56 réponses à ce sujet

[OverdoseBR]

Steam has no date because you are able to forever.



I have all the first games sold on Steam and I can still download them. Hell, even people that bought the games that are no longer sold (like Stalin vs Martians) can still download them.

[Wittand25]

OverdoseBR wrote...

Steam has no date because you are able to forever.

I have all the first games sold on Steam and I can still download them. Hell, even people that bought the games that are no longer sold (like Stalin vs Martians) can still download them.

But they do not guaranty you that you can still download them tomorrow. If the boss of Valve decides during an attack of insanity to make Steam Valve-exclusive and disable all downloads from other developers or Valve for some reason goes bankrupt you have no legal way to go against that and keep access to your licenses (you do not buy games you only buy the right to play them for an undefined period of time, Steam even has the right to disable your access to it´s services for no reason whatsoever) .

[DanaScu]

Wittand25 wrote...
EA sets the recommended retail price and has to keep it by law. Other retailers however are free to loose some of their profit and sell the game for less.
As for why EA does not sell the SE on steam. One of EA´s stated goals is to include social/muliplayer components like the BSN in all their games to increase the life span of their games (and have more time selling DLC). Steam already comes with it´s own community service and anyone buying DA2 from steam is more likely to remain loyal to steam than to EA´s own services and so having more than minimum support for steam is contradictory to that aim.

http://www.ea.com/2/service-updates

I might accept that idea. If EA didn't regularly shut down servers that handle the social/multiplayer components when they deem the game isn't popular enough. Or something. If they want to increase the lifespam of their games by utilizing social/multiplayer options, shutting down servers seems to be somewhat problematic.

I wouldn't know. I don't utilize any "social/multiplayer" aspects of my single player games. Games which, ironically enough, include ME/ME2, Dragon Age: Origins, and Awakening that I got on Steam. Why would the single player DA2 not be on Steam, like the other single player EABioware games? EA not liking people running away in droves due to the deplorable tech support and all the issues that still seem to be part of the EAdownloader experience might have something to do with it. Or maybe they are streamlining the ordering process for that hotrod samurai feel... 

::still waiting to hear about FemHawke's voice actor::

[Wittand25]

DanaScu wrote...

Wittand25 wrote...
EA sets the recommended retail price and has to keep it by law. Other retailers however are free to loose some of their profit and sell the game for less.
As for why EA does not sell the SE on steam. One of EA´s stated goals is to include social/muliplayer components like the BSN in all their games to increase the life span of their games (and have more time selling DLC). Steam already comes with it´s own community service and anyone buying DA2 from steam is more likely to remain loyal to steam than to EA´s own services and so having more than minimum support for steam is contradictory to that aim.

http://www.ea.com/2/service-updates

I might accept that idea. If EA didn't regularly shut down servers that handle the social/multiplayer components when they deem the game isn't popular enough. Or something. If they want to increase the lifespam of their games by utilizing social/multiplayer options, shutting down servers seems to be somewhat problematic.

I wouldn't know. I don't utilize any "social/multiplayer" aspects of my single player games. Games which, ironically enough, include ME/ME2, Dragon Age: Origins, and Awakening that I got on Steam. Why would the single player DA2 not be on Steam, like the other single player EABioware games? EA not liking people running away in droves due to the deplorable tech support and all the issues that still seem to be part of the EAdownloader experience might have something to do with it. Or maybe they are streamlining the ordering process for that hotrod samurai feel... 

::still waiting to hear about FemHawke's voice actor::

Sorry to be more precise they add online features to prolong the time they can earn money with a game. As soon as a game does not make money it is dead and any online service gets terminated.
And by posting here you are already using the BiowareSocialNetwork an online/multiplayer service for DA:O and ME2 to advertise and sell DLC and give players a place to talk about the game and compare their achievements with other players.

[DanaScu]

Wittand25 wrote...
But they do not guaranty you that you can still download them tomorrow. If the boss of Valve decides during an attack of insanity to make Steam Valve-exclusive and disable all downloads from other developers or Valve for some reason goes bankrupt you have no legal way to go against that and keep access to your licenses (you do not buy games you only buy the right to play them for an undefined period of time, Steam even has the right to disable your access to it´s services for no reason whatsoever) .

So does EA.

EA may also terminate your Account(s) (and access to all related Entitlements) for violation of this Terms of Service, illegal or improper use of your Account, or illegal or improper use of EA Services, Content, Entitlement, products, or EA's Intellectual Property as determined by EA in its sole discretion. 

Anyone on the forums during the ME drm hassles? Anyone remember the people posting here who were told they wouldn't get a new activation for ME or Spore because they ran out of activations, and EA didn't have to give them one? So for those people, a legally purchase game was shut down unless they bought a new game/activation.

