Battlefield 3

    Because the current behaviour is like demanding everyone publish retail games trough EA or UBI soft and otherwise refuse to buy their game. Or if we take the movie industry as an example, it would be like refusing to see a movie unless it's from Warner Bros. The very fact steam is only handy as a monopoly should make one wary of supporting it, after all it's hypercritical to bash one company for doing something you support another company for.

    Besides with the PC gaming market being as small as it is I laud any measure that see's the developer get 100% profit from their sales rather then fork over 30% to another company. Also unlike steam with origin you download it install it and don't have to start origin every time you want to start the game.

    But maybe a compromise would be that the game costs 30% or more on steam so EA gets the same amount of money and steam lovers pay a bit extra for the convenience.

    Not meaning to start some kind of debate but that analogy is completely wrong. Its like Warner Bros requiring you to sign up for their own film distribution service rather than say lovefilm. Thus doubling up the places you have to store bank and personal details.

    Quote from Vilham

    Not meaning to start some kind of debate but that analogy is completely wrong. Its like Warner Bros requiring you to sign up for their own film distribution service rather than say lovefilm. Thus doubling up the places you have to store bank and personal details.

    The analogy is not wrong, you are asking companies to use a competitor as a publisher because you can't be bothered to install another app. Regardless your still bashing one company for doing something not half as bad as valve and demanding they fork over a good deal of their profits for something so menial as installing another app on your pc. Instead of bashing EA demand valve allow it's game to be sold trough origin, gamersgate, etc... Then you might have a point.

    I think you're making to much out of it. Maybe some people are making it a matter of ethical fabric, but I think its more of convenience.

    Steam is an established platform, its stable, relatively convenient and has a great community.

    In my opinion certain things only function properly as a monopoly, and community/social products are one of those things. Take something like Facebook for example, it doesn't work if it has 2 or 3 competitors as it splinters the community, thus defeating the point.

    Is EA entitled to their money? Sure, but are they really making more money than by limiting their distribution methods? Seems like backwards thinking to me.

    I think EA's thinking is more that they have to draw customers to their service first, and if Origin is the only online place to get it, that could draw more people. But that doesn't really mesh with them offering it through GamersGate and the like, so it's hard to see it as more than sort of a middle finger to Steam. Unless that DLC restriction is really that big of a deal.

    Quote from Jake Gilla

    I think you're making to much out of it. Maybe some people are making it a matter of ethical fabric, but I think its more of convenience. Steam is an established platform, its stable, relatively convenient and has a great community.

    In my opinion certain things only function properly as a monopoly, and community/social products are one of those things. Take something like Facebook for example, it doesn't work if it has 2 or 3 competitors as it splinters the community, thus defeating the point.

    Is EA entitled to their money? Sure, but are they really making more money than by limiting their distribution methods? Seems like backwards thinking to me.

    Wise words mr Gilla.

    convenience is underrated. i've lost count on how many times i've refrained from buying something because it wasn't on steam or because of some other cancerous shitware (windows live games) that made it difficult to enjoy the product. add DRM on top of that and you're probably losing thousands of customers to piracy, which you could have avoided to some extent. people are lazy and you can use that to your advantage.

    i understand that they need a game (with a large audience) to move consumers towards their own platform, but i don't think it's a good idea using BF3 for this. don't they have enough with just competing against mw3? why not just create incentives to use origin (cheaper, dlc availability, origin integration, whatever) instead of telling all your steam customers to go fuck themselves?

    Quote from Gloglebag

    The analogy is not wrong

    if warner bros had their own exclusive theatres or some warner-specific device to play their movies then your analogy would be correct. whether warner bros or some other company publishes a movie doesn't affect me in any way. this is about convenience.

    For the customers in this case, its convenience that's infringed upon.

    Truth be told, EA has historically operated at high costs, and profit margins of 7%-9%. They're probably expecting Call of Duty-level sales figures from BF3 and simply can't afford Steam's margins. Crysis 2 probably sold way more through Steam than they expected, and they lost revenues as a result.

    Quote from csyver

    i understand that they need a game (with a large audience) to move consumers towards their own platform, but i don't think it's a good idea using BF3 for this. don't they have enough with just competing against mw3? why not just create incentives to use origin (cheaper, dlc availability, origin integration, whatever) instead of telling all your steam customers to go fuck themselves?

    convenience.

    Incentives is something this industry really needs to get a grip on. Penalizing people for renting a video game or trading one in is a ridiculous idea, as is limiting your methods of distribution.

    In independent music, you have to put your music on iTunes because, hell, its iTunes, even though you made more money off sales from your website or Bandcamp. You don't take your music off iTunes because they take a cut, you use incentives (including just educating the consumer) to drive customers to your website instead.

    and thank you Puddy.

    The theater / distributor analogy is a bit dubious since they involve distinct external locations to consumers homes. With Origin vs. Steam etc. it's not exactly the same because you can get them all on the same system. The fact that they are different pieces of software running on a system is definitely valid, but again that isn't quite apples to apples with comparing to the film distribution / studio model. But whatever that's just one facet of this.

