Crysis 2 and Others Disappear from Steam, EA's Relationship With Steam Unknown [UPDATED]

Guess whose not buying EA games anymore? And its not because I'm boycotting them or anything, its just because i like steam and if your game isn't on that service i probably will never see it.

They can't afford this gamble on BF3 and SW:TOR.

They need to maximize sales on those investments and cutting Steam is pretty much guaranteed to cut down on sales. Even Microsoft and Activision know better (since they're offering Fable III and COD on Steam respectively).

Your infinite dependence on Steam like it's the only way to buy and play a PC video game is pathetic and laughable, guys.

Guess what EA, not going to buy any of your games before they are back on Steam.

@Ahmad_Metallic: im not dependent on steam just not willing to go to origin with 2 yers limited download and 5 installs only

I like some of EA's games, but they're so totally greedy that I don't want to do business with them directly, they aren't trustworthy.

While competition is undoubtedly a good thing, Steam (and Valve in general) has been one of the few places where they haven't really needed it in order to stay fair and honest with consumers.

What I hate about all the other services is it's only one publisher and it just seems so forced and obnoxious. Valve understandably pushes and advertises everyones games. That makes a huge difference in perception, I wonder if individual publisher platforms can survive. While Steam is owned and operated by one development house they do an incredible job at making it open and fair to all developers and publishers. Valve gets it.

Haha, way to shoot yourself in the foot EA.

It's like david vs goliath, but everyone is on goliath's side.

@Ahmad_Metallic: im not dependent on steam just not willing to go to origin with 2 yers limited download and 5 installs only

I bet within 18 months all these games will be back on Steam and EA's DD store will remain a joke.  I guess in the meantime I'll have to run to Best Buy for ME3 and whatever other EA games I'm interested in.

@Walker_after_dark: was that from the tested podcast?

@Ahmad_Metallic: read this whole thread there are links to the toa of origin in here that stateswhat i said.

@Ahmad_Metallic:

It's not so much that steam is awesome (which it is), but more that EA has a history of doing bullshit digital stores in the past. Stuff like "If you want us to 'hold' your digital copy indefinitely, you need to give us more money, else you have to download it in the next 3 months and its gone forever".

I haven't checked their new store, and I don't plan on doing so.

Trick me once, shame on you, trick me twice, shame on me...

Origin will only succeed if they offer competitive prices to fight steam sales. Half my EA stuff was bought ONLY BECAUSE it was on sale at Steam, specifically. Will Origin offer the same amount of discounted old stuff? If EA are intelligent about this and support this service, then great. Otherwise, I fear they've shot themselves in the foot.

This isn't a deal breaker - I'll still buy the good EA games, even from their bizarro origin store, but I will be hesitant to buy experimental stuff from them.

Oh well - any competition to Steam is a good thing.

EA is going to try to avoid Steam at all cost. They want the business in their store because they want it to be a direct competitor to Steam, even though they are too late to even make a dent in the success of Steam,

Makes sense financially for EA so I can't really get mad at them.

@AndrewB said:

@Butano said:

@Jeffsekai said:

Good move on EA. People seem to forget that Steam is run by Valve, a video game company and a rival for EA. I mean, can you even buy TF2 or other Valve games anywhere else other than Steam? Nope, double standards need to go away.

Oh the irony....

He totally forgets that EA publishes Valve's titles at retail (and now via Origin). Of course, that looks like it might change in the future.

EA has publishing rights for the physical copies of TF2 and Portal 2, that is what they are selling. They are not selling a download code for the games, my point stands.

Welp, guess I won't be buying EA PC games any more.

The shortsightedness of EA is amazing. I'm not going to their own special site. I'm going to use Steam, and if their games are located in some dark, unused corner of the internet then I'm not going to seek it out. So many good games come out on a weekly basis. They want me to go out of my way to buy Crysis 2? Guess I'll skip it, stay here, and buy Terraria instead.

Bye bye EA. I've dealt with their download services in the past. No thanks?

