EA: We want to regain the trust of PC gamers

Moothead2 said:
Why on earth would EA decided to put their games on Steam and lose 30% of their revenue when they have their own successful platform?
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Business 101...

70% of something is better than 100% of nothing :)

Also, you do understand that "figure" you pulled from your butt is negotiable on an ad-hoc basis? Not a "locked in" figure.

Point being, Valve will NOT ask a major publisher for 30%.

Reason being, 1 million titles selling at 15% profit is better than NO titles selling at 0% profit.
 
To be fair to EA they've been doing a lot more than Steam/Valve recently for the PC gamer. I still don't really use Origin but they were the first to introduce refunds, they regularly offer pretty decent free games and now they're offering a, rather paltry it must be said, gaming on demand subscription service.
 
Origin I am fine with, I don't want Steam to be the only player and origin is fine as a plaform- it works. It certainly has a lot less bloaty crap than steam.

I don't think they're going to change as a company though. EA is a business and it will only care about the bottom line. They're making millions with their yearly twattlefield and FIFA etc so why would they change?

What does bug me is EA pretending that they're anything other than a business that cares about the bottom line. Like any company.
 
Gimpymoo said:
Point being, Valve will NOT ask a major publisher for 30%.

Reason being, 1 million titles selling at 15% profit is better than NO titles selling at 0% profit.
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Nope. It's 30% for everyone. That's why the other big publishers have their own platforms.

Sell a game on Steam, you lose 30%, and a huge portion are buying through grey market key sites so you're probably down 30% before Valve take their cut.
 
Gimpymoo said:
Business 101...

70% of something is better than 100% of nothing :)

Also, you do understand that "figure" you pulled from your butt is negotiable on an ad-hoc basis? Not a "locked in" figure.

Point being, Valve will NOT ask a major publisher for 30%.

Reason being, 1 million titles selling at 15% profit is better than NO titles selling at 0% profit.
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Yes they will, as evidenced by them taking a 30% cut from THQ sales in 2013.

Also, if they sold 2m copies of a game at $60 with 1.5m of those being on Steam and 500k on Origin (which let's be honest isn't exactly an unrealistic scenario), they'll be worse off than if they sold only 1.6m exclusively on Origin. Let's be real here, their games not being on Steam isn't going to impact sales that much.
 
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Yeah I have no problem with Origin. In fact I'm trying to buy less games from Steam, and buy through GOG if at all possible.

Valve/Steam are not angellic in their practices. Their customer support is ranked as some of the poorest in the industry. Not only that, they'll happily sell you a game that doesn't work on a modern OS, and to allow 3rd party DRM no matter how broken.
 
ummmmmmm

I swear that we have been here before with similar statements, usually as a prelude to building hype for the next large release.

As others have said, I will believe it when I see it.
 
havn't read everyones responses but one word sprung to mind which could explain why they're doing this.

E-sports.

I beleive they recently made an e-sports team/division to try and get some of that new money thats floatin around.
 
Moothead2 said:
Yes they will, as evidenced by them taking a 30% cut from THQ sales in 2013.

Also, if they sold 2m copies of a game at $60 with 1.5m of those being on Steam and 500k on Origin (which let's be honest isn't exactly an unrealistic scenario), they'll be worse off than if they sold only 1.6m exclusively on Origin. Let's be real here, their games not being on Steam isn't going to impact sales that much.
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It's not a such a big problem not being on Steam if you are a huge player with millions to spend on marketing your product outside that channel.

For everyone else, not giving 30% of your revenue to Valve is commercial suicide. I find it hard to believe that is good for the industry.
 
Nice sentiment on EA's part but I'll believe it when I see it, improving Origin isn't going to do anything for me if their half released, half DLC annual gouges continue.
 
Jacksonn said:
Always so much rage at Origin. Never had a single issue.
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Same here.
I don't pay EA's stupid prices or engage in their DLC business practice but when I have bought games that need Origin I've never once had a problem.
In fact, contrary to Steam I was actually able to talk to someone directly with an issue I had with purchasing BF4 who solved the issue within minutes for me and gave me a 50% off my next purchase voucher.

Steam took 3 weeks to even respond to me and another week to resolve...
 
mid_gen said:
For everyone else, not giving 30% of your revenue to Valve is commercial suicide. I find it hard to believe that is good for the industry.
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It isn't, and there hasn't been a situation like it as far back as I can remember.

Even in the early 80s there were a handful of publishers to choose from.

The idea today that you "have" to be on Steam is pretty bad for the industry.
 
I think it's too late for me. Watching what they've done with C&C and Dungeon Keeper is enough to make me completely boycott them and Origin.

Plus, being Linux kinda cuts you away from most modern EA titles anyway. But I wouldn't say i'm upset about it, in fact i'm almost glad.

**** EA.
 
As sceptical as anyone else - I have mixed feelings though to be fair atleast with BF4 they didn't just abandon it and put time and effort into doing the best of rescuing a bad job and its not a terrible game today just hamstrung in part by some of the original issues.

Starwars battlefront was visually bang on just a shame they didn't put the effort into the gameplay and other mechanics - they need to stop releasing a game once Dice Stockholm is done - they are very good at visuals and getting the atmosphere for a game, etc. but suck at enticing gameplay or making the basic mechanics a seamless part of the game.

Origin and EA customer services when it comes to Origin have come on a LONG way from the older days as well.

End of the day though I just can't believe any statement they make.
 
If EA want to win me over the following would go some way...
Bring back Wing Commander for the modern era (no dodgy vintage pron actresses this time though).
Bring back the Janes Combat sims (Longbow 2 remains the defining heli-sim for me).
Put a decent golf game back in the sports portfolio.
That is all...
 
mid_gen said:
It's not a such a big problem not being on Steam if you are a huge player with millions to spend on marketing your product outside that channel.

For everyone else, not giving 30% of your revenue to Valve is commercial suicide. I find it hard to believe that is good for the industry.
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Fully agree with that. Considering Valve & Steam pretty much is PC gaming these days they're do a pretty shoddy job of running the show from a consumer perspective. Absolutely no QC when it comes to Greenlight, atrocious customer service and the whole paid mods fiasco really diminishes their reputation in my eyes. Not to mention that despite being the market leader they still waited until Origin started offering refunds to implement it themselves.

The Steam store itself has become an absolute cesspit in the last couple of years too due to the aforementioned lack of QC of Greenlight and Early access games. I never find myself browsing the store anymore due to this and rely on sites like this to find games I might be interested in. Their sales don't even make up for this anymore due to the prevalence of key sites making their prices look steep.

I know this has become a bit of a rant about Steam in an EA thread but the constant hatred of Origin and placing Steam on a pedestal really gets on my nerves. Are EA talking out of their arses here? Probably, but I really can't fault them for the Origin service as a whole and they've probably done more for PC gaming lately than Valve have.
 
I think EA are making steps in the write direction. As a BF4 player the support this game has received is second to none, releasing a big update long after many other games get dropped. They finally gave us something decent with NFS. Not perfect but heading in the write direction.
 
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