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[exwallst]

That viable, non-pirated business models are back on PC is certainly good for them. The MMO with the huge Lucas licensing fee won't save them. Their game is to play on all platforms, so I don't begrudge their seeming random focus.

 

[Log4Girlz]

Ok so can we expect a Madden game that looks anywhere near the infamous bullshots from the beginning of this console cycle?

 

[Ether_Snake]

It's logical since the PC is downsizing, going down in cost, becoming more accessible and easy to use, etc.

It is becoming a multimedia platform, and will soon make way to tablets.

Basically, consoles will die and so will traditional PCs, to make way for tablets and phones, which will both be nearly identical as far as user interface and content goes.

Games will developed to be scalable, so you'll have the same content on either platforms.

Everything will be delivered online through AppStore-like services.

Publishers will make a lot more money.

 

[Inflammable Slinky]

It's logical since the PC is downsizing, going down in cost, becoming more accessible and easy to use, etc.

It is becoming a multimedia platform, and will soon make way to tablets.

Basically, consoles will die and so will traditional PCs, to make way for tablets and phones, which will both be nearly identical as far as user interface and content goes.

Games will developed to be scalable, so you'll have the same content on either platforms.

Everything will be delivered online through AppStore-like services.

Publishers will make a lot more money.

Bahhh, I made this effort post on page 2 and yall jerks ignored it

I do think that app-store will not be the sole part of the market. The PC has shown that niches can thrive even under unfriendly market trends.

Breadth of genres is the glorious future for the master race! Lebensraum for all! (no consoles)

 

[amitlu]

It's brilliant the way Valve have brainwashed people into thinking that other publishers are screwing the PC community if they're not willing to pay the Valve tax and compete with their own DD services.

You'd never see Half-Life on a competing platform so why do you expect others to bend over for them?

Steam is a wonderful service and I usually use it when it's an option but it's hardly the end of the world to get something from EADM, D2D or GG.

Brilliant yet sad. Sad to watch people ride a bandwagon so hard that they are blind to the fact that they are supporting giving up the openness that they once championed. Never thought I'd see the day when the PC crowd would stampede to give up their own consumer rights of resale and lending, and actively trash any storefront competitors in ridiculous pro-monopolistic ways. This is what happens when a group feels like they've been 'mistreated' for years, they start chugging the Kool-aid like it is their lifeblood.

 

[Fredescu]

Ok so can we expect a Madden game that looks anywhere near the infamous bullshots from the beginning of this console cycle?

If Madden does come back to PC, look at FIFA Online for an idea of what it would look like. Worse than console graphics, free to play with microtransactions.

 

[dLMN8R]

Is any of this from EA a surprise? They've already hinted that Bad Company 2 sold extremely well on PC. Maybe it didn't beat the 360 on unit sales, but in revenue thanks to digital sales? It would hardly be surprising if that was the case.

Brilliant yet sad. Sad to watch people ride a bandwagon so hard that they are blind to the fact that they are supporting giving up the openness that they once championed. Never thought I'd see the day when the PC crowd would stampede to give up their own consumer rights of resale and lending, and actively trash any storefront competitors in ridiculous pro-monopolistic ways. This is what happens when a group feels like they've been 'mistreated' for years, they start chugging the Kool-aid like it is their lifeblood.

It's easy to make generalizations when you misunderstand the arguments of those you're attacking.

The fact is, the PC is still just as open today with Steam as it always has been. The openness that actually matters, of course.

The openness to mod my games however I want.
The openness to host my own dedicated servers however I want.
The openness to spend as much as I can afford to get the best possible experience I can
The openness to take my games with me literally wherever I want to, and play my games on literally any machine I know that is capable of playing those games.
The openness where anyone can make anything without the need to get approval from anyone.

Steam hasn't stopped any of that from happening, and there's nothing that suggests it ever will. Sure, modding and dedicated servers are more limited, but that is not Steam's fault - and Steam still supports every bit of that openness if the developer chooses.


At the same time, however, Steam brought benefits of consoles to the PC to fix problems that have plagued the PC forever. Things that no honest PC gamer would have actually complained about having a decade ago.

