Comments on: Digital Distribution: Some thoughts on EA’s Origin

By: MrPie

MrPie — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 12:03:06 +0000

I see. Well i’ll have you know STEAM was supposed to release some Icon changer for those that want to play steam games on their TV. They seem to be moving really slowly it could be that they’re doing a very good job of keeping it wrapped up inside Gabes fat or they’re not going to start until they see some real competition (something that makes their sales suffer) it could be that they’re building a collection of services and tools and then planning to ship them at once to deliver a nice sucker punch headed towards those that have Origin scented balls. Who knows. Valve are full of mysteries. What they do is unpredictable.

By: joeduck

joeduck — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 10:31:57 +0000

Deep pockets give you time. You can try once with BF3, miss some gamers but get a lot (Hi Whoop). Then try with SW:TOR, you miss some but get some more (Hi Labchimp). Then comes Mass Effect 3, you get some more (I am betting MP will crack for this one). And so on and so forth. At the end, you find you have installed Origin in 20 million machines and then, you start offering money to other publishers for Origin exclusivity.
That is the way deep pockets work. That is what Microsoft did with the Xborx, they lost money for almost 7 years in a row. They never got money out of the first console, it was pure loss. And at the end, it paid them back, they are leading the console market.
It is their money to use whatever way they see fit, of course. And they have the right to compete. If Steam does nothing, they will lose market share, but I am hoping that they are not going to stay like this forever, they will react.

By: MrPie

MrPie — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 02:24:43 +0000

To be honest. Comparing steams catalogue of 1000+ games compared to origins what? 100-200 games? Their categories are sorted by games titles for gods sake not by genre. Either way what I’m trying to say is EA are going to find it a hard time coaxing developers to sell their games on the EA Market because 1. Steam has a bigger subscriber base, the new article at PC Gamer states that there are 40million people on STEAM (I’d like to see the faces of those who were claiming PC gaming was dead) which is astonishing and 2. Steam take a GENEROUS revenue and give a good amount back to the developer ( way more than greedy dying retailers) which means developers find it easy to get noticed. These two a long with the community features is what is keeping STEAM hanging in the sky.

By no doubt it’s also the crazy sales they have as well as competitions that run with them (the Christmas competition was no doubt just another way to get players to buy cheap games to TRY and win every steam game) that makes STEAM appreciated by it’s player base. I do agree with Joe that they will need to provide quite a bit more to stay at the top because EA do have VERY deep pockets and they can do a lot of snidey stuff to make sure they can become dominant in this market however i don’t see this happening soon.

By: dimetrie

dimetrie — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 18:25:30 +0000

From what I gather through my inside information, fat chance Valve will buy Onlive and make HL3, especially the latter.

As for Steam in response to Origin, didn’t they make it so that PSN plyaers can log into Steam client or whatever purpose? Console competition ftw.

By: Baka

Baka — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 10:16:20 +0000

I can admit to being one of those Valve Fan Boys I haven’t bought an EA title since Origin release. I would sooner move to an older MMO then go to EA the way they do things fundamentally annoys me the biggest example being multiple bans for things that really should not get you banned. A lot of EA actions seem childish like EA boss John Riccitiello – saying – During IG’s meeting with Riccitiello at E3 he said that he wants Activision’s franchise to “rot from the core” This was aimed at MW because of EA release of BF3.

By: tokey

tokey — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 09:33:25 +0000

What I would really like is for Steam to buy Onlive and combine that into the service.

By: joeduck

joeduck — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 08:58:42 +0000

BTW, the last photo in the article is an awesome choice

By: joeduck

joeduck — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 08:57:47 +0000

Well, I have a theory.
Valve/Steam has had TIME. And time is extremely valuable in a competitive environment. I really believe that Steam has seen them coming since at least a year. And I want to think they have realised that EA’s deep pockets will eventually get them into the market. EA can afford losing at first the sales to a bunch of Valve fanboy because at the end, sooner or later we’ll all fall for an EA AAA title. Even now, they are already getting a bigger cut per game as they are not paying Valve’s share anymore. And once they are completely free of Steam, then they can take in all the profits of selling a digital copy at retail price. Valve knows this and they have had the time to think about where they want to go next and even time to prototype it, test it and stabilize it (whatever it is).
I think Valve will prepare very carefully a response to Origin and tune it until they release it at the right moment. I think it is going to be Steam 2.0 and awesome, but I do not know what it will be. I’d be really let down if it was just more Facebook social crap. I’d be let down if it was just an interface facelift. I’d be curious if it was native support of Kinect, but not a lot. I’d be more excited if it was native integration in Linux and in the next Playstation. And I’d be astounded and really surprised if it was Steam OS.
Or this could just be all stupid conspiracy theories and in fact they are just making Half Life 3 and that way no one will ever leave Steam anyway.

By: dimetrie

dimetrie — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 00:33:32 +0000

Competition is definitely welcome BUT only when the, well, competition is not total arse. Origin offers nothing that Valve can and in fact, makes the whole thing even worse and one of this is their so-called “competitive” pricing on their games. They went as far as giving a one-day only 50% on their arguably biggest title on Orign; BF3 and Arkham City seems like an indication that sales might not be as good as expected.

And yes, I know Arkham City was 50% off on steam as well but that is the only major title to go that far.