I'd have thought that even if Steam takes a cut of EA's profits on every EA game that's sold on their service.

EA would make more money having their own products available in more places than in places that're harder to find and have considerably less, if any, special offers on them to attract customers to their own service.

They're late to the game and they're, metaphorically, David vs Goliath, and in the real world Goliath simply looks confused at why such a puny moron would threaten his own, David's own, unthreatened life, by attacking Goliath in the first place, for no reason, with a futile little stone.

So ok, let's see.

You can only play for 2 years, or download for 2 years? The latter was like that for years. The solution was either buy the Steam version, or the Retail version (you know, physical copy)

But if I buy the retail version, and I need to register it on Origin so they keep it forever and all I'm left with is a bunch of discs that help me through the process, I think EA can go stick the game up their "origins".

The plot thickens!

this will hurt bf3 sales

Bye bye EA. I've dealt with their download services in the past. No thanks?

@Jeffsekai said:

@AndrewB said:

@Butano said:

@Jeffsekai said:

Good move on EA. People seem to forget that Steam is run by Valve, a video game company and a rival for EA. I mean, can you even buy TF2 or other Valve games anywhere else other than Steam? Nope, double standards need to go away.

Oh the irony....

He totally forgets that EA publishes Valve's titles at retail (and now via Origin). Of course, that looks like it might change in the future.

EA has publishing rights for the physical copies of TF2 and Portal 2, that is what they are selling. They are not selling a download code for the games, my point stands.

Technically yes, but you still need to have Steam to be able to play it, and use the download code that comes in the box that ties the game to your Steam account, rendering the boxed copy useless if you want to give the game away. When you buy the boxed copy, you buy the download code with it.

I do agree with you that it sure as hell won't use EA's Origin client though, because the game requires Steam to play.

@Dork_Metamorphosis said:

@wewantsthering said:

Bye bye EA. I've dealt with their download services in the past. No thanks?

Yup. I'd be surprised if anybody willing to give this a shot has. I'm not mad about it or anything, just don't want to deal with EA's digital store nonsense again.

Exactly. :-) I'm glad that EA doesn't really publish too many games I actually care about anymore.

I wish they'd take the copy I bought on Steam of it away and give me my money back.
 
I have no idea why I paid full price for it. 7 hours of mediocity.

I'm not gonna have to buy Mass Effect 3 on that service, am I? Cause F that.

Just read the update and it sounds like a bunch of bullshit, of course it's removed from Steam so they can make it exclusive and promote their own service?

Hmm.. EA's response is interesting. I wonder if EA has a legitimate gripe with Steam, or if EA just got their lawyers to find an excuse to yank their big new titles off of Steam.

@picklecannon said:

Guess whose not buying EA games anymore? And its not because I'm boycotting them or anything, its just because i like steam and if your game isn't on that service i probably will never see it.

That's a pretty stupid thing to say.  You're not paying for a platform, it's just a service.  Steam is free so you really haven't 'invested' anything more than imaginary support for the service.  What's wrong with using both?  You don't lose out for having an account both ways.

@TIIME said:

The fracturing of the PC digital download services begins. Unfortunately, I doubt Steam will when this war. Activision/Blizzard is only a few steps a way from making Battle.net their exclusive digital download service.

What are you talking about?!?

They found the land, won the lopsided war, and now they just have to hold onto the kingdom. Steam has such a huge library and such great deals...

Blizzard just has its games on battlenet... Valve has all of its games + many other titles.

@zameer said:

Slightly disappointed since they've been supporting the PC community pretty well for the past few years and that goodwill is being unravelled :( I'm interested in seeing how the somewhat dodgy grey-market will look like in the next few months.

Definitely, and as a Steam owner of Crysis 2 and would-be BF3 this really puts a dampener on things.

Regardless of what's really going on her, EADM is a fairly good service. Never had any problems with it in the past. On that very note... does anyone want a EADM ME2 key... all my friends already have it. (btw, I can't guarantee that it still works, It's been sitting on my desktop for awhile now).

