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| [Aug 06, 2011, 12:35 pm ET] - Share - Viewing Comments |
The EA Forums have a confirmation of widespread suspicions that Battlefield 3 will not be sold through Valve's Steam platform (thanks Planet Battlefield). As was theorized, there is a terms of service conflict at the root of this because DICE's military shooter will include the ability to purchase DLC from within the game: Gamers can pre-order Battlefield 3 at Origin.com as well as over 100 digital retailers worldwide. EA offers games to all major download services. Unfortunately, Steam has adopted a set of restrictive terms of service which limit how developers interact with customers to deliver patches and other downloadable content. No other download service has adopted these practices.
We are intent on providing Battlefield 3 players with the best possible experience no matter where they purchase or play their game, and are happy to partner with any download service that does not restrict our ability to connect directly with our consumers. We hope to work out an agreement where Steam can carry Battlefield 3; meanwhile, gamers can pick from the more than 100 digital retailers listed at http://www.battlefield.com/digitaldownload, or go to http://www.origin.com.
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| 162. |
Re: No Battlefield 3 on Steam |
Aug 10, 2011, 17:27 |
Verno |
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StingingVelvet wrote on Aug 10, 2011, 15:42:
Wow, you're not even trying now I guess. You totally deflected this without addressing it at all. The point you made was basically "if Steam rejects it it's not a good game." Gemini Rue is a great game Steam did not accept. The greater point was that everyone treating Steam as the only place to go means Steam has authority to pick what is successful.
Why should I try? It's a pointless aside that has nothing to do with the topic and can't be proven either way. Fine, last time. I can list dozens, if not hundreds of subpar indie games on Steam but that doesn't mean anything either. You're ignoring the point that any commercial distribution service will have standards, rules and etc. If you want it truly equal then the only way to do that would be to allow anything which isn't feasible for a number of reasons that you know already. My point had nothing to do with the quality of your examples by the way, it was to point out that if a terrible game with no business being on Steam can get on there then there is probably a specific reason others cannot that we're not a party to. One side of the story and all that.
I don't think you'll find many people subscribing to the idea that Steam is anything but incredibly supportive to the indie side of the industry in general.
I don't like Origin's DRM and service contracts either. I have said repeatedly I don't like any of these services, I like the GOG/Gamersgate method. My entire focus is on Steam having too much market share. The only way to be a hypocrite there is to then buy everything on Steam anyway, which I do not do.
Nah I'm not buying, you repeatedly criticize specific aspects of Steam all the time having nothing to do with marketshare but don't do the same thing with other services.
In the end you're right though, consumers drive these decisions and choose their service. That doesn't make it wrong for EA to decide where they sell their own games though, and for users to then choose whether to buy it and where. And I personally am happy to see people who usually only buy on Steam will have to branch out.
The people who only buy things on Steam are probably the least likely to branch out so that makes no sense to me. I'm sure there are people who only buy things on GOG or even GFWL for the stupid achievements but I wouldn't call them rational people either. In the end it's a transparent ultimatum from EA to consumers which frankly is bullshit. There a million different ways they could have handled this better and incentivized people to use Origin instead.
That said after today's Willits quote I could see you looking at it as forcing people to do something they don't want to do. Market share increases through exclusives do piss me off generally. I think the PC's open platform status is more important than offering Steam as an option for everything though. That's a tough battle but I have to support what I see as the core of our platform. Steam taking more and more power in the PC market threatens our platform from my perspective.
The platform is wide open for development, this isn't the console world where vendors can lock you in literally. If anything the demands of the platform and the industry are what has shaped Steam. The industry largely wouldn't deal with Steam until CEG was developed. Consumers didn't want much to do with Steam until Valve added the community features and patching. If Steam steps out of bounds the industry will adjust, that's the nature of an open platform. If Steam started purchasing competitive services and other publishing companies then we've got a problem. |
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