1728 réponses à ce sujet

[Disphoria]

Just a slap in the face? This is the same treatment the pc gaming community recieved with the release of MW2. The PC platform has been severely neglected with the many AAA titles released in the past year. Terrible performance on even the highest end of hardware. Horrendous optimizations, design and implementation flaws. Thanks bioware, I'll go buy the witcher now, and get my fill of DA2 from the used xbox360 section of gamestop a month after release.

[CruserBoii]

Disphoria wrote...

Just a slap in the face? This is the same treatment the pc gaming community recieved with the release of MW2. The PC platform has been severely neglected with the many AAA titles released in the past year. Terrible performance on even the highest end of hardware. Horrendous optimizations, design and implementation flaws. Thanks bioware, I'll go buy the witcher now, and get my fill of DA2 from the used xbox360 section of gamestop a month after release.

It's EA. Not Biowares fault, honestly.

[Steve236]

Disphoria wrote...

Just a slap in the face? This is the same treatment the pc gaming community recieved with the release of MW2. The PC platform has been severely neglected with the many AAA titles released in the past year. Terrible performance on even the highest end of hardware. Horrendous optimizations, design and implementation flaws. Thanks bioware, I'll go buy the witcher now, and get my fill of DA2 from the used xbox360 section of gamestop a month after release.

Expect the same treatment for mass effect 3.

Modifié par Steve236, 13 janvier 2011 - 05:13 .

[Ichika]

SE is still for sale here. Not sure if I should be brave and buy it!? D:

[Aggie Punbot]

The claim is that it's sheer coincidence that they 'couldn't negotiate a deal' with Steam until exactly one hour after the Signature Edition promotion ended? I'm not buying it (har har).

[aya001]

I don't care if you complain of all this, but please be perfectly clear that IS EA's FAULT not BIOWARE, so stop with all this abussive crap over Bioware ¬¬.

[Taint Master]

LOL. I got the SE on sale at D2D for like $44 last month.



Why are you guys being such drama queens?

[wolfsite]

Taint Master wrote...

LOL. I got the SE on sale at D2D for like $44 last month.

Why are you guys being such drama queens?

It's the Internet.

[Forsythia]

TS2Aggie wrote...

The claim is that it's sheer coincidence that they 'couldn't negotiate a deal' with Steam until exactly one hour after the Signature Edition promotion ended? I'm not buying it (har har).

This. It seems just too convenient for EA to give us this reason. Could be true, though, as I have no idea how things are negotiated in the first place.

I'm still planning to buy the Steam version. I pre-ordered the SE at retail, will use the codes and then I'll sell that game. I'll still have a complete game then.

[Disphoria]

aya001 wrote...

I don't care if you complain of all this, but please be perfectly clear that IS EA's FAULT not BIOWARE, so stop with all this abussive crap over Bioware ¬¬.

If it's EA's fault, posting on the bioware forums is exactly what you should do. I blame bioware, why you may ask? Because they are the ones making the game. Sure, they are EA's puppet, but Bioware cares, and Bioware will see to it that atleast it is brought up to the table.

[Loerwyn]

What's to say it's not Valve's fault? They might have wanted a Digital Deluxe version instead of a 'Signature Edition' that's only on sale for a few months.

Either way, you don't gain anything from buying it through Steam beyond it instantly patching. If you use Steam only for digital distribution, then you're missing out on offers, games and possibly even publisher catalogues as a whole.

Those of you lamenting missing the Signature Edition because it didn't come to Steam only have yourselves to blame. There's so many other vendors offering the exact same product for the exact same price, and they need your support so much more than Valve do. What do you lose out on? Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

[Bodhesatva]

It's obviously EA at large making these decisions, as BioWare games are only a few of those affected. Unless it's an amazing coincidence that The Sims 3, Dead Space 2, DarkSpore, et. al happen to be experiencing similar "timing issues" at the exact same time. That is, again, before we mention games like Dragon Age 2 and recent Need for Speed, which hit the service late (in the case of NFS, 1 month after the game had been released).

It is abundantly clear that EA is attempting to gain leverage over Steam and Valve. Otherwise, we are assuming that all of these games are having licensing errors simultaneously, that these errors are occuring ONLY on one service, and that this service also happens to be the most popular of the bunch. That's a far less plausible explanation than the one I provided above.

