This is going to sound like a troll answer, but it's not: stability. Steam crashes/locks up constantly on my PC. It does so on my Mac. It did on my old computer. And on my girlfriend's computer.
It refuses to install some games because "the servers are too busy" when other games install just fine. Steam feels like everything is coded in one thread, because the UI locks up if you so much as right click the wrong icon. For a developer that can produce TF2 and Portal 2, they really don't seem to have a client that matches any of the competition.
Uh, no. That's a specific issue towards you. Valve would try and fix glitches on Steam with or without competition as they want your money. An EA DD store would not change that or speed up the process.
thefil said:
*fake edit: On further reading, I don't think this necessarily applies to what your stance is, but I'll leave it here anyway*
On another note, I think the argument that we don't need competition simple because you cannot fathom a new innovation is a little shallow. It's not like every groundbreaking change comes because consumers came up with the idea first. As far as I can see, there is no downside to EA opening this except for the possibility that they pull back their games. And so long as Valve isn't releasing games on other platforms, I see no reason why we should defend them as a potential monopoly.
The EA DD store isn't going to bring competition... not the kind you are talking about. The only thing that's going to change is there will be less EA games on Steam.
On another another note: While Steam may not be directly inheriting many features from competitors, it's hard to believe that the presence of competition hasn't been a forward-mover on their intent to stay ahead of the curve when it comes to features. Steamworks, Steamcloud etc exist to keep people using Steam as opposed to any other service, not simply because Valve is giving a gift to users.
No shit, really?!? Steamworks and Steamcloud exist to make PC gaming easier for the masses and to give developers better tools for their PC / Mac titles. Valve profits off this because it drives people to the Steam store. They would be doing this with or without DD competition. Valve's true competition is against retail, not battle.net or Impulse.
One thing I think could be improved about Steam is how it responds to to chargebacks / what the process is for unlocking a locked account. Unfortunately, competitive pressure does not exist here. All other competitors have similar policies on chargebacks, and EA's rocky history with the account bannings makes them the least likely candidate of all to provide a transparent process for appealing account closure issues.
thefil said:
This is going to sound like a troll answer, but it's not: stability. Steam crashes/locks up constantly on my PC. It does so on my Mac. It did on my old computer. And on my girlfriend's computer.
It refuses to install some games because "the servers are too busy" when other games install just fine. Steam feels like everything is coded in one thread, because the UI locks up if you so much as right click the wrong icon. For a developer that can produce TF2 and Portal 2, they really don't seem to have a client that matches any of the competition.
Accepting your complaint as valid, I'm not sure how competition is supposed to force Valve into action here. Competition that doesn't have a client isn't going to force Valve to change, and competition that does have a client almost certainly suffers from technical issues worse than Valve does. Moreover, since they're already doing client updates once a month or so fixing crash issues, and they quickly respond to client-induced crash issues from new drivers (you can see this in the client patch notes), I would say they are operating with at least good responsiveness, if not perfect.
Now, having said that, I don't share your experience in this regard. I run Steam on my work PC, my home PC, my home PC laptop, my girlfriend's home PC laptop, my work Mac laptop, and my old 1st gen eeepc netbook and I've never had a stability or responsiveness issue the way you describe them. I don't think you're trolling, I'm sure you're correct about your own systems, I just mean for this to have an impact in the way you're describing it, it must exist on a macro level, and I don't think it does.
The two technical issues I have had with Steam have been:
1) Issues with logging in that involved deleting clientregistry.blob.
2) Issues where certain games don't play well with the overlay (easily fixed, one click) or the overlay crashes when I quit the game (non-harmful).
On another note, I think the argument that we don't need competition simple because you cannot fathom a new innovation is a little shallow. It's not like every groundbreaking change comes because consumers came up with the idea first.
No, of course not. But the sense that Steam is in dire need of a kick in the keister implies that there are obvious things to be fixed about Steam. You mentioned one above, although I can't imagine too many people reading it would share your experience.
But while we're at it, let's try to itemize a list of innovations that any DD competitor has had at any point in the last 5 years that Steam doesn't have:
1. GreenManGaming allows trade-ins.
...
...