Neither service is guaranteed forever and ever.

After seeing what people who bought ME or Spore with the limited activations went through, and reading some of the comments on the game pages at Amazon, I feel more confident in Steam's/Valve's service than EA's. Both services might make mistakes in policing accounts but I get the impression that Steam at least will actually attempt to find out and deal with the issue, instead of "you activated the game too many times and I don't believe you just bought it and brought it home, so no new activation for you." that people have posted about EA tech support.

[OBakaSama]

marshalleck wrote...

 http://tos.ea.com/le...sale/US/enl/PC/

Performance of the Contract:
The products and services that we make available on the Websites may be downloaded or accessed for at least one year after you have completed your purchase.  Certain products and services will be available to you as soon as you complete your purchase. In some cases, we may also give you the opportunity purchase a license for a software product prior to its scheduled release date.  If you purchase a software license prior to the release date of the applicable software, a portion of the software will be immediately downloaded onto your computer.   On the release date of the applicable software, your computer will automatically download the remaining portion of the software that is needed for you to install and use the software.   Our Websites will inform you which type of software product you are purchasing.   Our obligation to deliver the software product to you shall be complete at such time as, and place where, you first receive either the downloaded product or physical product, as applicable.

I think it's actually the last line that's more interesting. Don't know whether my interpretation makes any sense though.

(1) Purchase.

(2) Download (whenever that may be) within a certain time frame.

(3) Their obligation to deliver your purchase ends when you have downloaded the product.

Just a minor thought.

[Nerivant]

I think what I'm going to do is pre-order the signature edition, take the codes, sell the disc to someone who doesn't care about the bonus content, and grab the regular game on Steam when it comes out. Or if it comes out.

[marshalleck]

Wittand25 wrote...

OverdoseBR wrote...

Steam has no date because you are able to forever.

I have all the first games sold on Steam and I can still download them. Hell, even people that bought the games that are no longer sold (like Stalin vs Martians) can still download them.

But they do not guaranty you that you can still download them tomorrow. If the boss of Valve decides during an attack of insanity to make Steam Valve-exclusive and disable all downloads from other developers or Valve for some reason goes bankrupt you have no legal way to go against that and keep access to your licenses (you do not buy games you only buy the right to play them for an undefined period of time, Steam even has the right to disable your access to it´s services for no reason whatsoever) .

The exact same could be said of EA, D2D, Impulse, or any other digital distributor. It's a question inherent in the digital media format as opposed to physical, not EA vs. Steam. Given Steam's domination of digital download sales I think they are the least likely of all the digital platforms to fold up shop. Steam has my confidence; the others do not. Especially not EA Store. 

[OverdoseBR]

Corporate greed as always screws the gamers over.



Boy I really do miss the 90s.

[Wittand25]

marshalleck wrote...
The exact same could be said of EA, D2D, Impulse, or any other digital distributor. It's a question inherent in the digital media format as opposed to physical, not EA vs. Steam. Given Steam's domination of digital download sales I think they are the least likely of all the digital platforms to fold up shop. Steam has my confidence; the others do not. Especially not EA Store. 

I agree I was only correcting your wrong statement that you need to purchase the game a second time if you order from the EA store, because it simply is not true.

[Jonp382]

OverdoseBR wrote...

Corporate greed as always screws the gamers over.

Boy I really do miss the 90s.

The 90s when Steam wasn't here and corporations were just as about money as ever, except games didn't cost as much to make because we didn't have HD compliant gaming platforms where everyone expects the 'latest and greatest' in graphics and audio.

[Revan312]

Jonp382 wrote...

The 90s when Steam wasn't here and corporations were just as about money as ever, except games didn't cost as much to make because we didn't have HD compliant gaming platforms where everyone expects the 'latest and greatest' in graphics and audio.

The 90's had a ton of separate companies making games rather than the umbrella corporation landscape we have today where EA and Activision own 80% of all studios. Both companies are monopolizing the market on gaming and it shows.

Also about graphics, it's mostly all relative as game development took ages then as well simply because the software limitations of the time made dev work frustrating as hell. Now most games use tried and true engines that they simply modify with their own textures, models and effects. Even the newest engines are really just tweaks from the previous version, Cry engine 3, UE3 etc..

One final thought, games are actually under-priced compared to what they used to cost as inflation in the market compared to game prices is skewed. Games used to be more pricey comparatively but since the actual size of the player base has grown ten fold since those days it actually means that gaming companies make much more now than they used to..

Modifié par Revan312, 04 janvier 2011 - 09:28 .

[marshalleck]

Wittand25 wrote...

marshalleck wrote...
The exact same could be said of EA, D2D, Impulse, or any other digital distributor. It's a question inherent in the digital media format as opposed to physical, not EA vs. Steam. Given Steam's domination of digital download sales I think they are the least likely of all the digital platforms to fold up shop. Steam has my confidence; the others do not. Especially not EA Store. 