So it is almost certainly a negotiating tactic being employed by EA: I do not "blame" BioWare per se, although I don't think they have to pretend that this isn't a problem or that I'm proposing some grand conspiracy. EA wants leverage over Valve because Valve is a much smaller company that happens to have the most popular Digital Distribution service in the world (iOS is likely larger at least by units sold, but let's not get picky here). That's the opposite of a conspiracy theory: it is an extremely straightforward, commonplace business tactic between two parties. Valve has something EA wants (Revenue, favorable treatment, etc) and EA is pressuring Valve in to giving it to them. That really isn't very complicated, and all I'm asking is that BioWare not suggest I'm a nut or crazy person for drawing these completely reasonable conclusions.

I hope this doesn't sound too hostile: I want to thank BioWare for making many of my favorite games through the years (I'm one of those diehard fans who still believes Baldur's Gate II is one of the greatest single player games ever made). That doesn't mean I concede or even condone all choices and statements they make.

Modifié par Bodhesatva, 13 janvier 2011 - 06:12 .

[Bodhesatva]

OnlyShallow89 wrote...

What's to say it's not Valve's fault? They might have wanted a Digital Deluxe version instead of a 'Signature Edition' that's only on sale for a few months.
Either way, you don't gain anything from buying it through Steam beyond it instantly patching. If you use Steam only for digital distribution, then you're missing out on offers, games and possibly even publisher catalogues as a whole.
Those of you lamenting missing the Signature Edition because it didn't come to Steam only have yourselves to blame. There's so many other vendors offering the exact same product for the exact same price, and they need your support so much more than Valve do. What do you lose out on? Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

It's certainly possible, but a couple of very important pieces of evidence lead against this conclusion:

1) Other deluxe editions from other companies seem to have no problem arriving on Steam at the normal time.
2) Other games from EA are also having trouble getting up on Steam. Sometimes even getting up at all (a la Need for Speed recently, or The Sims 3).

It is possible that Valve is treating EA particularly poorly for... some reason. As in, they are offering EA a smaller percentage cut of revenue than they offer other publishers. But if that were the case, then I'm fairly certain that EA would be quick to make such issues clear, as it would direct all the ire at Valve instead of themselves. Moreover, I can think of no plausible mechanism for that behavior, the way I can explain EA's. It's unclear what Valve has to gain by singling out EA (one of those largest publishers in the world) specifically. If this were a general Valve problem, we'd be seeing a wealth of large publishers (Activision, Ubisoft, SquareEnix, etc) all having "timing errors" on Steam, but we aren't seeing that. Other companies games are, almost without exception, showing up on the same day on Steam as they do on any other digital distribution service.

It's far more logical to conclude, based on this evidence, that this is an EA driven problem, not a Valve driven problem. And again, I'll reiterate that these sorts of business tactics (very large companies trying to gain negotiating leverage over much smaller firms) are very common and completely legal.

To offer a clear example: it's sort of like calling someone fat and ugly. Is that legal? Yes. Do people often insult each other this way? Yes. But just  because it's legal, and common doesn't make it very nice. Similarly, I am not suggesting that EA is doing anything they can be sued for or that is particularly, perniciously or uniquely anti-consumerist. But that doesn't make it nice, and as it happens to affect the games of a developer I happen to personally care for, I have now typed three posts about it.

Modifié par Bodhesatva, 13 janvier 2011 - 06:10 .

[Loerwyn]

Bodhesatva wrote...
1) Other deluxe editions from other companies seem to have no problem arriving on Steam at the normal time.
2) Other games from EA are also having trouble getting up on Steam. Sometimes even getting up at all (a la Need for Speed recently, or The Sims 3).

1) How many of them were time limited offers that are 'separate' from the standard product? None.
2) That's assuming EA's even trying to get them up on Steam. Only Direct2Drive, to the best of my knowledge (Impulse might, too), has The Sims 3 outside of the EA Store. 

Yeah, it's possible (And even debateable) that EA might have a problem with Steam (Although things like Deathspank appearing seem to suggest otherwise), but it's also possible that EA is just selective with what they offer and where.

[Bodhesatva]

OnlyShallow89 wrote...

Bodhesatva wrote...
1) Other deluxe editions from other companies seem to have no problem arriving on Steam at the normal time.
2) Other games from EA are also having trouble getting up on Steam. Sometimes even getting up at all (a la Need for Speed recently, or The Sims 3).

1) How many of them were time limited offers that are 'separate' from the standard product? None.
2) That's assuming EA's even trying to get them up on Steam. Only Direct2Drive, to the best of my knowledge (Impulse might, too), has The Sims 3 outside of the EA Store. 

Yeah, it's possible (And even debateable) that EA might have a problem with Steam (Although things like Deathspank appearing seem to suggest otherwise), but it's also possible that EA is just selective with what they offer and where.