Origin isn't going to allow trade-ins, GMG may or may not have been successfully but it certainly hasn't been revolutionary, and Valve may or may not co-opt the trade-in feature but if they do I think it'll be because they view it as an economic benefit to recirculate trade-in credit rather than because they view a competitive risk of not supporting the option. Especially given that some of the most popular games on GMG are Steamworks.
As far as I can see, there is no downside to EA opening this except for the possibility that they pull back their games. And so long as Valve isn't releasing games on other platforms, I see no reason why we should defend them as a potential monopoly.
But, see, this is hoisting your argument by its own petard.
If it's bad that Valve won't publish elsewhere, then it's bad that EA won't publish elsewhere, and the relative badness of each's action depends on the relative badness of each's DD service, so again we fall back on the merits of the service, and so if we accept that Steam's service has more merits, the concept of EA pulling its own games is worse than Valve not publishing elsewhere and this is just a repeat of the GFWL argument.
Is GFWL a good service? Is it providing a benefit to PC players? Or would we be better off if Microsoft published their games on Steam?
thefil said:
On another another note: While Steam may not be directly inheriting many features from competitors, it's hard to believe that the presence of competition hasn't been a forward-mover on their intent to stay ahead of the curve when it comes to features. Steamworks, Steamcloud etc exist to keep people using Steam as opposed to any other service, not simply because Valve is giving a gift to users.
As I said before, the "competition" forcing Valve to move forward here isn't other DD services, it's PC retail, it's consoles period, and it's not spending money on games. Valve has an incentive to grow both the size of the pie and their share of the pie, certainly, but Origin as a service doesn't boost that incentive and it's not clear that anything would based on the effort Valve has already been putting in.
And it was a pretty balsy move in this piracy-obsessed marketplace. And they also actually go back and work with the games they release to make sure older games work on newer platforms. Valve has no interest in doing such a thing, or at least has never indicated such.
3. D2D price matching.
Not much of an innovation really as just a smart retail move, but something I still appreciate.
Uh, no. That's a specific issue towards you. Valve would try and fix glitches on Steam with or without competition as they want your money. An EA DD store would not change that or speed up the process.
Okay, here's a small example to describe how this is a competitive issue. I am a Steam user and a GOG user. When given the choice, I will always buy an available title on GOG instead. Why? Because my experience with the stability of their installer is better than with Steam.
Interfectum said:
The EA DD store isn't going to bring competition... not the kind you are talking about. The only thing that's going to change is there will be less EA games on Steam.
I don't see any evidence to support the claim that EA will make no attempts to be user friendly, and have no effect on pushing things forward. Or that EA games will no longer be on other platforms. This is like being against a new gaming store opening up on your block, because... because why, again?
And once again, I question how EA is evil for a platform that at worst withholds their games from other platforms, when Steam is a golden platform and Valve does the same.
Interfectum said:
No shit, really?!? Steamworks and Steamcloud exist to make PC gaming easier for the masses and to give developers better tools for their PC / Mac titles. Valve profits off this because it drives people to the Steam store. They would be doing this with or without DD competition. Valve's true competition is against retail, not battle.net or Impulse.
Okay. If you believe 100% that Steam has never made a decision motivated in any part by wanting to stay ahead of digital competition in addition to retail, I cannot say I have evidence to refute it. I don't think it's a realistic outlook, though.
Right, but as it relates to the topic:
1) EA's downloader isn't going to be DRM free, considering EA adds additional DRM in Steam releases.
2) Valve isn't going to go DRM free and if they do it won't be because of GOG considering there's essentially no catalog overlap between the two services and likely won't be.
3) Valve's stance on DRM is that it should be minimal and unobtrusive (see Steamworks + pre-loading content), their own products are generally so, and products that have obtrusive DRM on Steam are done so by the choice of publishers, who are competing with each other irrespective of the service they sell on. So if we tackle "Obtrusive DRM" as the problem rather than "DRM per se" as the problem, I would say Valve is already doing a good job even if not perfect.
