Valve Finally Addresses Electronic Arts' Problems With Steam

@DoNotBanMe: Troll harder sir

@Leadcat said:

I wonder if the huge ad for MW3 on the Steam front page is Valve saying "This is what you're missing out on EA!"

Didn't think of that, nice catch.

@Vegsen said:

EA has to give in to Steam in the end, people don't want to go to their Origin platform no matter how good or bad it is.

Steam's where it's at.

agree

It's yet more PR talk the same kind that EA has been spouting. It's not worth a damn and if anything just highlights that this is a business decision between two businesses and not some grand war between two empires. They came to an impasse and they will probably work it out.

If I had to guess, EA wants Valve to make massive concessions to keep their content on Steam and was fully ready to use the "we'll take our ball and go home" approach. Good on Valve for not burning those bridges.

I thought EA were saying "We'd love to have our games on Steam if Valve let us." Clearly I'm not following this thing closely enough.

@crusader8463 said:

@Brodehouse said:

Well that's kind of informative, Gabe? I want the future to be every major publisher having it's own download service.

Why would you want something as stupid as that to happen?

CHOO CHOO OH DAMN, IT'S THE SARCASM TRAIN.

On a more serious note, what happened to the people who bought some of the EA games that were subsequently removed? Were all the purchases just refunded? Or did they allow all the people who bought it access but just blocked off any new purchases from the point of removal?

@crusader8463 said:

@Brodehouse said:

Well that's kind of informative, Gabe? I want the future to be every major publisher having it's own download service.

Why would you want something as stupid as that to happen?

CHOO CHOO OH DAMN, IT'S THE SARCASM TRAIN.

On a more serious note, what happened to the people who bought some of the EA games that were subsequently removed? Were all the purchases just refunded? Or did they allow all the people who bought it access but just blocked off any new purchases from the point of removal?

@The_Nubster said:

@CosmicQueso said:

@The_Nubster said:

Gabe is very nice

He is business and fanboys who confuse Steam's brand identity with their own personal identity.

He is very nice, have a video conference with some high school students . Probably cares about gaming and his customers.

No doubt, Gabe is Big League for sure. Other than his somewhat disturbing love of knives he seems very warm, sincere and legit.

But yes, business is business. There is room in the world for GameStop/Impulse, Origin, Blizzard, Steam, D2D, GG, GMG and many others. Steam has the highest share because they've done the best at creating value for us. And who knows, Origin may be the same (I enjoyed the free copy of Dead Space 2 after I preordered BF3) and their customer service is much, much better than Steam's.

I just don't get all the emotional responses and hatred for EA/Origin to what's a legit service offering. Whatever, I'm crazy.

@Leadcat said:

I wonder if the huge ad for MW3 on the Steam front page is Valve saying "This is what you're missing out on EA!"

Or maybe Activision paid them a bunch of advertising money...

Yeah, I'm gonna go with that.

@Brodehouse said:

Well that's kind of informative, Gabe? I want the future to be every major publisher having it's own download service.

That sounds terrible. Even if many of the physical games on my shelf are from different publishers, they still occupy the same organized and easily accessible place. Having 6 or 7 different accounts with my different games all separated into those accounts sounds incredibly annoying.

Woah, wait. Are they pissed that DA2 and Crysis 2 under-performed on Steam and now they are blaming Steam for that?

I actually thought EA games were always very well, what was it, communicated? on steam. Lots of big banners. The only thing I didn't see was any real awesome sales for EA products.

I don't really hate origin as a program, it works I suppose. However, I don't like the precedent it sets. A different distribution system per publisher?  It seems like complete overkill.
  
And to me the whole situation boils down to this: EA just wants to cut out the middleman in its DLC sales while Steam wants DLC to run through them so they can get a cut AND keep the update/patch system running without some outside DLC to worry about. I don't really see why we can't have both. If an EA game is on steam use the steam DLC system. If i buy some shit retail then fine, I'll use origin since I didn't buy it on steam.  
 
 
Oh...and Gabe's reponse was pretty classy :D 

Yes! Listen to the man, EA! It's better for EVERYONE if you use Steam!

Valve continues to show how awesome they are....NOW WHERE IS HALF LIFE 3 GABE??!!