I agree I was only correcting your wrong statement that you need to purchase the game a second time if you order from the EA store, because it simply is not true.

It is true, though. After a year from purchase you can no longer download the game, at least according to their terms of sale. 

Modifié par marshalleck, 04 janvier 2011 - 09:41 .

[Morroian]

CrashWinabi wrote...

It is disappointing that BioWare has entered into an agreement, through their EA partnership, to limit which distributors can sell enhanced content. This act, in general, of allowing exclusives via different retailers is a ridiculous practice, and one I am sad to see BioWare engaging in.

To be fair its probably not Bioware but EA.

[Wittand25]

marshalleck wrote...

I agree I was only correcting your wrong statement that you need to purchase the game a second time if you order from the EA store, because it simply is not true.

It is true, though. After a year from purchase you can no longer download the game. 

The download does not expire the guarantee that the download is available expires, you can still download it (as example you can still download DLC for ME1), but EA is no longer forced to have the download available and is free to remove the option to download the game. This basically means that you can download a game even if EA stopped selling it in the last year. Only if you try to download a game that was unavailable for purchase for over a year you might run into problems. EA does have a line saying that they are not forced to allow you a second download once you have downloaded a game once but I never heard of that actually happening.

Modifié par Wittand25, 04 janvier 2011 - 09:42 .

[Jonp382]

Revan312 wrote...

The 90's had a ton of separate companies making games rather than the umbrella corporation landscape we have today where EA and Activision own 80% of all studios. Both companies are monopolizing the market on gaming and it shows.

I don't see how that makes today's corporations more about making money than yesteryear's. They still had to make money back then, or they went bust.

Also about graphics, it's mostly all relative as game development took ages then as well simply because the software limitations of the time made dev work frustrating as hell. Now most games use tried and true engines that they simply modify with their own textures, models and effects. Even the newest engines are really just tweaks from the previous version, Cry engine 3, UE3 etc..

Game development overall still costs more nowadays, and the art that goes into today's games is not cheap. Feel free to tell the bean counters otherwise.

One final thought, games are actually under-priced compared to what they used to cost as inflation in the market compared to game prices is skewed. Games used to be more pricey comparatively but since the actual size of the player base has grown ten fold since those days it actually means that gaming companies make much more now than they used to..

The amount of copies they have to sell in order to turn a profit has also grown.

[Revan312]

Jonp382 wrote...

I don't see how that makes today's corporations more about making money than yesteryear's. They still had to make money back then, or they went bust.

Corporations as opposed to companies are required by law to make as much money as possible.. I'll repeat.. by law. Plus direct competition is nearly gone as you can't actively lower prices because your parent corporation dictates the terms of pricing, distribution and more.

Game development overall still costs more nowadays, and the art that goes into today's games is not cheap. Feel free to tell the bean counters otherwise.

Inflation not taken into account, yes, they cost more, but when your using an engine that 50 other games use and is very well known, has amazing dev kits/tools and is easily bug tested then no, they don't cost more. Also much of the price has come with the increase in wages associated in this field. Devs in the 90's made quite a chunk less than they do now, plus marketing wasn't as overblown and every game didn't need to outsource a CGI trailer.

The amount of copies they have to sell in order to turn a profit has also grown.

The amount they need to sell to turn a profit has increased, but the number of people buying games has exploded to a point that that's a non issue. Black Ops made a billion in it's first week, WoW makes 1.6 billion every year just on subscriptions, New Super Mario Bros Wii has sold nearly 21 million units. Activision stock nearly quadrupled from 06 - 08, the industry just in America is worth 50 billion dollars. Don't tell me that game corporations aren't any greedier now than they were back in the 90's as they are, simply because of economics and the state of the corporate landscape.

Money money money, that's all corporations care about because, and I'll say this one last time, they're required by law to do nothing but increase sales, profits and quarterly reports.

Modifié par Revan312, 04 janvier 2011 - 10:36 .

[Rage.Shifter]

Wittand25 wrote...

marshalleck wrote...

I agree I was only correcting your wrong statement that you need to purchase the game a second time if you order from the EA store, because it simply is not true.

It is true, though. After a year from purchase you can no longer download the game. 

The download does not expire the guarantee that the download is available expires, you can still download it (as example you can still download DLC for ME1), but EA is no longer forced to have the download available and is free to remove the option to download the game. This basically means that you can download a game even if EA stopped selling it in the last year. Only if you try to download a game that was unavailable for purchase for over a year you might run into problems. EA does have a line saying that they are not forced to allow you a second download once you have downloaded a game once but I never heard of that actually happening.

