355 réponses à ce sujet

[Blastback]

StingingVelvet wrote...

Someone on another forum posted this and I thought it was spot-on:

Hardly a conspiracy when everyone can see what is going on. EA dislike Valve's stranglehold on the DD market and only reluctantly joined up eventually. EA are pushing the pre-orders on other services like GamersGate and D2D which is good for competition really. Same thing happened with NFS: Hot Pursuit and Mass Effect 2. EA will release on Steam eventually because it makes financial sense to do so but they don't have to help Valve continue to build their monopoly.

You really don't like steam do you?

[Youmu]

TJPags wrote...

As you note, it has happened with Steam for at least one other game.  It;s certainly happened with other retailers and other products.  It's not a unique circumstance, and it doesn't necessarily point to some kind of evil plot on Bioware's behalf.

I don't think if anyone is really blaming BioWare. It's EA who the blame is more likely to lie at.

EA has been a terrible monster in gaming world for long time (good bye Bullfrog, good bye Origin, good bye Westwood), and they have been trying something of a redemption recently, but the stigma they have isn't forgotten easily.

EA's whole stance overall in digital distribution market has been rather bad. Pretty sure they were the last major distributor to join Steam. Their initial catalogue was quite limited, and several months after they added bunch of other games. Sims 3 and The Saboteur never got onto Steam. Those two are available in Gamersgate, Impulse and Direct2drive, albeit with region locks. NFS: Hot Pursuit initially was touted by Criterion to "never come to Steam", although it did appear, a month after the release of the game.

Based on that, it's easy to blame EA. Only problems that I've seen on Steam myself, have been issues with their Support, which apparently is slow and understaffed compared to what it should be -- not that I had issues with it personally.

Given Valve's overall good reputation with gamers (see, Team Fortress 2 and the amount of free content and updates it has received years after it's release on PC), it's hard to lay the blame on them. 

Neither side hasn't really pointed out the real reason to these problems, but from my point of view, it's easy to blame EA.

[upsettingshorts]

"Easy to blame" does not mean "correct to blame." It just means easy.

[teroteki]

Blastback wrote...

StingingVelvet wrote...

Someone on another forum posted this and I thought it was spot-on:

You really don't like steam do you?

Heh, he still likes to constantly spam his posts all over the Steam forums though!
Been doing it for years

[Youmu]

Upsettingshorts wrote...

"Easy to blame" does not mean "correct to blame." It just means easy.

Neither side has given any statement as to who'd be the one to blame. EA says it was due to "negotiations". Valve, as usual, has said absolutely nothing. 

Neither probably will say anything, as they don't want to upset eachother. Steam benefits from having EA's catalogue available, and EA still makes money off of it. 

[heretica]

StingingVelvet wrote...

Someone on another forum posted this and I thought it was spot-on:

Hardly a conspiracy when everyone can see what is going on. EA dislike Valve's stranglehold on the DD market and only reluctantly joined up eventually. EA are pushing the pre-orders on other services like GamersGate and D2D which is good for competition really. Same thing happened with NFS: Hot Pursuit and Mass Effect 2. EA will release on Steam eventually because it makes financial sense to do so but they don't have to help Valve continue to build their monopoly.

Build their monopoly? It's not like they are the Illuminati. They offer a good service and people use it because they are happy with it.

One thing for sure, everyone is making a HUGE deal out of this.

[Drevin]

Blastback wrote...

StingingVelvet wrote...

Someone on another forum posted this and I thought it was spot-on:

Hardly
a conspiracy when everyone can see what is going on. EA dislike Valve's
stranglehold on the DD market and only reluctantly joined up
eventually. EA are pushing the pre-orders on other services like
GamersGate and D2D which is good for competition really. Same thing
happened with NFS: Hot Pursuit and Mass Effect 2. EA will release on
Steam eventually because it makes financial sense to do so but they
don't have to help Valve continue to build their monopoly.

You really don't like steam do you?

StingingVelvet
is more of a Bioware Apollogist than a steam hater. Her previous posts
suggest that she uses steam but has a greater love for bioware.

... I had no business writing this post.

[artsangel]

This is actually good for Australians. To preorder the signature edition in stores, the cost was between $80 - $85 AU. The Steam version that's just gone live is $60 US (which is pretty much $60 AU right now). So there is a saving of $20 - $25, which I can now reserve to buy Sebastian (which is the only Sig Ed content I wanted anyway), and still have paid less



So, one happy person here, at least!

[TJPags]

Youmu wrote...

TJPags wrote...

As you note, it has happened with Steam for at least one other game.  It;s certainly happened with other retailers and other products.  It's not a unique circumstance, and it doesn't necessarily point to some kind of evil plot on Bioware's behalf.

I don't think if anyone is really blaming BioWare. It's EA who the blame is more likely to lie at.

