a day to a few days…
Admittance, that is all I want, for people to admit the many flaws that Steam has. I know other digital distribution companies have issues as well, but at least people recognize those issues. Not so much for Steam.
I just hate the fact that people put Steam on a pedestal.
Much like a (just an example) japanophile who doesn’t know anything about japan yet worship and defend them anytime someone says crap about the final fantasy series or other jrpgs, or say negative things to the regurgitated copy and paste mainstream animes, etc. (no offense to anyone, but that is a well known and often true stereotype that exists on the web)
I just want people to admit the flaws that Steam does have. Just to admit that it isn’t perfect and to admit that what other companies are doing is nothing new, things Valve have already done and are continuing to do this very day.
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Gotta say, it’s all just a little bit childish.
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No steam, no purchase. Hope you’re reading this EA and I hope enough other people feel the same way.
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EA, no purchase. Way easier.
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I prefer Steam over any other digital service, and over retail boxes, as it has been reliable and very convinient to use in the 4 years I have had it. And I don’t think it gets more convinient than being able to access your games library from any PC in the world, and install it as many times as you want
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If EA is going to desperatly try and promote their “Origin” shop by not allowing Steam to sell BF3, thus making them the only major seller offering the game, than I will be forced to buy it from there, because BF3 is shaping up to be a truly remarkable game, however I would still link the game through Steam and try to adapt it as much as possible, because I am used to the Steam Community, and other great things it offers (such as the unlimited installation, as mentioned before).
If, however, the retail copy will NOT be forcefully linked to Origin upon installation, than I would probably purchase that and link it to Steam, despite the usual hassle with retail versions of games.
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@Eamo
While I will agree that Steam provides good service and has a vibrant community [laregly due to the fact that they were the first viable digital distribution service to include a streamlined, in-game community], how do you think they got all their customers?
“You don’t build a platform by bullying people into using it, you build it by offering years of world class support and service.”
If you bought Half-Life 2, which I’m assuming you either didn’t or have an awful memory, you needed to install and run Steam to play that game. Valve bullied people into using Steam by requiring users to run the client when they wanted to run the game… Same with TF2 and a few other titles. At the time, this left a bad taste in most peoples’ mouths, and some didn’t buy the game solely for that reason. Their titles were good enough to make most say “ah, fuck it” and install the client. That was my experience, and I bought a boxed retail copy online.
Now I have Steam friends and titles and I’m tied to the platform since it was the first I used. That means most of my games are bought through there and all of my gaming friends are on there. That means that I really, really don’t want to have to make and remember login credentials for a service I will never use and a client I will never want to have to run on top of the game I want to play [read: Rockstar Social Club?]. Now if what I read in another poster’s comment is true, that the client doesn’t have to run to play the game, then fuck it. I’ll buy it, what do I care? My main concern is the extra application I have to run and the logins. My system’s close to the minimum specs and I really don’t want another 50MB chunk of memory and countless CPU cycles taken up by crap I won’t use.
I will say that I am disheartened like all PC gamers to see publishers fleeing from PC, seeing it as a dying platform. But seeing titles like BF3 and ARMA 3 is encouraging, and while I know PC gaming will never die, I really hope that big-budget titles like BF3 will continue to be seen on PC. I feel that while distribution does not equal publishing, having only one credible player [Steam] in the digital distribution business hurts distribution choices online. I like Steam, but it needs competition just like PCs do, to keep the consumer happy. I just don’t think that will come in the form of an EA-run platform.
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