4) The only way I can see GOG's DRM-free stance to impact Valve or other download services would be if it encouraged Valve to put additional pressure on publishers to pursue less obtrusive DRM options. Of course, to resolve whether or not this is the case, we'd have to know what pressure if any Valve already puts on publishers, and how those publishers respond.
Well, I think when people identify the issues with fragmentation, they're really talking about a bundle of issues:
1) Running multiple clients and/or back-end libraries
2) Maintaining multiple friends lists and/or in-game accounts
3) In-game functionality incompatibilities or missing (achievements, leaderboards, server browsing, screenshots, cloud saving, DLC purchasing etc) when they could be implemented easily and for free.
4) Personal information given to more sources than necessary
5) Risk of service closing or changing terms--something that happened a lot in the wild west of music DD services, which is why people have basically gravitated to iTunes or Amazon.
6) Different DRM standards for different services make tracking your own ownership rights difficult (naturally, this is also an issue for games on Steam that use extra DRM)
7) Requires user to keep track of purchases so that in the event of a system format the user remembers to re-login to each service and re-download games from different services.
8) Maintaining multiple account balances for individuals who prefer or must use "wallet" services; a lot of people have spare BioWare points balances as a result of their external DLC management, for example. If you have floating $2-3 balances at one service, that's annoying. At five, it's really annoying.
9) People complaining that adding a non-Steam game shortcut wrecks the "look" of their Steam client
There are obviously decisions services can make to make this easier or harder. Having a transferrable license (as in the case of a Steamworks game bought on a non-Steam service) makes it easier on the user because it eliminates many of the issues above. Not having a client or in-game account of any kind eliminates some of the issues above. But the best way to ensure that none of the issues above occurs is to consolidate the set of services you use.
And then to counter, you would ask the logical question "How do multiple services help consumers?". The answer, as best as I can tell, is that they don't. The way Valve runs Steam is that they seem to believe that the best way they can do well is to grow the pie, and the best way they can grow the pie is to innovate on services and sales regardless of whether or not their competition has. Steamworks is already free. They're already adding major features to it on a frequent basis. They're already doing more and deeper sales than anyone else. They've already more aggressively courted content than anyone else. They did the Mac thing before Apple announced the Mac App Store. They don't seem to respond to competition. So it's not clear to me that the existence of D2D or Impulse or GamersGate or Gamesplanet or GOG actually makes Steam a better service.
To me, the value of an alternative service is largely in its exclusive content. If that exclusive content could easily be on Steam with no changes, that would frustrate me. This goes both ways--if there's an indie game not available on Steam, it frustrates me that Valve won't add it. If it's a major publisher withholding a game from Steam, it frustrates me that they're doing it.
GOG is easily the most justified alternative service because:
1) It uses the most minimal possible footprint; no DRM, no Client, no community functionality whatsoever, downloader is optional and tiny, etc.
2) It goes after a distinctly different set of content, with very little overlap with Steam. It also aggressively courts publishers rather than relying on a come-to-us model like Steam.
3) GOG as a company provides a service to publishers by ensuring compatibility and patching. If the publishers were doing that themselves, the case for not releasing the games on Steam would be poor.
I don't think discussion on a point-by-point basis is necessary because I see where you are coming from, and I think you understand my perspective as well. But I'm just going to toss out some closing points.
I sense that most of the distaste here is because it's perceived that EA cannot possibly provide any innovation through competition, and that keeping their games to themselves is a negative.
Regarding EA's potential as a competitor, as someone who is unsatisfied with Steam's technical issues, I guess I see any available alternative as a good thing, and a potential place for me to move my business.
In my mind, another store with exclusive games is not so much a new evil as an expansion of evil. The correct solution should not be an argument that there shouldn't be a new store that does this, but a pushback against Valve for in all likelihood popularizing the idea. We don't want to send the message to corporations that "you can only be evil if you're big enough".
I also think that as the retail market for PC games shrinks, it's not pertinent to keep thinking to ourselves that DD competition doesn't matter to the market leader. But as I said earlier I can't prove they care or will change because of it. I just think it's likely.
No shit, really?!? Steamworks and Steamcloud exist to make PC gaming easier for the masses and to give developers better tools for their PC / Mac titles. Valve profits off this because it drives people to the Steam store. They would be doing this with or without DD competition. Valve's true competition is against retail, not battle.net or Impulse.
