Valve boss: "We want EA's games on Steam"

[Matthew DeCarlo]

As you've undoubtedly heard, some of EA's games have been retracted from Valve's digital distribution platform. When Crysis 2 first disappeared from Steam in June, gamers immediately assumed that the decision was part of an overarching strategy to force users into purchasing titles through Origin. EA quickly responded to that speculation by noting that it didn't necessarily want to remove Crysis 2 from Steam, and that it mostly boiled down to conflicting terms over serving game patches and downloadable content.

The controversy continued last month when Dragon Age II disappeared from Valve's storefront coinciding with the launch of the Dragon Age II: Legacy add-on content, and EA maintained the same story: Valve's business terms were too "restrictive." Along yanking those titles from Steam, some of EA's upcoming titles will be Origin exclusives, including Star Wars: The Old Republic, while Battlefield 3 will use EA's platform no matter where you buy it. Surprisingly, Valve has been pretty quiet about the feud -- until this week.

Speaking with Develop magazine, Valve boss Gabe Newell explained that matters were complicated. "I don't think Valve can pick just one thing and think that the issue would go away if we fixed that," he said, noting that it was Valve's responsibility to prove that EA stands to gain by having its games on Steam. "We have to prove we are creating value on an ongoing basis, whether it's to EA or Ubisoft or whoever. We want EA's games on Steam and we have to show them that's a smart thing to do," Newell continued.

"I think at the end of the day we're going to prove to EA they have happier customers, a higher quality service, and will make more money if they have their titles on Steam. It's our duty to demonstrate that to them. We don't have a natural right to publish their games." Many believe that EA is sacrificing a large, Steam-loyal audience by omitting games like Battlefield 3 from Valve's platform. In that particular case, players who refuse to use Origin will have immediate access to the primary competition, Modern Warfare 3.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/45133-valve-boss-we-want-eas-games-on-steam.html

 

[Burty117]

Valve, you do have a better and much higher quality service, however... EA don't give 2 sh*ts about quality so it is simply a lost cause. They just want money.

I like Valve alot, they genuinely are all about the best experiences and quality. To prove it they even assume EA are looking for similar goals, ooww how they are wrong.

 

[Jesse]

They better put it on steam. I love battlefield, but I love steam more!

 

[Guest]

Burty117, you are absolutely right.

EA cares about money, nothing else. I seriously doubt Valve will be able to fix the situation.

EA has thoroughly pissed off a huge gaming community by turning their back on Steam. There are so many good games coming out over the next 6 months, I'll have NO problem staying away from EA's titles. It's time to put your money where your mouth is, guys. Don't buy EA games!

 

[n00bzZy]

Earlier this week when I saw EA is giving ME2 free with BF3 I was tempted to try Origin. A minute later I realized I can't be bothered with another, probably a lot less developed and convenient gaming problem, so I'm just gonna stick with Steam as far as buying games goes. I have no doubt EA will sell millions of copies of BF3 anyway, just not from me.

 

[Guest]

Steam at peak usage has 3,537,921 concurrent users
18,044 Current and 29,060 Peak Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 - Multiplayer Users Today
http://store.steampowered.com/stats/

Then again, Modern Warfare 3 is being released on steam, proving you acknowledge their influence and community.

EA Download Manager (Origin) is an annoying over-priced sales unit, that lacks community, price advantage, save-game backup, and off-line backup opportunity. At best it can be described as an aspiring to be STEAM

Remember, Valve is a company that puts out content such as 'Exile Vilify' as easter-eggs.

 

[stan4]

A month ago I bought MOH from Origin, just to try it, and I loved it, I was able to log on instantly with my EA account, make my purchase, download and install, That's as far as Origin goes, after you install your game you forget about it. What I loved the most is that I didn't have to start Origin in order to start my OWN game, steam is all about feeding you with advertisements all the time, wasting your precious PC resources.

I have over 1,200 hours of play on BC2, hell yeah I'm getting BF3, no matter where does it come from, a game distributor should be just that, sell the game and GTFO. Origin is not like steam, steam is a privacy violator, it uses your own goods to feed you ads.

BYE BYE STEAM!

 

[Guest]

Tell me another place you'll find AAA titles 50% off within 3 months of release. Go on. I'm waiting. That's right, nowhere.

 

[Guest]

Stan4, I don't think you know entirely what you're talking about. Either that, or you work for EA. There are NO ads in Steam. If you want to, you can recieve updates on new stuff that's coming to Steam when you log on. This is easily disabled. When I start steam, I go directly to my games Library. I set it up like that, so it doesn't even show the shop.

If you can't see the advantages Steam brings alongside the games, then you haven't been looking hard enough. Steam is a community! Not just some "thing" that has to run in the background and "annoy" you while you play the games.

 

[gwailo247]

stan4 said:
Origin is not like steam, steam is a privacy violator, it uses your own goods to feed you ads.

BYE BYE STEAM!

Say what you will Steam's ads are the ONLY ads that I see on the internet that contain something in them that I may want to buy. I actually enjoy seeing that ad window pop up when I finish a game because it may contain an awesome sale on a game I want to buy.

That aside, you're painting EA as the good guy? Ha. I'm happy you don't mind Origin, but I think you're stretching your credibility if you're going to suggest that EA is somehow the better ethical alternative to Valve.

 

[example1013]

There are people who don't actually even know that Steam is a decent platform because they were so pissed over the whole CounterStrike thing that they just wrote the service off and never looked at it again. It's true that EA is very dedicated to their bottom line, but they have to know that, to entice customers, they're going to need to build a service that can actually compete with Steam, meaning it's going to have to be easy and intuitive with good deals, strong social support, easy purchases, a quality library, and achievements.