-Integrated friends list that goes along with every single game
-Competent server browser that finally works pretty much perfectly
-Easy place to quickly download your entire games library from on any computer, without lugging around discs
-Unified system for achievements
-Built-in tools for clans to host matches, send messages, and schedule events.

All of that stuff and countless other things make Steam pretty much nirvana for PC games, solving so many inherent problems the platform has had for decades without limiting any of the freedoms that actually matter to the platform.

 

[kitzkozan]

and who published Dragon Age and Crysis? now prove to me that the change in direction in those sequels has anything to do with EA and isn't entirely down to the developers.

hell we *know* that the change in direction for Crysis isn't down to EA, because Crysis is EA partners. but whatever. blame whoever you're comfortable blaming for what happened to Crysis 2. we mightn't want to accept it, but it's all down to Crytek.

Given the ridiculously short development cycle for Dragon age 2,it's clear that EA damaged the brand as they are the publisher and fund Bioware.Look also at the marketing which is mostly done by EA again and they have to take a huge part of the blame (which was worse,the marketing for Dragon age 1 or 2?).

Only reason why they bought Bioware imo is because they knew they were developing The old republic.I think they realistically hope it can have 1 or 2 million subscribers ( EA couldn't develop a proper and successful mmorpg on their own given their incompetence and shitty company culture).

It's also a weird hazard that Crysis 2 is such a diluted shooter compared to the first.EA being partner or not doesn't change the fact that these bastards are still associated to the product.You just can't have smoke without fire so they are probably guilty as well.

With all the rumors of incompetence in the managing department of EA,you can't trust them for anything.They screwed Warhammer online,Dragon age 2 and Crysis 2 as well imo.

 

[wonderfuldays]

Where is Westwood now, EA?

 

[Cyborg]

I havent played a game on my PC in the last 6 years. The last game was Battlefield 2.

 

[amitlu]

The fact is, the PC is still just as open today with Steam as it always has been.

This is an outfight falsehood so long as you are actually talking about using Steam and not the PC as a whole. I was discussing Steam. So long as you are registering single player, offline games into an online-connected service that's also tied to all of your other games, this is untrue. We are in a state where you can buy a hard copy of a game from a store that is single player and offline only, and be unable to play it until you 1. install steam, 2. register an account, and 3. activate online. Wasn't this what people were going apeshit about when DRM started going crazy in the Bioshock 1 times? I guess when Valve's name is stamped on something, it ceases to be anti-consumer.

The openness to mod my games however I want.
The openness to host my own dedicated servers however I want.
The openness to spend as much as I can afford to get the best possible experience I can
The openness to take my games with me literally wherever I want to, and play my games on literally any machine I know that is capable of playing those games.
The openness where anyone can make anything without the need to get approval from anyone.

Most of these are inherent to the platform like modding and have nothing to do with actually using Steam. However some are also untrue. Games with persistent online stat tracking like Black Ops are Bad Company 2 rarely let the consumers run their own servers and force people to rent them from their own server provider 'partners'. It's not like you can run a game server on a spare box you have laying around like the Quake days anymore.

At the same time, however, Steam brought benefits of consoles to the PC to fix problems that have plagued the PC forever. Things that no honest PC gamer would have actually complained about having a decade ago.

-Integrated friends list that goes along with every single game
-Competent server browser that finally works pretty much perfectly
-Easy place to quickly download your entire games library from on any computer, without lugging around discs
-Unified system for achievements
-Built-in tools for clans to host matches, send messages, and schedule events.

-Integrated friends list- Another lie. It's a chat/IM system embedded into Steam and not an actual unified friends list so people need to stop pretending it is one. If it was I could buy Hot Pursuit on Steam, then go in game and have my steam friends in autolog. Of course I can't, because there is no unified friends system on the PC and games will use their own service instead of Steam's most times. Only a handful of games that aren't Valve's actually use Steam friends in-game.

-Competent server browser- Really? This also is only in Valve games and a handful of others. I have Bad Company 2 on steam, how come I don't get to use this awesome server browser and have to use DICE's shitty one instead? Oh, its because its hardly a standard.