This isn't right. First of all, Steam doesn't exist to make PC gaming easier. It exists to make money for Valve. Second, the market has been inexorably shifting towards more DD, and less packaged retail goods. Claiming that packaged goods are Valve's true competition is silly, since that's a dying market. It's like claiming Netflix's true competition is blockbuster retail locations.
Valve is a great company, but in the end they're a profit-driven enterprise like everyone else. More competition will be good for them, and good for us.
Okay, here's a small example to describe how this is a competitive issue. I am a Steam user and a GOG user. When given the choice, I will always buy an available title on GOG instead. Why? Because my experience with the stability of their installer is better than with Steam.
And if there were no GOG you'd just buy retail or go to console games. My point is, Valve already has enough competition that they would want to fix your problem regardless. More DD competition isn't going to change this fact.
Look I don't think Valve is the golden goose, end all, be all god's give to gaming either. I just think there is a very flawed line of thinking when everyone is spouting that an EA store is a good thing simply because Steam needs competition. Steam already has competition and Valve is doing everything in their power to drive people to Steam.
The only thing an EA store is going to do for a consumer like me is annoy me. Like I said, now I have to sign up for a new service, remember a new username / password, give out my payment information etc. All I want is to play Battlefield 3 online with my Steam friends and because of this I may not be able to.
You say "but this is a good thing as Steam needs competition." I ask you, to what end would this help Steam? Or even more important, how does this improve my PC gaming experience?
Basically my stance:
- Free market for content: Great but apparently not feasible due to historical actions by publishers.
- Walled garden: Less great in some ways (DRM, lack of portability of content), more great in other ways (free best-of-breed social systems, unified friends lists, etc).
- Many walled gardens: Generally annoying, weakens advantage of walled gardens (fractured friends lists, different wallet balances, etc), doesn't do much to compensate for weaknesses of walled gardens (still have DRM, content still isn't portable).
thefil said:
Okay. If you believe 100% that Steam has never made a decision motivated in any part by wanting to stay ahead of digital competition in addition to retail, I cannot say I have evidence to refute it. I don't think it's a realistic outlook, though.
Even accepting this in the abstract, it's not simply a matter of saying "more firms = better Steam", you need to look at the specific value proposition they bring to the market. From a consumer-oriented perspective, EA won't bring any.
One way that Origin (and uPlay if they open the store and GFWL and any future Battle.net store) will put pressure on Steam will be if the publishers that run the services make all their titles exclusive. All EA games are Origin exclusive. All Ubisoft games are uPlay exclusive. All MS games are GFWL exclusive. All Activision games are Battle.net exclusive. This doesn't put any consumer-facing pressure on Valve, but it would pressure Valve to give publishers a better revenue split. The two problems are 1) No revenue split will ever match 100-0 so Valve couldn't compete for a truly obstinate publisher, 2) A fragmented marketplace would be a consumer nightmare.
One last thing on competition. Steam is a good king, a kind king. They would likel be a benevolent king even if they didn't have a couple dukes looking to take the throne from them. But I would rather have a court in which the king has to keep the people happy than one in which they choose to.
That might just be me. Sorry for the awful metaphor.
One last thing on competition. Steam is a good king, a kind king. They would likel be a benevolent king even if they didn't have a couple dukes looking to take the throne from them. But I would rather have a court in which the king has to keep the people happy than one in which they choose to.
That might just be me. Sorry for the awful metaphor.
To extend the metaphor, it's better to have a democracy than a feudal king. But if you've got to have a feudal king, it's better that it's one benevolent one who reigns over an unprecedented era of prosperity and happiness--and yes, you want him to be challenged every so often to keep him honest--than twenty warlords with long histories of public executions all demanding tribute.
"Exclusive game content and trailers for Mass Effect 3, FIFA 12, SSX, Madden NFL 12, Need for Speed The Run, Star Wars: The Old Republic, The Sims 3 and Battlefield 3 will be available."
Does this mean Origin is coming to consoles? Madden 12 to PC?