EA response is lawyer talk for "we wanted to pay Valve less money. so we violated "their" new business terms" or some such, and now the games are only available origins and retail.

Hmmm... I'm pretty sure there gotta be more to this. I'm pretty sure like every game on steam exists on other digital services o_O

Hmm.. EA's response is interesting. I wonder if EA has a legitimate gripe with Steam, or if EA just got their lawyers to find an excuse to yank their big new titles off of Steam.

@Butano said:

@Jeffsekai said:

@AndrewB said:

@Butano said:

@Jeffsekai said:

Good move on EA. People seem to forget that Steam is run by Valve, a video game company and a rival for EA. I mean, can you even buy TF2 or other Valve games anywhere else other than Steam? Nope, double standards need to go away.

Oh the irony....

He totally forgets that EA publishes Valve's titles at retail (and now via Origin). Of course, that looks like it might change in the future.

EA has publishing rights for the physical copies of TF2 and Portal 2, that is what they are selling. They are not selling a download code for the games, my point stands.

Technically yes, but you still need to have Steam to be able to play it, and use the download code that comes in the box that ties the game to your Steam account, rendering the boxed copy useless if you want to give the game away. When you buy the boxed copy, you buy the download code with it.

I do agree with you that it sure as hell won't use EA's Origin client though, because the game requires Steam to play.

The point is that EA is still getting money from the boxed copies. Besides, they can't just throw out the thousands of copies they have lying around.

Also, you literally cannot buy a PC version of a Valve game without having to install Steam at some point. That is no different that what EA is doing.

This move by EA might seem aggressive, but it seems to me I have seen titles in the past come on-line at a later date than release on Steam. Just how it is, ppl. do want to make money. I think the Alice Returns bit has been awkward and perhaps a diservice to the title. But I'm going to get it at Amazon on disc...why not? The Crysis 2 as I have read here is a seperate issue, I do not know what to make of it. EA is saying essentially they were 'forced' by new Steam policy.

That is shitty of them.

In this business PR doesn't just say things that sound like facts just to bullshit people. Trust me they've got slimier ways of saying things if that was their intention.

Basically it means games like Crysis 2 will be taken off Steam not because EA asked them to. That doesn't mean EA have fought the decision.

EDIT: Also keep in mind that EA now has 50 games on Steam a lot still from this year and last holiday. People have to keep in mind that Valve doesn't use magic to get those publishing deals or get those games on sale. There are agreements, meetings, and gritty business that gets done and this is no different.

The way EA puts it, valve is sounding pretty sketchy right now.

even more fun when i launch origin... its in beta....donkeys confussed

Love how people are blaming EA when it's Valve's fault...

"Steam has imposed a set of business terms for developers hoping to sell content on that service – many of which are not imposed by other online game services. Unfortunately, Crytek has an agreement with another download service which violates the new rules from Steam and resulted in its expulsion of Crysis 2 from Steam."

Another download service? Oh, you mean like Origin? Wait, why would that effect Battlefield 3 and Alice?

I almost have to applaud the nerve here.

Fuck Origin.com

I use Origin because they had some pretty good sales in the past. $20 off Bad Company 2 a month after release. Origin isn't bad, but it's no Steam.

I'm curious as to what this "Agreement" with this other "download service" could be? I mean there are thousands of games on Steam and other services how is it that Crysis 2 ends up being the one problem and also just happen to be around the time EA is promoting Origin?

This is a bad move by EA.Crysis 2 was already out on steam way before the origin service,and even if crysis 2 is removed.The original crysis and warhead still remain.Also i hate the digital download service EA had back in the day,with the limits of how many times you could download the game,and even how long it was active on the account,just to be deleted by the 1 year limit wich is weird for a digital service,wich lives and dies by the amount of users using it . Just saying EA,don't do this again.Lost my Battlefield 2 expansions because of this.