-Achievements- Another thing that is not a standard and only in a select few Steam games. There are also games with GFW achievements and ones that have their own (Dragon Age).

-'Built-in tools for clans to host matches, send messages, and schedule events.'- What is this even referring to? The chat rooms in Steam groups? Is this really something people didn't have access to before Steam? IRC would like a word.

 

[MrTroubleMaker]

Well if PC is going to be the leading platform why do they screw us over with no DLC release (DS2 for example). Same as console prices and this whole thing with DA2 "missing the release date for pre-oder stuff for steam". Really?

 

[K.Jack]

It's not shocking, when EA sees a 100% share of the money from the digital PC store. It's also smart business, to shun Steam as much as is financially possible. Why give up a 30% chunk, per sale, when you're one of the few publishers who can pull off its own platform?

 

[plagiarize]

It's also a weird hazard that Crysis 2 is such a diluted shooter compared to the first.EA being partner or not doesn't change the fact that these bastards are still associated to the product.You just can't have smoke without fire so they are probably guilty as well.

With all the rumors of incompetence in the managing department of EA,you can't trust them for anything.They screwed Warhammer online,Dragon age 2 and Crysis 2 as well imo.

even as a metaphor 'you can't have smoke without fire' isn't true. Crysis 2 is what it is because Crytek made it so. that may not be the case for Dragon Age, since Bioware is an EA subsiduary, but Crytek are not.

i know nothing about Warhammer mind.

 

[1-D_FTW]

-Integrated friends list- Another lie. It's a chat/IM system embedded into Steam and not an actual unified friends list so people need to stop pretending it is one. If it was I could buy Hot Pursuit on Steam, then go in game and have my steam friends in autolog. Of course I can't, because there is no unified friends system on the PC and games will use their own service instead of Steam's most times. Only a handful of games that aren't Valve's actually use Steam friends in-game.

-Competent server browser- Really? This also is only in Valve games and a handful of others. I have Bad Company 2 on steam, how come I don't get to use this awesome server browser and have to use DICE's shitty one instead? Oh, its because its hardly a standard.

-Achievements- Another thing that is not a standard and only in a select few Steam games. There are also games with GFW achievements and ones that have their own (Dragon Age).

-'Built-in tools for clans to host matches, send messages, and schedule events.'- What is this even referring to? The chat rooms in Steam groups? Is this really something people didn't have access to before Steam? IRC would like a word.

So you're saying because a game chooses not to integrate the free Steamworks server/friends list into a game, Steam doesn't offer a unified service. I don't think you have to start calling things lies based on that. If I choose not to cross the street, I'm not going to get to the other side. News at 11.

 

[Malio]

It used to be just about everyone's lead platform. It's all about money. If it's their big breadwinner or saves them tons of cash on development, then that's what they'll do. No story here.

 

[Durante]

What is this I'm hearing, does EA's DD service not suck balls anymore? Unlimited, perpetual downloads? No always-on client required? Decent sales? When did this happen?

Also great download speeds at any time/place, very much unlike Steam.

 

[SturokBGD]

I havent played a game on my PC in the last 6 years. The last game was Battlefield 2.

You are one interesting motherfucker.

 

[DangerStepp]

This is pretty encouraging news if true, especially after last week's Crysis 2/Dragon Age II incidents.

He's smiling down from BAN heaven....

 

[dLMN8R]

This is an outfight falsehood so long as you are actually talking about using Steam and not the PC as a whole. I was discussing Steam. So long as you are registering single player, offline games into an online-connected service that's also tied to all of your other games, this is untrue. We are in a state where you can buy a hard copy of a game from a store that is single player and offline only, and be unable to play it until you 1. install steam, 2. register an account, and 3. activate online. Wasn't this what people were going apeshit about when DRM started going crazy in the Bioshock 1 times? I guess when Valve's name is stamped on something, it ceases to be anti-consumer.

Actually, this is no different from Half-Life 2. Which came out 3 years before Bioshock. Bioshock's DRM was far harsher than Steam, or any Steamworks game, since it limited the number of activations, and it had far more problems on release that Half-Life 2 did or Steam does.

