Battlefield 3

[Gloglebag]

I expect this kind of behaviour on /v/ or by casual but I'm surprised to see actual gamedev's hold these kinds of opinions.

[Grinwhrl]

Already figured as much which is why I preordered a physical Copy. All my BF games are Retail copies anywho. They dont even run through steam anyway.

I would love to see a digital game hub one day where no matter what store you buy from, the games directly go to the game hub on your pc.

[Vilham]

I mainly just don't want to use origin. Ill happily install it separate to steam, but every other digital platform other than steam is a big pile of steaming shit (Steam was shit for a good 2 years before they fixed stuff).

[Puddy]

I expect this kind of behaviour on /v/ or by casual but I'm surprised to see actual gamedev's hold these kinds of opinions.

Why?

[Jake Gilla]

Well no Steam and no mod tools means I'm getting this for PS3 or not at all.

[Gloglebag]

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.

[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.

[Rick_D]

like amazon.com and play.com?

brave new world ladies, ride the wave.

[Gloglebag]

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.

[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.

[SamCom]

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.

[Puddy]

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.

[syver]

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?

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.

[Serenius]

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.

[Jake Gilla]

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.