EA has been a terrible monster in gaming world for long time (good bye Bullfrog, good bye Origin, good bye Westwood), and they have been trying something of a redemption recently, but the stigma they have isn't forgotten easily.

EA's whole stance overall in digital distribution market has been rather bad. Pretty sure they were the last major distributor to join Steam. Their initial catalogue was quite limited, and several months after they added bunch of other games. Sims 3 and The Saboteur never got onto Steam. Those two are available in Gamersgate, Impulse and Direct2drive, albeit with region locks. NFS: Hot Pursuit initially was touted by Criterion to "never come to Steam", although it did appear, a month after the release of the game.

Based on that, it's easy to blame EA. Only problems that I've seen on Steam myself, have been issues with their Support, which apparently is slow and understaffed compared to what it should be -- not that I had issues with it personally.

Given Valve's overall good reputation with gamers (see, Team Fortress 2 and the amount of free content and updates it has received years after it's release on PC), it's hard to lay the blame on them. 

Neither side hasn't really pointed out the real reason to these problems, but from my point of view, it's easy to blame EA.

As you point out in a later post, it would be odd to see either company (EZ or Valve (who I assume owns Steam?)) release a statement saying "this is exactly why this happened, and how it happened" etc.  Business doesn't work that way, as you realize.

EA may well want to establish it's own digital sales.  Or, it may not want to meet Steams (sorry, you say Valve, I say Steam) cut - and yes, it's going to be Steam getting a cut from selling EA's product.  Steam may have a higher demand than other, smaller companies.  Could have been disputes over advertising, could have been disputes over release dates, could have been a lot of things.

Likely, it was a bargaining impasse of some kind.  Likely, it will happen again with other companies and other products, and maybe even with EA and Steam.  Didn't the Iphone only just recently get released for Verizon (or for AT&T, whichever)?  These things happen.  They are not always the conspiracy people often try to make them out to be.

[StingingVelvet]

Blastback wrote...

StingingVelvet wrote...

Someone on another forum posted this and I thought it was spot-on:

Hardly a conspiracy when everyone can see what is going on. EA dislike Valve's stranglehold on the DD market and only reluctantly joined up eventually. EA are pushing the pre-orders on other services like GamersGate and D2D which is good for competition really. Same thing happened with NFS: Hot Pursuit and Mass Effect 2. EA will release on Steam eventually because it makes financial sense to do so but they don't have to help Valve continue to build their monopoly.

You really don't like steam do you?

Hahaha... people are so quick to call concerns about Steam bashing or whatever else.  I use Steam, many games force me to, but I don't like the idea of it taking over PC gaming which it seems to be doing.

[Sylvius the Mad]

StingingVelvet wrote...

Hahaha... people are so quick to call concerns about Steam bashing or whatever else.  I use Steam, many games force me to, but I don't like the idea of it taking over PC gaming which it seems to be doing.

You merely dislike Steam.

I despise Steam.

Modifié par Sylvius the Mad, 12 janvier 2011 - 11:26 .

[Morroian]

artsangel wrote...

This is actually good for Australians. To preorder the signature edition in stores, the cost was between $80 - $85 AU. 

Sorry to tell you this but I pre-ordered the SE disc version from an online Aust. store for $50AU.

[KCFender]

As a Steam user, I'm glad I found Dragon Age to be overall underwhelming. I pre-ordered the Collector's Edition and was psyched for Origins - ended up a bit disappointed. This time around, I'll be waiting for the sales.

And it is a bit under-handed, but no one is making you buy all your games from Steam. You can always diversify.

Also, $59.99 for the STANDARD edition? A little price increase there? Really? Because the economy is so good right now, and you guys at EA/BioWare are really struggling, right?

As another poster inquired, didn't you guys used to be cool? If it was $49.99, I might be inclined to put it on my Steam account right now. But $59.99? What do you think this is? Call of Duty? I'm not paying you guys $59.99 for a tacked on sequel to a game that you charged $49.99 for. There's a principle there. Prices are stagnant or dropping for most retailers across NA. Why don't you guys do likewise, join respectable society, and show a little decency in your prices, as opposed to trying to appear congenial with your BS marketting "Bazaars" and whatnot?

Blech.

Boo, BioWare. You've lost me on Dragon Age, at least until there's a good price drop.

Modifié par KCFender, 12 janvier 2011 - 11:46 .

[Morroian]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

If that were true, you could refuse patches and even rollback patches you didn't like (even if you had to reinstall to do it).

But you can't.  Steam places a huge number of restrictions on how you use the game you supposedly own.

This has come up before and it was pointed out before that you can set your games on Steam not to update. Dunno about rolling back because I've never tried it but certainly if you reinstall a game you will get the fully patched version.