Most of these are inherent to the platform like modding and have nothing to do with actually using Steam. However some are also untrue. Games with persistent online stat tracking like Black Ops are Bad Company 2 rarely let the consumers run their own servers and force people to rent them from their own server provider 'partners'. It's not like you can run a game server on a spare box you have laying around like the Quake days anymore.

That's the point! Steam didn't cause any of that stuff to go away. Crappy developer/publisher choices did.

If developers still wanted to keep those features open, they're fully welcome to do so using Steam.

The entire point is that you're claiming that Steam caused PC gaming to become a completely closed platform, while on the contrary Steam still supports all those open features as long as a developer wanted to support it.

-Integrated friends list- Another lie. It's a chat/IM system embedded into Steam and not an actual unified friends list so people need to stop pretending it is one. If it was I could buy Hot Pursuit on Steam, then go in game and have my steam friends in autolog. Of course I can't, because there is no unified friends system on the PC and games will use their own service instead of Steam's most times. Only a handful of games that aren't Valve's actually use Steam friends in-game.

-Competent server browser- Really? This also is only in Valve games and a handful of others. I have Bad Company 2 on steam, how come I don't get to use this awesome server browser and have to use DICE's shitty one instead? Oh, its because its hardly a standard.

-Achievements- Another thing that is not a standard and only in a select few Steam games. There are also games with GFW achievements and ones that have their own (Dragon Age).

-'Built-in tools for clans to host matches, send messages, and schedule events.'- What is this even referring to? The chat rooms in Steam groups? Is this really something people didn't have access to before Steam? IRC would like a word.

I was obviously talking solely about Steamworks games.

Expecting some totally open platform to allow games to hot-plug into some open unified friends list system is fucking absurd. Steam allows for those features when developers want to support them, but the PC platform as a whole is still open - which means developers are free to not use those features too. Again, that's the entire point.


Xfire was a much more open platform that supported a unified friends list and one-click-joining across every single game. Know what happened? It's pretty much died off because customers preferred Steam, which was superior in most ways, and was more convenient to users.

It goes back to my original point - Steam is open as much as it matters to be open. It's of course closed in some ways, but in ways that simply don't matter to people anymore. It's closed in ways that don't essentially harm the customer's experience, except for the necessity to activate a game once when you first buy it.

 

[mrklaw]

It's a veiled statement telling the console guys to hurry up with prepping the next gen because they're getting impatient and possibly predicting slowdown in console sales coming along

 

[Vaporak]

It's a veiled statement telling the console guys to hurry up with prepping the next gen because they're getting impatient and possibly predicting slowdown in console sales coming along

Console sales have already slowed, US console software revenue dropped ~10% from '09 to '10 IIRC.

 

[SafeinSound]

Where is Westwood now, EA?

Don't remind me

 

[amitlu]

Actually, this is no different from Half-Life 2. Which came out 3 years before Bioshock. Bioshock's DRM was far harsher than Steam, or any Steamworks game, since it limited the number of activations, and it had far more problems on release that Half-Life 2 did or Steam does.

I'm aware of the Half Life 2 launch and it was just as bad. The only real difference it has to the DRM people constantly bash today is it lacked activation limits, and of course the fact it had Valve's name on it. The HL2 launch was a goddamn mess, and just the beginning of needing to a register single-player, brick and mortar storebought game on an online service before you could play them. Really kudos to Valve for making it mandatory to play Half Life 2, because if it was any other game from any other developer people would not have put up with it.

The entire point is that you're claiming that Steam caused PC gaming to become a completely closed platform, while on the contrary Steam still supports all those open features as long as a developer wanted to support it.

This isn't what I said at all, nice strawman. I said people are giving up their consumer rights because of irrational brand and platform loyalty. The points you are making at how Steam does nothing at all to keep that 'old-school openness' around and how its 'crappy dev/pub choices' just reinforces that it's a shitty trade off for losing your consumer rights.

Expecting some totally open platform to allow games to hot-plug into some open unified friends list system is fucking absurd. Steam allows for those features when developers want to support them, but the PC platform as a whole is still open - which means developers are free to not use those features too. Again, that's the entire point.