@TPoppaPuff: @TPoppaPuff said:

...With that said, you can fight it all you want but Valve's ridiculous restrictions are at fault and these restrictions are motivated by greed.

I'm afraid you're not looking at the big picture. Granted Valve has some monetary interests but their philosophy has been always to offer customers better service and to offer publishers a better platform.

In this case, it si said that EA wishes to sell DLC inside the game. This would cause your version of the game to change if this DLC is applied. Since it was not done through Steam, then Steam can't validate your game and the whole process of Steam protecting users and publishers from pirated content goes out the window. They have to be able to validate the version for a game like for example Modern Warfare 2, or it could potentially lead to cheating and piracy.

Things are not black and white. Valve may always keep their plans ultra private but they are a trustworthy company, which is more that can be said for EA, and I for one give them a vote of confidence.

If they want to sell their games on Steam they can't degrade the customer's experience by making them go through another payment system. Simple as that. It won't be too long after Battlefield 3 is out that they will release all these games back onto Steam without any tie-ins to their own service.

I like what he had to say about not having a right to publish their stuff and needing to "add value".  He completely avoided the pointless willy-waving that EA has done regarding this.

I like what he had to say about not having a right to publish their stuff and needing to "add value".  He completely avoided the pointless willy-waving that EA has done regarding this.

Valve 1, EA -10000. 

Im sure others have said it, but Valve to me always comes off as the much wiser old man we all hope to become someday, bequeathing knowledge to our grand-kids and what not. They don't throw people under the bus, they acknowledge their are issues between the two companies, but that they see it as a chance in which to demonstrate why their system can push more units of EA's games than any other system.

I love how people get on Patrick for having one misspelling every once in a while, when I've read books in the double digit printings that have sold millions of copies and they still have mistakes in them.

EA Origin represents a commitment to the PC in publishing rounded PC titles regularly, which they have really never done. Many sports franchises and EA games have gotten either terrible ports or when it comes to EA Sports, outright reskins.

It's a shame that the accounting & institutional research is going to have to clean this up when the cross platform sales numbers come out.

I wish the issues could just be made more specific by EA because there's not much more to say about appreciating Steam other than the fact that it's STEAM, the biggest PC distributor and moneymaker there is.

Gabe really said nothing but he does say it in a nice way :).

Obviously this has to do with EA wanting to be dicks about Origin exclusivity.

@eroticfishcake said:

Yes! Listen to the man, EA! It's better for EVERYONE if you use Steam!

all i have to say is i have never been to origins untill just now... what a clusterfuck. i will rather buy it on steam or as a retail box then this. in other words just cave in ea and save some time, pr and face

They kinda just seem like they're going, "Pleeeease EA let us make money off you? Pleeeeeease let us be greedy, we're sorry!"

              EA just wants to cut out the middleman in its DLC sales while Steam wants DLC to run through them so they can get a cut AND keep the update/patch system running without some outside DLC to worry about. 
           

@Sinful said:

yep i see....just more jibber jabber PR talk. by the way pat...still need to lrn to proofread your stuff....it's spelled "Bus" not "Buss" maybe if you cut your beatuful hair youll be able to see what you post. and send your locks to me for my "things to sniff" collection.

"lrn" "beatuful"

I hope you were being ironic =P

All I know is that I won't buy ANY EA games until they are on Steam.  I don't want 50 places where I need to log in and buy/play games.  Steam works great, they are the best service in the business, and not putting your game on Steam is like not having GameStop carry it in my book.  It's insanity.  EA is STUPID if they think people want to buy direct from them and have all of their games exist in 60 different places.

All I know is this has nothing to do with how DLC is sold. 
 
I also really don't care what it's about. Valve and EA can tussle all the way, I like a lot of EA games and have no problem with Origin. The UI is clean, it runs smooth and it works more like Battle.net than anything else. 
  
*shrug*

Alternatives to Steam is a good thing, if Steam becomes too big and has a monopoly they can start charging whatever they want. I still buy most games in retail though since it is much cheaper than Steam or Origin at least here in Sweden (unless it's a sale). The Old Republic can be found for as little as €43 thanks to the power of price competition. if only one place sold the game it would never be lower than the MSRP. I've not buyed a game at MSRP price of €60 for years.

