Dev wrote on Jan 15, 2012, 17:41:
Valve did it to help out gamers by getting patches out in a easier more timely fashion, and to give people who wanted an alternative way to purchase.
It's important to remember that Steam replaced WON, which was the online system used by the original Half-Life. If Valve hadn't replaced it with Steam then it would have been shut down about about a decade ago. People were allowed to input their CD-keys and download the game from scratch, including all commercial mods made for it like Counter-Strike. Valve also offered a cheap way to purchase their games and expanded it out to third-party publishers. They also added additional features like anti-cheat, community pages, an inventory system, voice-chat, ability to download graphics drivers, etc. Whereas EA did not allow you to redownload games beyond 12-months, included DRM with online activations and charged obscene prices for their games. Only after that policy backfired spectacularly did they decide to try to copy Steam but rather than compete on merit they simply stopped selling their games on Steam because Valve required all games to require that DLC be sold on Steam IN ADDITION TO any other services; this was to prevent publishers like EA - which publishers the F2P Battleforge - from distributing their game for free and then taking all the profits by selling in-game DLC through their own service.
EA has a long record of shitty customer support, shitty DRM and shitty business tactics. Valve, on the otherhand, has not. Steam is a form of DRM but without that publishers would never have agreed to use it, with some publishers even opting for additional DRM. There is definitely room for improvement but Steam is better than anything else in the marketplace. EA has to offer a BETTER service that competes legitimately if it stands any chance of competing with Steam. They don't and it's not even close.
The stupid thing is that if EA sold their games on Steam but still required Origin - like many games also require GFWL - then people would have got used to using it and been more likely to buy their games on it. By not doing that they are limiting their marketshare and pissing people off. I would likely have bought BF3 and ME3 as some people - after a discount - if it was on Steam but still required Origin. Afterall, I buy GFWL games. But by not being available on Steam at all EA has made the choice that much easier for me... I'll save my money.
"The price of freedom is eternal vigilance."