Exactly my point. You have to take the good with the bad. So long as the PC remains an open platform for any developer and publisher without standards, you will never have the kind of unified services like XBL. It's simply impossible to do, not only for legacy reason but logistics to get every single developer on board. So don't champion some kind of unified architecture (friends list, server browser, or otherwise) that straight up doesn't exist.

Xfire was a much more open platform that supported a unified friends list and one-click-joining across every single game.

Xfire was great, but this is more revisionist bullshit. While it supported a lot of games for .exe tracking time stats, it hardly supported all of them for one-click joining.

It goes back to my original point - Steam is open as much as it matters to be open. It's of course closed in some ways, but in ways that simply don't matter to people anymore. It's closed in ways that don't essentially harm the customer's experience, except for the necessity to activate a game once when you first buy it.

So, nearly all of the things you claimed Steam 'brought from the consoles to fix problems that plagued the PC forever' are now debunked as selective bullshit (only talking about steamworks games), what exactly are your reasons for giving up your consumer rights and rolling over to online activation? 'As much as it matters to be open' sounds like a bullshit justification for something that doesn't do anything to change standards for the better (because they can't) yet still requires the consumers to give more than they had to previously.. for what again? The same exact wild-west of software we had before. No unification, no standards, except now we can't resell things we bought. Thanks Steam.

 

[dLMN8R]

I'm not sure why you're accusing me of straw-men when I'm not even claiming you said anything related to your accusations in the first place.

The straw man here, in fact, is your endless grasping at straws about how apparently the same people "championing the openness of PCs" are now apparently "giving up that openness" and "giving up their own consumer rights".


Literally the only rights being given up here are are the rights to play a game without activating them a single time, and the right to resale.

Resale of PC games has been a minimal long before Steam ever came around, with CD keys being tied to individual accounts and especially for multiplayer games. Online activations, well, no one gives a shit anymore.


There is no "irrational brand and platform loyalty". Steam fucking works, it works incredibly well, and it works better than every facet of the competition. If you're incapable of wrapping your mind around that simple idea, and instead stubbornly cling to your accusations of "bandwagoning" and "Kool-aid drinking", then it's really your own failure to competently form unfallacious arguments.

 

[koji]

They dumb down those games exactly because they think the PC can become like consoles, that is more 'mainstream'.

Now they just need to get rid of those stuffy old PC nerds with their fetish for complex gameplay....

NEVER, THEY'LL NEVER TAKE MY ON SCREEN DICE ROLLS AND D20 SYSTEM

Well they actually did for the most part, fu DA2...

Microsoft and EA: leading the push to bring PC Gaming back from the dead (fyi, PC gaming has been dead for a decade).

Dead as can be mate, just need to finish up on this huge euroRPG and steamsale backlog I've got here. ;-)

Title should be renamed 'EA tries to ego massage PC owners.' We know where their priorities lie.

You know, I'm getting really sick of that bs. M$ was the same a while back, "Oh PC you've been so good to us, as a reward we'll give you Fable 3 blabla new push in PC gamingbla"

We've always been here and we're doing just fine without you asshats.

Closed Ensemble, never forgive.

Gotta love EA...

2006 - Yeah, hardcore to the bone, we love us some Microsoft XBAWX and MADD0N AND F1F4 we'll deliver on those target renders. Target renders haha, more like lucid dreams in Peter Moore's pants of total gaming EAHD reality
2007 - Playstation 3 is like HOLY FUCK WOW we have to be on this with the Need for Speed on Blu-Ray and shit!
2008 - New franchises are what we need, Mirror's Edge, Dead Space 2 we're the only company bringing new exciting to content to the table!
2009 - Boom Blox sold 3 copies, we're totally shifting towards Wii development now. Dead Space, Need for Speed, EA Sports Active, that shit is gonna fly. Did you see MotionPlus that'll be supported by like 10+ games from Nintendo alone.
2010 - Wii games can now be found on XBLA for peanuts, we've bought Playfish we're going small in a big way lolrofllol oh and Chillingo too, wait they didn't develop Angry brids?
2011 - Yeah, PC sci-fi space opera is where it's at, STAR WARS MMO thing gonna revenue 5 billion with 500k copies sold do the math! Dead Space 2 could grow into a 3, 4 , 6 hell, maybe 10 million units performing franchise in the upper 100 million bracket of the industry. Not to mention Mass Effect 3, that'll be like the best game EVER.
http://i.imgur.com/CIFkA.jpg

Spoiler

I'ld love to see you write a post like this on your PSN network browser!