As much as every business where I live would like to move away from Comcast as their ISP, the fact remains that if they want productive employees and optimized output, then the higher speeds and reliability afforded by the "asshole conglomerate" is necessary.

Shitty analogy, I know, but if EA wants to optimize their install base, they have to suck it up and go with what is proven. Everybody and their brother has said "Aw shucks, I could have invented that and I'd be rich!" at some point in their life. The thing EA doesn't realize is that most people/corporations shrug it off and move on, not create a "rival" product (Origin)... Especially one that many people giggle over when it is even mentioned.

If Battlefield 3 (or any PC game, for that matter) doesn't come out on Steam, without a doubt I will not purchase it. I was going to buy both, but if EA continues this money-grubbing mess (Project Ten Dollar, anyone?), it looks like I will have a lot more time to play MW3 in my future.

@dagas: I can still buy the games offered through Steam on a physical disc. I believe that may disqualify Steam as a monopoly. In fact, there are many games that we can only have outside of Steam... StarCraft II, for example.

"their philosophy has been always to offer customers better service and to offer publishers a better platform." 

• EA said: "It was not our decision to remove these games." The truth: Valve, not EA, pulled these games.
  
• EA said: "No other online distributor has pulled these games." The truth: No other online distributor has pulled those games.
• EA said: "Our games were pulled because of our DLC distribution methods." Valve said: "The DLC distribution methods are against the Steam ToS." The truth: The games were removed because of their distribution of DLC in the game itself.

It's almost as if they planned it so they could get a lot of word-of-mouth about Origin out via lots of news articles like this one.

The writing's on the wall, you're just choosing not to read it.  Claiming that out of Valve and EA that Valve is the greedy one.  I mean, fucking Christ almighty, Valve doesn't re-release TF2 every year and shut down the previous games' servers so you're forced to buy the next installment to play online.  Madden, anyone?

Gabe - "EA needs to understand that we're the best, we're better than them, Steam is awesome and we can make a shit load more money if they keep selling their stuff on Steam. Origin sucks, so they should just give up on that and keep giving us money"

Valve's point about DLC is perfectly valid and made even clearer when you try to download the DLC for Crysis 2. Where is it? You can't buy it from mycrysis.com or even find a link to buy it from there. You can't buy it on Origin and you couldn't find it in the EA download store before Origin launched. When it came out there was literally ZERO information about where to actually purchase the map packs for Crysis 2. The DLC is apparently exclusive to Gamespy, which I found out later after I gave up trying and stopped playing the game entirely. Gamespy. What year is it?

I bought every piece of DLC for my Steam copy of Mass Effect 2, and I bought it directly from Bioware but even that process was a pain in the ass. Same goes for the DLC for Dragon Age. The process is too fucking cumbersome. Compare that to buying addons and extras on PSN or XBL...there is no comparison. Valve wants to make it as easy as those services because those are fairly analogous and EA doesn't seem to have a problem with MS and Sony imposing the same restrictions.

If Battlefield 3 (or any PC game, for that matter) doesn't come out on Steam, without a doubt I will not purchase it. I was going to buy both, but if EA continues this money-grubbing mess (Project Ten Dollar, anyone?), it looks like I will have a lot more time to play MW3 in my future.

Well that's a bummer. I like my games to be on Steam.

EA are only hurting themselves and Dice's fantastic game by shunning Steam.

EA = want more money. They want to grab some money for small DLC and patches... that's why they got origin and forces all the battlefield people in that stupid program... it sucks so bad it's not possible. Origin needs to meet it's maker....

Origin is the reason I'm not getting TOR (well...one of the reasons), BF3, and probably ME3 (assuming it won't be on Steam). Do I want to play those games? Yes. Is this absolutely batshit crazy of me? Definitely. However, there are sooooo many other games coming out that I literally could not care less. The fact is I just like having my games on Steam. It's the reason I bought Eve twice and the reason I'm 2 seconds away from buying Guild Wars again at any given moment.
 
Like I've said before, I'm well aware that taking 2 seconds to log onto Origin or whatever won't kill me, but I just don't want anything to do with it.