    Otherwise, I was under the assumption that with the announcement of Origin, EA was planning to (attempt to) exclude all its PC product from Steam eventually. We'll see how it goes.

    Meanwhile back on BF3 mod tools, sounds like a nightmare. I still long for the days of the goldsource mapping which I believe was a topic of another thread. :derp:

    fair enough, i'll agree that my 'correction' doesn't hold water either. my intention was first and foremost to demonstrate why the analogy was wrong (because it would be misinterpreting what this frustration is about) .

    Quote from Rick_D

    like amazon.com and play.com?brave new world ladies, ride the wave.

    i see your point and i can understand why you argue in favor of the game and hold that very high. BUT, the analogy here doesn't work: Amazon and Play deliver packaged good that I open in my doorway, brought to me by the same postal guy and put in the same flat. With orion I'm forced to open a second door, I didn't need because I had Steam installed already.

    Also: Unlike the Postal guy leaving when he delivered his package, these Apps are there to stay. If the postal dude would ask to stay he'd need to gain trust. Steam gained that trust over years of delivering or trying what is best for the consumer. Orion as it looks right now has mainly EAs marketing Bullshitters in mind and from EAs history there's not much too expect when it comes to supporting the customer.

    What I think is the motivation here is (ab)using Battlefield 3 as the same puller that Half-Life 2 was for Steam. And as much as I want Battlefield 3 to be successfull for DICE and knowing how much hard work you will have put into it also for you, for my own, egoistic, lazy customer concerns I hope that EA fails terribly and the move will backlash. I understand EA seeks ways to maximize profit and that isn't wrong for a company, but it is wrong when it comes forced and doesn't fulfill the market's needs. Other companies (such as Epic with the Unreal Engine) go fine by utilizing middleware where own solutions rather block then advance the own growth.

    I'm offended by GameSpy and Games for Windows Live running on my machine, offended by the necessity of updating PunkBuster manually. I have a company that provides more than all these tools ever did for me (mainly stopping me from playing the game) at a reasonable price for the developers and publishers and with a great interface for me. As much as I expect a game developer to keep me as the gamer in mind when it comes to Gamedesign decisions and Hardware specifications, I expect them (or us, as I'm part of that evil biomass myself) to keep the players in mind when it comes to how to reach them on the open market.

    Change isn't bad and a good competitor is always great for the consumers, but Origin is not (in it's current state) a competitor, it's just a barrier. If anyone from EA reads this, I hope I was reasonable in my arguments, but please (edited here) allow me to purchase my game on steam and not install secondary DRM software.

    I got Arma2 for free from Green Man Gaming the other day, and then didn't bother downloading and installing it because I needed to install their client to do so. I tried impulse once, and never went back to it.

    I'm fine with rival DD platforms, but not with additional programs I need to run for them. With Origin, EA wants to be Valve. They want that always running client. I'm not even that ok with Steam always running, because it's a pretty crappy program at times, but all the friends I've got on it manage to salvage it, as well as the friend-related features like being able to right click - join your friends. So I, and I've got the impression basically every other PC gamer, is tapped out with steam. If Origin was a website, not an installed application, that would be acceptable. But having to install more crap that I need to run to play my games is a very annoying prospect.

    Quote from csyver

    if warner bros had their own exclusive theatres or some warner-specific device to play their movies then your analogy would be correct. whether warner bros or some other company publishes a movie doesn't affect me in any way. this is about convenience.

    They used to have dedicated movie theaters, that would only play that studio's films. It was outlawed as un-competitive. :3

    Quote from e-freak

    i see your point and i can understand why you argue in favor of the game and hold that very high. BUT, the analogy here doesn't work: Amazon and Play deliver packaged good that I open in my doorway, brought to me by the same postal guy and put in the same flat. With orion I'm forced to open a second door, I didn't need because I had Steam installed already.

    i'll stop you right there, with amazon and play you need to launch separate browser windows. on the same pc.

    even with your quite odd analogy (it would be like focusing on the server setup origin and steam used to make an argument, you're looking at it from the wrong end) you are still in the same house, it's not like you have had to walk halfway across town to pick up your parcels.

    Quote from Rick_D

    i see your point and i can understand why you argue in favor of the game and hold that very high. BUT, the analogy here doesn't work: Amazon and Play deliver packaged good that I open in my doorway, brought to me by the same postal guy and put in the same flat. With orion I'm forced to open a second door, I didn't need because I had Steam installed already.

    i'll stop you right there, with amazon and play you need to launch separate browser windows. on the same pc.

    even with your quite odd analogy (it would be like focusing on the server setup origin and steam used to make an argument, you're looking at it from the wrong end) you are still in the same house, it's not like you have had to walk halfway across town to pick up your parcels.

    right, it's a broswer windows with no additional installs. if they want origin to be just a browser window where i have to type my key once, i'd be ok with it, but the way origin works is to permanently install an application i don't want to use on my machine. like getting a second postbox for a different deliverer service.

    for the record, i edited the last sentence in my post above to something more friendly.

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