One way that Origin (and uPlay if they open the store and GFWL and any future Battle.net store) will put pressure on Steam will be if the publishers that run the services make all their titles exclusive. All EA games are Origin exclusive. All Ubisoft games are uPlay exclusive. All MS games are GFWL exclusive. All Activision games are Battle.net exclusive. This doesn't put any consumer-facing pressure on Valve, but it would pressure Valve to give publishers a better revenue split. The two problems are 1) No revenue split will ever match 100-0 so Valve couldn't compete for a truly obstinate publisher, 2) A fragmented marketplace would be a consumer nightmare.
If publishers lose less than 30% of sales by going exclusive with their in-house DD services, it will still be more profitable than going with Steam or another DD service.
If the sales drop past that 30% that's when it will hurt their bottom line.
This isn't right. First of all, Steam doesn't exist to make PC gaming easier. It exists to make money for Valve. Second, the market has been inexorably shifting towards more DD, and less packaged retail goods. Claiming that packaged goods are Valve's true competition is silly, since that's a dying market. It's like claiming Netflix's true competition is blockbuster retail locations.
This is implied in every conversation about companies for profit. Valve made getting into PC gaming easier for consumers and developers alike so they could make more money. Auto updates, universal friends list, one place for all games, awesome sales, account wide achievements, cloud saving, etc. Being consumer friendly has paid off for Valve big time.
Basically my stance:
- Free market for content: Great but apparently not feasible due to historical actions by publishers.
- Walled garden: Less great in some ways (DRM, lack of portability of content), more great in other ways (free best-of-breed social systems, unified friends lists, etc).
- Many walled gardens: Generally annoying, weakens advantage of walled gardens (fractured friends lists, different wallet balances, etc), doesn't do much to compensate for weaknesses of walled gardens (still have DRM, content still isn't portable).
Even accepting this in the abstract, it's not simply a matter of saying "more firms = better Steam", you need to look at the specific value proposition they bring to the market. From a consumer-oriented perspective, EA won't bring any.
One way that Origin (and uPlay if they open the store and GFWL and any future Battle.net store) will put pressure on Steam will be if the publishers that run the services make all their titles exclusive. All EA games are Origin exclusive. All Ubisoft games are uPlay exclusive. All MS games are GFWL exclusive. All Activision games are Battle.net exclusive. This doesn't put any consumer-facing pressure on Valve, but it would pressure Valve to give publishers a better revenue split. The two problems are 1) No revenue split will ever match 100-0 so Valve couldn't compete for a truly obstinate publisher, 2) A fragmented marketplace would be a consumer nightmare.
Listen, I agree with you here. Fragmentation is bad. Realistically, you are probably correct. I find it difficult to give up ideology in favour of comfort. If I had it my way, there would be a standard social games protocol over which various retailers could plug repository-style storefronts into a variety of clients. For me, the next best thing is a variety of storefronts.
To close the metaphor, I haven't given up on democracy.
If publishers lose less than 30% of sales by going exclusive with their in-house DD services, it will still be more profitable than going with Steam or another DD service.
If the sales drop past that 30% that's when it will hurt their bottom line.
There's also the possibility of timed exclusivity, which makes a lot more sense. Force day-one people to go through your storefront. When the game's older and less valuable, push it onto other platforms.
But then there's Valve's own actions, in that they almost seem to treat their own releases as loss-leaders, to get people to start using their platform.
I certainly don't mind and totally understand if EA wants to do timed exclusives for their stuff because this sort of thing happens in other mediums. Honestly I can't see EA doing games that you can only get on Origin just because it wouldn't be in their best interest, especially when it comes to bigger franchises like Battlefield.
Personally I try to stick to Steam and always have, but I don't limit myself to it. It's really interesting watching Amazon because they've been quietly trying different things that might make it the biggest competitor once they start to really push their digital game store more with advertising and letting people know about sales.
Basically my stance:
- Free market for content: Great but apparently not feasible due to historical actions by publishers.
- Walled garden: Less great in some ways (DRM, lack of portability of content), more great in other ways (free best-of-breed social systems, unified friends lists, etc).