Are you sure about that?

For security reasons, you are allowed 2 concurrently active licenses. This limit has been reached. Please wait until one of the other licenses auto-expires, then try again. 
License response error: '78008,Max machine lifetime entitlement met:10 
Error: 10000:78008 
Every time the download button is clicked, a download count will be added to your lifetime total. Also if you have installed on more than three computers within a ten day period, you will need to wait until the first installation expires.

I also upgrade frequently and the time allotted surpassed a year, I definitely did not download the Command & Conquer more then 10 times. After battling with there tech support for a month they blamed it on me using Vista x64. I went out and bought the hard copy with the expansion and it installed fine. I vowed never to buy a game from the EA store again and if they are not releasing there games for Steam I will not buy them either.

[Sharuko]

Rage.Shifter wrote...

I also upgrade frequently and the time allotted surpassed a year, I definitely did not download the Command & Conquer more then 10 times. After battling with there tech support for a month they blamed it on me using Vista x64. I went out and bought the hard copy with the expansion and it installed fine. I vowed never to buy a game from the EA store again and if they are not releasing there games for Steam I will not buy them either.

I have had issues with both D2D and the EA Store and will never do it again.  

BioWare should tell EA to do what the Witcher 2 did, for 45 bucks we get the Digital Deluxe Edition everywhere with no games and no deadlines. Why try and leave out a segment of the gaming population?  Just like when you realized XBox 360 only was a wrong way to do business why would you go about doing this?

Modifié par Sharuko, 05 janvier 2011 - 03:29 .

[Jonp382]

Revan312 wrote...

Inflation not taken into account, yes, they cost more, but when your using an engine that 50 other games use and is very well known, has amazing dev kits/tools and is easily bug tested then no, they don't cost more. Also much of the price has come with the increase in wages associated in this field. Devs in the 90's made quite a chunk less than they do now, plus marketing wasn't as overblown and every game didn't need to outsource a CGI trailer.

Wait, so costs haven't increased, but they have? Your post is confusing. Regardless, you are very wrong.

The amount they need to sell to turn a profit has increased, but the number of people buying games has exploded to a point that that's a non issue. Black Ops made a billion in it's first week, WoW makes 1.6 billion every year just on subscriptions, New Super Mario Bros Wii has sold nearly 21 million units. Activision stock nearly quadrupled from 06 - 08, the industry just in America is worth 50 billion dollars.

And that's the norm for the market? Every game sells 20 million copies and makes a billion dollars?

Money money money, that's all corporations care about because, and I'll say this one last time, they're required by law to do nothing but increase sales, profits and quarterly reports.

Thank you for reinforcing my statement.

[almighty.zer]

Wittand25 wrote...

marshalleck wrote...
Yes, you can download it for one year. After one year, you have to buy it again. Just as I said. Now if you think I'm wrong, please post their updated terms where they've removed the download sunset clause. 

You can download your game at least a year. The possibility of downloading does not end after the year the guarantee that the download is available ends. (Steam is actually worse because they do not give you a guarantied minimum time during which your game will be available for download or even just being played.)

At least meaning unless you buy their "extended coverage plans." I can't say Steam has it worse when it has allowed all of their customers unlimited downloading since 2003.

[TonyTheBossDanza123]

bcooper56 wrote...

Why would you buy from steam for 60$? When impulse is selling it for less.

http://www.impulsedr....com/dragonage2

Why would you buy a PC game from anywhere other than Steam? Hell, I'd give Valve my money for free for all they've done for Gaming.

[biomar]

marshalleck wrote...

I wouldn't count on them responding, they've shown no interest thus far.

Yes, that is disappointing. I'm interpreting Bioware's silence in regards to the question in the original post like this: if DA2 was not coming to Steam, then Bioware would be very keen to answer with 'No DA2 on Steam, quickly snap up the Signature Edition from another source while you can!' so that they get my money sooner. But because they're being silent, I take that as meaning that they can't recommend that I get the Signature Edition now because I said I'm willing to wait for a Steam version and there will be a Steam version!

Or maybe I'm reading into this too much and I'm completely wrong . . . Please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, Bioware! As Chris Priestly posted in his new thread today, only six days left to pre-order the Signature Edition! Please don't leave me hanging!

[TM13h]

marshalleck wrote...
Given Steam's domination of digital download sales I think they are the least likely of all the digital platforms to fold up shop.

A dominant position in one market does prevent some court judge from closing your shop within a second if somebody claims you have violated certain rights, like some patent or copyright stuff. If that happens, you can kiss Valve's vague promise goodbey to deliver some sort of solution in the case they cannot keep up the service any longer. This is the risk with all of these services.

[upsettingshorts]

Depends if they wield their market share as a competitive weapon.