1) Let's just assume you are correct, and that the specific nature of this product caused the timing problems. Again, how does that help explain all  the other "timing problems" EA seems to be having?
2) Impulse, D2D, and the EA store all have Sims 3. What other places might even realistically have it? GamersGate, I suppose.  Saying the game is "only" available at EA, D2D, and Impulse is like saying "It's only available at 90% of the storefronts that aren't Steam." What about Need for Speed? It was also available on all those other services a month before Steam. What about Mass Effect 3? Already available for preorder in multiple places effectively everywhere but Steam.

Furthermore, this would be less suprising if Steam were a small player in the market. Small firms can often be ignored by big ones. If I represent, say, 001% of the market, then many companies won't take the time to negotiate contracts with me. But in this case, it is the biggest player by a wide margin that is being ignored, while smaller, less well known services get significantly swifter contracts -- and this problem is only obvious with EA games. Again, no conclusion is ever absolute, but the preponderance of evidence suggests that this is a leveraging tactic on EA's end.

Modifié par Bodhesatva, 13 janvier 2011 - 06:29 .

[Loerwyn]

Bodhesatva wrote...
1) Let's just assume you are correct, and that the specific nature of this product caused the timing problems. Again, how does that help explain all  the other "timing problems" EA seems to be having?

It doesn't, and it's not linked to that - I never professed it to be so. Signature is a timed release, and it could be that Valve simply didn't agree with how it was done (It's possible they can cope with it, but chose not to) for one reason or another. What other games have been released in such a manner? I, personally, can't think of any. Can you?

Bodhesatva wrote...
2) Impulse, D2D, and the EA store all have Sims 3. What other places might even realistically have it? GamersGate, I suppose.  Saying the game is "only" available at EA, D2D, and Impulse is like saying "It's only available at 90% of the storefronts that aren't Steam." What about Need for Speed? It was also available on all those other services a month before Steam. What about Mass Effect 3? Already available for preorder in multiple places effectively everywhere but Steam.

Really? I've not seen any Mass Effect 3 pre-orders yet, and we've known about it since last year. Just been on Amazon UK, no Mass Effect 3. Game - Same thing. Play, again, no Mass Effect 3. Bulletstorm is still, slightly surprisingly, absent from Steam (And also other distributors), but that may appear later on.

Bodhesatva wrote...
Furthermore, this would be less suprising if Steam were a small player in the market. Small firms can often be ignored by big ones. If I represent, say, 001% of the market, then many companies won't take the time to negotiate contracts with me. But in this case, it is the biggest player by a wide margin that is being ignored, while smaller, less well known services get significantly swifter contracts -- and this problem is only obvious with EA games. Again, no conclusion is ever absolute, but the preponderance of evidence suggests that this is a leveraging tactic on EA's end.

Well, it's clear Steam wasn't ignored. You can't ignore something of that size. Steam, also, isn't the biggest player by a wide margin. I doubt it has even half of the digital market (Which currently comprises ~50% of the PC gaming market itself), especially with Direct2Drive being the second biggest.

EA have, in the past, proven to be highly selective of what they offer and where they offer. Have you not noticed how they've not signed up with GOG to distribute their older titles? Heck, even Activision have signed up with GOG! 

Overall, it's clear EA and Valve isn't the best mix, and anyone should have seen it coming. Not buying the Signature Edition "just because it's not on Steam" is a ridiculous excuse, almost as ridiculous as sticking to just Steam for their distribution of games. It's like shooting yourself in the foot.

[Thicos]

I ask to Play-Asia because they are selling signature edition.

Is real?



Bioware, can they still be selling this version?

[gurujot]

You do realise that places like Gamestop and Bestbuy pay for exclusivity of thing like this and valve most likely didn't want to pay for the rights to the signature edition

[Loerwyn]

gurujot wrote...

You do realise that places like Gamestop and Bestbuy pay for exclusivity of thing like this and valve most likely didn't want to pay for the rights to the signature edition

Uh, well, everywhere was offering the Signature edition bar Steam, which didn't even have DA2 for sale. It's not a case of "paying for exclusivity" at all, as that generally goes for pre-order bonuses and - in some rare cases (Seen it more in the UK than elsewhere) - Collector's Editions, but it's safe to say the Signature Edition wasn't subject to that.

[Neil Decurio]

OnlyShallow89 wrote...

Bodhesatva wrote...
1) Let's just assume you are correct, and that the specific nature of this product caused the timing problems. Again, how does that help explain all  the other "timing problems" EA seems to be having?