- Many walled gardens: Generally annoying, weakens advantage of walled gardens (fractured friends lists, different wallet balances, etc), doesn't do much to compensate for weaknesses of walled gardens (still have DRM, content still isn't portable).
There's also the possibility of timed exclusivity, which makes a lot more sense. Force day-one people to go through your storefront. When the game's older and less valuable, push it onto other platforms.
But then there's Valve's own actions, in that they almost seem to treat their own releases as loss-leaders, to get people to start using their platform.
You know, it actually looks like a nice platform. The problem is: I'm not interested in maintaining a second set of community features on top of Steam.
Basically my stance:
- Free market for content: Great but apparently not feasible due to historical actions by publishers.
- Walled garden: Less great in some ways (DRM, lack of portability of content), more great in other ways (free best-of-breed social systems, unified friends lists, etc).
- Many walled gardens: Generally annoying, weakens advantage of walled gardens (fractured friends lists, different wallet balances, etc), doesn't do much to compensate for weaknesses of walled gardens (still have DRM, content still isn't portable).
I'm going to take a slightly different tack, and break it down into competition on a single tier, and competition on two tiers.
Single tier competition is when you have two companies each releasing products or operating services. This is pretty much blanket "good" competition, as each one has to either adjust their pricing or add features to pull customers away from the other side. Its hard to actually screw your customers in this model without driving them away. I think this holds up both for companies that run DD services and companies that make games, but not companies that do both.
Two-tier competition is when it get tricky, as thats when a company controls both the product and one of the methods of its distribution.
When that happens then competition is not automatically good, since now you have a second option.
Rather then innovate and lower prices to drive people into your store to by your product or use your service, as you had to with direct competition using an external playing field or external products, you can just refuse to offer your product in the competitors store, forcing them to come into your store to buy your product. Even then this isn't "bad" for most products where you are going to buy one or the other, like say...laundry detergent.
But products like games, which are not an either/or purchase proposition but frequently an "and", this hasn't actually increased the value proposition for the consumer at all, its just fragmented the marketplace.
And lets be fair: Valve has actually done a fair bit of the latter. Its just that Steam is so good of a service that there has almost never been a compelling reason to switch the majority of my purchases to another outlet. GoG's anti-DRM stance is the only thing that even gets me close.
Valve should publish a free API that lets any publisher use all of their community features for free, in an open way, and let publishers use the features how they want and build great stuff on top of it. Then EA could use it in their games. We'd have unified friends lists, achievements, leaderboards, cloud saving, voice chat, multiplayer matchmaking, etc. Oh man.
Lighten up, Francis. I know that. I was just trying to lighten the mood.
I think some Steam-elitists (and I love Steam) are taking this far too personally. EA is no different than Blizzard as far as offering a non-Steam service for their games. I am surprised EA hasn't done this sooner.
You know, it actually looks like a nice platform. The problem is: I'm not interested in maintaining a second set of community features on top of Steam.
That and the fact that you're basically building yet another community from scratch.
DenogginizerOS said:
Lighten up, Francis. I know that. I was just trying to lighten the mood.
I think some Steam-elitists (and I love Steam) are taking this far too personally. EA is no different than Blizzard as far as offering a non-Steam service for their games. I am surprised EA hasn't done this sooner.
Lighten up, Francis. I know that. I was just trying to lighten the mood.
I think some Steam-elitists (and I love Steam) are taking this far too personally. EA is no different than Blizzard as far as offering a non-Steam service for their games. I am surprised EA hasn't done this sooner.
I think we accept Blizzard because it's just a few games, and their products are good and memorable enough for me to be able to put up with their storefront. When you start piling on more and more DD services, it just gets too confusing for the customer. For many of us, Steam and BNet is where we draw the line.
That's kind of the metric I use for how willing I am to use a DD service: how memorable is the game? I am not likely to forget that I own SC2 or WoW...but I might forget that I own Mirror's Edge, for example.
That's why I refuse to buy many small indie games off Steam. I don't want to have to keep track of several dozen download locations and accounts. One of the big advantages with DD, to me, is having my games in one place and not fearing about accidentally losing my game discs. When I start piling on the DD services, odds are I'm going to forget/lose games in the process.
