Prez wrote on May 20, 2012, 10:10:

That's a bit short-sighted. Games like Dead Space, Mass Effect, Mirror's Edge, Dragon Age, Crysis, Battlefield, etc, could not be created without tens of millions of dollars and raising that kind of money as an indie developer just isn't going to happen. Without EA's funding, those games would not exist so you have to give them at least a little credit.

So the best thing you can say about EA is that they have large coffers. Without EA I think all of those games would still exist; they would have just been released under different publishers. And maybe have been better games. Look at the drop in quality between Dragon Age 1 and 2. Most of DA:Origins was developed before Bioware got absorbed by EA - the only thing EA can take credit for is that game's abysmal marketing campaign. Microsoft has its own console so it has its own self-serving interests in demanding exclusivity. EA does not. They do ports, but that's because they have at least enough combined intelligence to know that PC ports of decent games is easy money most of the time. What little credit that may earn them is dwarfed by the scorn they so richly deserve for being gigantic asses in virtually every other conceivable way.

Valve is by no means close to perfect, but they are so far above the likes of EA in just how they treat the PC community that any comparison is almost laughable.