 

[amitlu]

I'm not sure why you're accusing me of straw-men when I'm not even claiming you said anything related to your accusations in the first place.

You claimed I said Steam made PC gaming a completely closed platform, which I didn't. That's absurd and also impossible.

The straw man here, in fact, is your endless grasping at straws about how apparently the same people "championing the openness of PCs" are now apparently "giving up that openness" and "giving up their own consumer rights".

Grasping at straws? Two posts ago you were straight up championing things that don't exist in a pathetic attempt to justify rallying behind a specific storefront.

There is no "irrational brand and platform loyalty". Steam fucking works, it works incredibly well, and it works better than every facet of the competition. If you're incapable of wrapping your mind around that simple idea, and instead stubbornly cling to your accusations of "bandwagoning" and "Kool-aid drinking", then it's really your own failure to competently form unfallacious arguments.

When the same people constantly spouting their 'open platform' party lines are constantly crying whenever a developer or publisher decides to use a different storefront than their sacred cow, then yes bandwagoning and brand loyalty have come into effect.

 

[SturokBGD]

When the same people constantly spouting their 'open platform' party lines are constantly crying whenever a developer or publisher decides to use a different storefront than their sacred cow, then yes bandwagoning and brand loyalty have come into effect.

I don't disagree with that, but ask yourself why it happens. There's a very, very good reason.

 

[dLMN8R]

When the same people constantly spouting their 'open platform' party lines are constantly crying whenever a developer or publisher decides to use a different storefront than their sacred cow, then yes bandwagoning and brand loyalty have come into effect.

You're simplifying a very complex topic. It's not as simple as "bandwagoning" or "brand loyalty".

The PC is an open platform, and Steam is a part of that open platform. In the entirety of that open platform, Steam provides without question the best technology that any multiplayer shooter can use. There isn't any better alternative.

Using Steamworks in a PC shooter makes that PC shooter an objectively better game than it would be without Steamworks.

-It has the best matching available on the platform
-It has the best server browser available on the platform
-It provides the most convenient way to play your games on any computer you own
-It provides the best way to take your saves and settings from computer to computer
-It provides a way to instantly connect to the friends list you already have
-It provides a way to one-click-join your friends in progress
-It provides a way for the developer to quickly and easily update everyone who owns the game


People want Battlefield 3 to use Steamworks because the open nature of the PC platform allowed Valve to create unquestionably the best service available for PC shooters.

The platform is open, the open platform allowed for the development of Steam and Steamworks, and now customers want to push for that product to be used because it's the best solution possible for the game.

 

[1-D_FTW]

You're simplifying a very complex topic. It's not as simple as "bandwagoning" or "brand loyalty".

The PC is an open platform, and Steam is a part of that open platform. In the entirety of that open platform, Steam provides without question the best technology that any multiplayer shooter can use. There isn't any better alternative.

Using Steamworks in a PC shooter makes that PC shooter an objectively better game than it would be without Steamworks.

-It has the best matching available on the platform
-It has the best server browser available on the platform
-It provides the most convenient way to play your games on any computer you own
-It provides the best way to take your saves and settings from computer to computer
-It provides a way to instantly connect to the friends list you already have
-It provides a way to one-click-join your friends in progress
-It provides a way for the developer to quickly and easily update everyone who owns the game


People want Battlefield 3 to use Steamworks because the open nature of the PC platform allowed Valve to create unquestionably the best service available for PC shooters.

The platform is open, the open platform allowed for the development of Steam and Steamworks, and now customers want to push for that product to be used because it's the best solution possible for the game.

It's not worth your time to even reply. I can't believe how hostile that dudes posts come off. He may be a swell guy in real life, but sheesh. Talk about making a great first impression.

 

[industrialfan225]

I'm sure they'll say that after TOR doesn't sell what they expect it to.