Valve should publish a free API that lets any publisher use all of their community features for free, in an open way, and let publishers use the features how they want and build great stuff on top of it. Then EA could use it in their games. We'd have unified friends lists, achievements, leaderboards, cloud saving, voice chat, multiplayer matchmaking, etc. Oh man.
Yes! Then Valve could establish an independent organization with representatives from each DD company, as well as some web standards people with experience. They could create a panel to evolve Steamworks into an open, needs-driven standard protocol that could be implemented into any client that the retailers would want to make. You could buy your games from anywhere and be on the same account, with the same friends, and all the features...
Steamworks isn't really platform-agnostic, though. It ties you into Steam. So it's only one type of 'free'. If you could divorce Steam from the store, X-Fire style, you'd have a point.
Steamworks isn't really platform-agnostic, though. It ties you into Steam. So it's only one type of 'free'. If you could divorce Steam from the store, X-Fire style, you'd have a point.
But if you only had Amazon you probably wouldn't. (And to be honest, competition on price between amazon and retail would probably be very one-sided: Amazon probably wouldn't have to offer the same sort of deals to beat out retail.)
TheExodu5 said:
Why would Valve make a platform agnostic API? What's in it for them?
I don't particularly care for Steam all that much, but it's cheap and it's easy. This new EA store would have to be cheaper and easier, I do not think that is going to happen.
I don't particularly care for Steam all that much, but it's cheap and it's easy. This new EA store would have to be cheaper and easier, I do not think that is going to happen.
It actually already is cheaper. And depending on how you define easy, it's already as easy too. Just buy game, download it, play it. When finished, uninstall game. In 6 months when get hankering again, download again and play it.
Edit: So I just downloaded and installed it. It basically uninstalled EA Download Manager and installed EA Download Manager Origin. It really is just EA Download Manager. Hopefully they're going to be pushing out improvements with the publicity push though in the near future.
Well, with it being revealed that it is the only place to get SWTOR digitally just screams to me that Tuesday will have something about a pre-order being available now, with instant or within a few weeks access to the beta. And that being the only way into the open beta. They'll get a ton of sales right off the bat doing that.
EA has had some great deals on their site, but living in Japan forces me into a totally separate site which rarely has a single sale of worth. Hopefully the new site is a bit more lenient with foreign IPs.
EA has had some great deals on their site, but living in Japan forces me into a totally separate site which rarely has a single sale of worth. Hopefully the new site is a bit more lenient with foreign IPs.
Valve should publish a free API that lets any publisher use all of their community features for free, in an open way, and let publishers use the features how they want and build great stuff on top of it. Then EA could use it in their games. We'd have unified friends lists, achievements, leaderboards, cloud saving, voice chat, multiplayer matchmaking, etc. Oh man.
Obviously they'll never use Steamworks since they're doing their own thing, but they should make whatever they're making compatible with it. Sorta like how some IM clients work with tons of protocols.
Even accepting this in the abstract, it's not simply a matter of saying "more firms = better Steam", you need to look at the specific value proposition they bring to the market. From a consumer-oriented perspective, EA won't bring any.
Maybe we should wait and see on this? They've already announced integration with mobile devices, which Steam doesn't have yet. Who knows what else they may have planned?
One way that Origin (and uPlay if they open the store and GFWL and any future Battle.net store) will put pressure on Steam will be if the publishers that run the services make all their titles exclusive. All EA games are Origin exclusive. All Ubisoft games are uPlay exclusive. All MS games are GFWL exclusive. All Activision games are Battle.net exclusive. This doesn't put any consumer-facing pressure on Valve, but it would pressure Valve to give publishers a better revenue split. The two problems are 1) No revenue split will ever match 100-0 so Valve couldn't compete for a truly obstinate publisher, 2) A fragmented marketplace would be a consumer nightmare.
I guess I don't understand how that becomes a consumer nightmare. Iphone, Android, and Win7 are all walled gardens, but the existence of the three is a boon for consumers, not a nightmare.
Obviously they'll never use Steamworks since they're doing their own thing, but they should make whatever they're making compatible with it. Sorta like how some IM clients work with tons of protocols.