I'd actually argue that EA should probably look into licensing Steam's Achievements system, and possibly looking into cross-service integration to make the transition and use of Origin even easier. If they don't make a good service, Origin is going to turn into the GameSpy of digital purchase platforms: you have an account for the few games that require it, but hate it with a passion and never use it except on those 3 games that force you to.

 

[Burty117]

stan4 said:
A month ago I bought MOH from Origin, just to try it, and I loved it, I was able to log on instantly with my EA account, make my purchase, download and install, That's as far as Origin goes, after you install your game you forget about it. What I loved the most is that I didn't have to start Origin in order to start my OWN game, steam is all about feeding you with advertisements all the time, wasting your precious PC resources.

I have over 1,200 hours of play on BC2, hell yeah I'm getting BF3, no matter where does it come from, a game distributor should be just that, sell the game and GTFO. Origin is not like steam, steam is a privacy violator, it uses your own goods to feed you ads.

BYE BYE STEAM!

Haha! 1200 hours and you still don't know how to use steam? Am I missing something here or are you litterally, just a little bit, special?

I login to steam pretty much everyday and I don't see a single Ad in site, no pop-ups in sight or anything annoying? I have to ask, where are you seeing these ads?

Wait a minute, how many porn sites have you been on recently? Probably a virus I would assume.

 

[Guest]

If a game isn't on Steam, and on sale, I just wont ever bother playing it. I can't even be bothered to pirate games these days, since I end up picking up more games in the Steam sales than I can get round to playing. EA withdrawing from Steam = EA games might as well not exist, as far as myself and plenty of others are concerned

 

[Guest]

I don't think promoting mw3 on the steam page was a good idea if your going to get them back.

 

[Chazz]

Like I said before, recently I've purchased mass effect 1/2, BC2, Dragon age(awakening as well) 1/2, Crysis & crysis warhead and I was gonna buy BC3, ME3 and the new Dragon age games when they come out. That changes if they aren't on steam. EA won't see a dollar of mine as I can't be bothered installing a new service for every major video game publisher.

If it isn't on steam I'd rather play the xbox 360 version.

 

[TomSEA]

stan4: "I have over 1,200 hours of play on BC2..."

So you really have no idea what the sun looks like.

 

[1977TA]

It would be nice if these two made a deal. But I doubt it. BF3 is going to be awesome though.

 

[matrix86]

I don't get what Stan is talking about. I am completely new to Steam (and gaming) yet I see zero ads. I log in, it takes me straight to my games library, I launch a game, play it, close it when I'm done, and then log off...and no point do I ever see an ad. Besides, it's just like with youtube and hulu...if it wasn't for the ads, chances are, you'd be paying for the service. Ads are what make sites free.

 

[yukka]

Crazy arguments. When Halflife 2 came out everyone was forced to install steam. It ran like ****, didn't uninstall cleanly, used a shitload of resources if it started with windows and it was difficult to get it to stay in offline mode so people were up in arms about having to be online all the time and being forced to use this piece of software.

Since then Valve have put game after game on there and since there was no other competition (or rather no one had a game that everyone wanted to play that could get another electronic distributors program onto enough PCs) they have become popular. But they are now taking a percentage of sales of all PC games as they are offering the infrastructure to deliver the games as well. Of course, they turn a profit as well.

Now EA decides its had enough of this, it wants to sell its own games digitally and cash in on the reduced costs of distributing directly to users with their own program and and the PC community goes crazy. Why are they not using steam!!! We love steam!!!

Everyone forgets the complaints when steam started. And competition isnt a bad thing. Also most of my steam friends are in voice chat on mumble/ts/whatever so its not like I cant contact them. I already installed Origin for the BF3 alpha and it sells games. Thats about it. Who knows, maybe some of the extra profit from not using steam will be put back into R&D and make better games.

 

[yukka]

That heading should read "We don't want EA using their own alternative to Steam" by the way. Forget caring sharing valve They don't want the competition and they don't want people to lose focus that PC gaming=STEAM.

By the way, I have a shitload of steam games and spank too much money on the sales. Just trying to keep some perspective.

 

[zillion]

Yukka i agree with u on the point that competition is great.....

....But i dont see why i would look for another provider for the service i find with steam, it is reliable, fast, smooth, great community, extremely easy to use and the best point which often also is the major issue.....they have holiday sales for more holidays then actually exist.

So while competition in many terms benefits the buyer by better service and lower prices, in this case if every company had the same strategy as steam, i think a Veyron would be 1$

And still thinking of the terms EA "sell" u a game.....with a 1yr redownload service that has to be renewed by an extra fee if u actually wish to keep the game u just purchased for more then 1 yr, i rarely play any game for more then 1yr...but heck it is still MINE!!!!

ps. i have no idea if the EA terms are still like that, but i am never going back to any company that has the balls to act like that.

 

[Xclusiveitalian]

Watch how fast BF3 is on steam when MW3 sells more copies just because it's on Steam! BF3 is the better game, and not just better but MW3 is pathetically inferior. However, most won't jump to origin for BF3 and that will hurt sales drastically. Especially if Origin doesn't fix the fact that it uses 30% cpu usage just running it! Everyone will need beast machines!

 

[treetops]

I don't like any third party program running in background sucking up system resources. At least you can shutdown windows games live.

 

[LNCPapa]

There's my CPU usage with Steam running:

 

[Guest]

Origin is a joke. I downloaded an older game from EA, hated having the Origin program running so decided to experiment. I found a no-cd .exe crack for the game and replaced the start up program and it worked. I uninstalled the Origin program and now can play the game without having EA's crapware running. I don't know how this will work with newer games though.