It doesn't, and it's not linked to that - I never professed it to be so. Signature is a timed release, and it could be that Valve simply didn't agree with how it was done (It's possible they can cope with it, but chose not to) for one reason or another. What other games have been released in such a manner? I, personally, can't think of any. Can you?

Yes, the Digital Deluxe of Dragon Age: Origins was supposed to be a limited time offer until shipping. As for "limiting" yourself to one distribution platform being like shooting yourself in the foot, I strongly disagree. I don't need to bother myself about multiple logins and sources for downloading games. I prefer Steam, pure and simple. I'll most likely end up obtaining Dragon Age 2 over on Steam, but not before they have a sale on the Ultimate Edition sometime next year / this Christmas, wich includes all the items from the Signature Edition as well as any DLC released for the game, at a reduced price. I find it a shame, because BioWare/EA are losing money thanks to this. Not just from me, but from everyone else who shares my opinion.

[Loerwyn]

Neil Decurio wrote...
As for "limiting" yourself to one distribution platform being like shooting yourself in the foot, I strongly disagree. I don't need to bother myself about multiple logins and sources for downloading games. I prefer Steam, pure and simple. I'll most likely end up obtaining Dragon Age 2 over on Steam, but not before they have a sale on the Ultimate Edition sometime next year / this Christmas, wich includes all the items from the Signature Edition as well as any DLC released for the game, at a reduced price. I find it a shame, because BioWare/EA are losing money thanks to this. Not just from me, but from everyone else who shares my opinion.

Multiple logins and sources? Steam, Impulse, GamersGate. 3 log-ins, 3 sources. Gets you access to the vast majority of offers, sales and games. Two lots of software, only one of which needs to run alongside the game (Steam), the other is only needed for updates, and the third (I believe) supply patches on their site.

Seriously, limiting yourself to Steam is like limiting yourself to buying games from... I dunno, Walmart.

[dearlyblvd]

Why people can't understand that most people are disappointed that they released the standard edition on Steam right after the signature edition expired?

I have Dragon Age Origins, Dragon Age Awakenings, Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2 on Steam. I heard about the signature edition a long time ago and I waited until the last day to see it there. I said on Steam's forums that I would wait until EA released the game there and I didn't care much about the DLCs, since I expected that the new character would be available for future purchases. But releasing the game RIGHT AFTER THE PROMOTION FINISHED is a ridiculous move by Electronic Arts, they are pretty much forcing us to pay more for choosing Steam.

Modifié par dearlyblvd, 13 janvier 2011 - 10:03 .

[tishyw]

Forsythia wrote...

No, that was available for pre-order as well. I would have glady pre-ordered the Signature Edition too, but alas, EA chose to not release it on Steam. I find that quite pathetic, but hey, I'm just a customer, so what do I know?

On topic of the Signature Edition. Will those items be available for download later on as I cannot get them anymore?

Part of the Signature Edition bonus has already been announced as DLC, the extra companion Sebastian Vael will be available as a day one download for $7.00. 

There has been no announcement about the soundtrack or extra weapons, although I'm fairly certain that the soundtrack will be available from the EA store because they released the soundtrack for DAO and Mass Effect 2.

[Taint Master]

dearlyblvd wrote...

Why people can't understand that most people are disappointed that they released the standard edition on Steam right after the signature edition expired?

I have Dragon Age Origins, Dragon Age Awakenings, Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2 on Steam. I heard about the signature edition a long time ago and I waited until the last day to see it there. I said on Steam's forums that I would wait until EA released the game there and I didn't care much about the DLCs, since I expected that the new character would be available for future purchases. But releasing the game RIGHT AFTER THE PROMOTION FINISHED is a ridiculous move by Electronic Arts, they are pretty much forcing us to pay more for choosing Steam.

I don't think you understand.  It's not that they finalized the deal the day after the SE promo ended.  That was most likely decided well before then.  EA/Valve agreed not to release the SE on Steam for whatever reason, so Jan 12th was the earliest possible date for them to begin offering regular preorders.

Modifié par Taint Master, 13 janvier 2011 - 10:30 .

[Disphoria]

You cannot defend EA for this. It's ignorant to. Steam does not choose the price of their products, nor do they choose when the game goes up on their network. The developers or in this case publisher decide when the game goes on sale on steam and at what price, steam sets the cost of using their platform and the publisher decides when to put it up. The $10 price hike, and the blatant greedy timing of their pre order availability of steam is absolutely repulsive. I've bought nearly every bioware title. I'll just play the game on my 360 and pay $0, and then get the ultimate edition a year down the line.

(for whatever reason i cant add war online to this account)

Modifié par Disphoria, 13 janvier 2011 - 11:15 .