EA Games Publishing Valve's Titles- What you think?

[Gimpymoo]

I know its wrong of me to judge before anything has happened, but anyone have the feeling that something "WRONG" is about to happen with this.

Since it was announced, ive had my doubts, but cant say exactly why.

AFAIK, they have NO developing input WHATSOEVER and its purely a distribution deal, but surely EA arent going to settle for that being the money grabbing tykes they are.

I know Valve will be cautious after their fiasco with Vivendi, but anyone else smell a shafting by EA?

 

[Gimpymoo]

As far as I know EA are there to replace Vivendi in publishing for the retail stores. Valve will still publish via STEAM.

Your correct, but why would Valve choose EA. Valve would have had their choice of publisher would they not?

I am sticking to steam, my only moan about it was the "Friends" issues when HL2 was released.. apart from that minor niggle, ive been very happy with it as a distribution medium.

 

[Gimpymoo]

The main target market for a publisher of Valve products must surely be the more casual gamer, the people who are gonna walk into a store and buy the game off the shelf (new players, or youngsters without access to credit cards etc). And that's the kind of market which EA excels at selling to, with their marketing prowess.

Good points there.

Following on from that, is there a chance EA may ask Valve to remove the "Verify online before play" feature of the current Valve catalogue to simplify things for the "Casual" gamer?