[V_R]

Electronic Arts' new downloadble service, Origin, will host exclusive content for games such as Battlefield 3 and Mass Effect 3. Digital copies of Star Wars: The Old Republic will be exclusive to Origin. Crysis 2, released earlier this year, was pulled from Valve's digital games service Steam yesterday, fueling speculation EA removed the title.

EA has stated the game's removal was due to an agreement between Crytek and another download service, not a decision by the publisher.

Posted below is EA's statement sent to IGN:


It's unfortunate that Steam has removed Crysis 2 from their service. This was not an EA decision or the result of any action by EA.

Steam has imposed a set of business terms for developers hoping to sell content on that service – many of which are not imposed by other online game services. Unfortunately, Crytek has an agreement with another download service which violates the new rules from Steam and resulted in its expulsion of Crysis 2 from Steam.

Crysis 2 continues to be available on several other download services including Origin.com.
IGN has contacted Valve for comment.

http://uk.pc.ign.com/articles/117/1176517p1.html

“Where were you when the war began, Daddy?”
“Well, little Ignatius H. Meer III, I was at my PC, staring vacantly at Twitter. Probably eating some crisps as I did. I’ll never forget that dark, terrible day. The day that EA decided they could fight Steam.”
“Daddy? Why are you crying, Daddy?”

Crysis 2 has disappeared from Steam, and is now described as being “Origin only.” Origin is, you may recall, EA’s newly-relaunched download store. Uh-oh.

This week’s Alice: Madness Returns, meanwhile, is marked as listed as “ONLY AVAILABLE ON ORIGIN UNTIL JUNE 17TH”. This implies it will turn up on other services after that time, but may simply be referring to the retail release – the game is not listed on Steam at all as yet.

EA appears to be remaining tight-lipped on the matter for now, although matters become confusing in that you can still nab Crysis 2 from other store such as Direct2Drive, while the likes of Dragon Age II and Bulletstorm are still to be found on Valve’s service.

Everyone’s speculating that this may mean EA is determinedly resisting Valve’s infamously successful cornering of the download market, as it attempts (again) to make its own service something of a go-to store. Battlefield 3 will likely be the proof of that particular pudding – it’s EA’s biggest PC game in yonks, but is it so big that only being able to download it from one place won’t hurt it? You can pre-order Battlefield 3 from Origin already, but it’s not to be found anywhere on Steam. Then again, it doesn’t launch until Autumn anyway, so anything could happen in the months to come. Whatever’s happening, olde worlde retail releases appear to be proceeding as planned.

It’s all speculation and rumour for now, of course. We’ve contacted EA to try and work out what’s going on, and have been told a statement should be forthcoming later today. We’ll let you know as soon as we have more.

If this is what everyone’s thinking it is, what happens now? There aren’t many games that could support this kind of exclusivity, but perhaps Battlefield 3 and SWTOR are big enough to get away with it. OR ARE THEY?

Oh, and if you bought Crysis 2 from Steam at an earlier date, fear not – you can still play it.

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011...ed-from-steam/


Hmmmm.

Thoughts? Funny how EA's Origin has just gone live isn't it....

[floppybootstomp]

Given the choice between EA and Valve, Origin and Steam... no contest

The only ones who will suffer will be us.

One of the biggest confidence builders with any online service is contactability. Steam aren't that great but they're a damn sight better than EA. In the many years I've used EA games not once have I ever had any two way contact with them, despite trying.

And this is also why I prefer hard copies of games.

btw, Alice Madness Returns is out today, 25 quid on Amazon and also at Amazon Witcher 2 deluxe edition (with several extra goodies) is 25 quid.

[floppybootstomp]

Not sure what's going on with Origin but they just e-mailed me offering the new Alice game bundled with Tthe original Alice game remastered in HD plus some 'dlc' of 4 extra dresses for Alice each with a unique ability. My curiosity roused, not least of which to wonder how much they were charging, I clicked on the link.

'Product not available'

I searched Origin's site and it says Alice is available for pre-order but it isn't. It cannot be found.

The game has been available on Steam and for sale at Amazon, GAME and Play.com since the 17th, £30 at Steam, £25 at Amazon & Play.com.

Origin not really off to a flying start there.

I also note Origin are currently offering Crysis 2 for £20.00, possibly anxious for the new venture to generate some turnover.