On an investor conference call yesterday, Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitiello touted the wonders of EA's new download service, Origin, pointing out the obvious fact that the margins (the amount of money EA makes) on each game sale are 100 percent if the games are sold on Origin. But, contrary to some recent narratives in the gaming space, Riccitiello made it clear that EA games would continue to appear on Steam and other download services.
"We are pushing EA content on any and every platform we can," Riccitiello said. "We love what we're getting with Origin, but we are very keen to get our content distributed anywhere where gamers are."
This is not to say that every EA game will always appear on Steam. Case-in-point: Dragon Age 2. The game has apparently been pulled from Steam. A quick check of their catalog reveals that the game is gone from the site -- at least for now -- although the reason seems to not be a conflict with Origin.
According to Destructoid's sources, the game being pulled may be directly connected to the just-launched "Legacy" downloadable content.
From Destructoid:
"Our sources indicate that EA was offering the content by way of an in-game store, which may be a violation of the latest version of Steam's terms of service. If this is the case, EA and BioWare would have had to re-write parts of the game software just for Steam, simply to conform with Valve's standards. It's possible that EA's refusal to do so may have led to Valve yanking the title entirely."
I've contacted EA, so hopefully I'll get a little more information on this soon, and then I'll update.
All of the best people are following Stephen Johnson's twitter feed. Also, email me if you wanna.
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Comments
Displaying 1–11 of 11
AMDFreak
Finally a sensible thing. Thanks EA, you still hold frimly to second most evil gaming company behind Activision.
TheStranger110
am i the only one here who might use steam and origins??????????????
Mofobian
Thank Jesus, Moses, Rebecca Black and all that is Holy. Amen.
Mofobian
Thank Jesus, Moses, Rebecca Black and all that is Holy
Darkborn
As long as I get my Battlefield 3 on Steam. I will be happy.
Wandrecanada
This is the third piece of content pulled by Steam due to recent changes in it's policies. Policies that changed oddly close to the announcement of Origin. The other two titles were Crysis 2 and Alice: The Madness Returns.
I'm actually getting sick of people blaming EA for this as well. It's Steam pulling the content down for violating terms not EA. While Valve remains tight lipped about the whole debacle EA has gone on record at least twice indicating they were interested in keeping Steam as a platform (they're a game dev so it makes sense no?). Valve has never gone on record denying these statements.
Face it folks. Steam is not the white knight here. Steam is simply trying to keep their lion's share of the PC distribution market. EA is trying to reduce it's costs for distribution by skipping the Valve middleman (also a direct competitor as a dev). They both have their reasons for what is happening. I only personally feel that Valve's actions are a bit more shady.
DruidQueen
Screw your crappy Origin, EA.
westraz
no one going to say the big game I have to lol, you know if Stream go on with suing them, that means it stop ToR from coming out so W T F!!!
Severnik
As long as battlefield 3 ends up on steam along with mass effect 3, you won't get any problems from me EA.
ashkpa
Thank you EA. This makes me happy.
doodle_billy
im not gonna lie orgins is really bad.....just saying
Displaying 1–11 of 11