[Morroian]

KCFender wrote...

Also, $59.99 for the STANDARD edition? A little price increase there? Really? Because the economy is so good right now, and you guys at EA/BioWare are really struggling, right?

As another poster inquired, didn't you guys used to be cool?

You do realise price is set by EA don't you not Bioware themselves.

[C0RR4D0]

TonyTheBossDanza123 wrote...

Kentor wrote...

Is this the same thing as the Signature Edition?

Nope, I knew this was coming.

Look at it this way:
Steam is the biggest market share on the PC. By not releasing the SE on Steam, they're going to make way more money.

The large majority of people aren't in the know, so they don't know about the SE and it's bonuses. They log on today, they see it's for preorder, normal DA2 that is, and they buy it. Then come launch they fork out the $7 for Sebastion without having a clue how hard they were ripped off.

It's a very underhanded tactic.

you nailed it.
funny how pre-orders started on Steam just a day after the SE presale bonus ended

either way, I'm still getting it on Steam at some point because Bioware do great work and I really enjoyed DAO
however, EA won't see a dime from me for DLC

[StingingVelvet]

Morroian wrote...

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

If that were true, you could refuse patches and even rollback patches you didn't like (even if you had to reinstall to do it).

But you can't.  Steam places a huge number of restrictions on how you use the game you supposedly own.

This has come up before and it was pointed out before that you can set your games on Steam not to update. Dunno about rolling back because I've never tried it but certainly if you reinstall a game you will get the fully patched version.

The only way to not patch is to be offline.  Even if set not to auto-update Steam will force the patch when you launch the game unless you are offline.  Also there is no rolling back what-so-ever.

Steam is about convienence over control, same as consoles.

[KCFender]

Morroian wrote...

KCFender wrote...

Also, $59.99 for the STANDARD edition? A little price increase there? Really? Because the economy is so good right now, and you guys at EA/BioWare are really struggling, right?

As another poster inquired, didn't you guys used to be cool?

You do realise price is set by EA don't you not Bioware themselves.

Fine. Same difference. They aren't two seperate entities anymore.

[Morroian]

StingingVelvet wrote...

The only way to not patch is to be offline.  Even if set not to auto-update Steam will force the patch when you launch the game unless you are offline.  

OK I have to admit I've never tried that. That is not a good thing.

[Addai]

Lord_Saulot wrote...
Thanks, I looked up and I understand what you are suggesting.  I guess, I still just don't see any reason that Steam is special enough to be singled out when other digital distributors got the offer and major retail chains got it as well.  The most likely explanation to me, is that Valve wasn't willing to do something that everyone else was willing to do.

It's the largest.  It's like making your product exclusively available at K-Mart, so that people have to go there even if it's out of their way or they would normally go to Wal-Mart.  Though I guess you'd have to be American to understand those terms.

Who really knows.  It could be a mutual business decision.  They make more money off people buying the regular game and nickle-and-diming the DLCs.

Modifié par Addai67, 12 janvier 2011 - 11:51 .

[StingingVelvet]

Morroian wrote...

StingingVelvet wrote...

The only way to not patch is to be offline.  Even if set not to auto-update Steam will force the patch when you launch the game unless you are offline.  

OK I have to admit I've never tried that. That is not a good thing.

Indeed.  Plus rolling back is important, because often you would not know a patch messes with your system until you try it.

Recently for instance Call of Duty: Black Ops launched with a stutter problem even in singleplayer.  The first patch fixed this issue for me and my game started playing smoothly, so I started playing through the campaign.  Halfway through they released a second patch which brought the stutter issue back to my system, and suddenly I could not play the campaign anymore which I was enjoying.  There was no rolling back, and no other patch for weeks.  I knew I could be playing if I could just roll back to patch one, but Steam does not let you.

I won't be too frank about what I did after a week or so of waiting, but basically I got a non-Steam version and decided which version to use.

Modifié par StingingVelvet, 12 janvier 2011 - 11:57 .

[ErichHartmann]

I think its a shame the SE won't be on Steam. The only time Steam gets my goat is when a game forces me to install through them (Civ 5 comes to mind).

[Addai]

Morroian wrote...

KCFender wrote...

Also, $59.99 for the STANDARD edition? A little price increase there? Really? Because the economy is so good right now, and you guys at EA/BioWare are really struggling, right?

As another poster inquired, didn't you guys used to be cool?

You do realise price is set by EA don't you not Bioware themselves.

Well that's sort of six and half dozen.

And I'm far more upset about the $60 price for PC version (it started out at the usual $50 but went up in October) than the Steam thing, though taken together it's a bit of shafting on the part of PC players.  If we knew we'd get a toolset, I'd be happy to pay that extra as our contribution into the kitty for the ability to mod.  But that's a big question mark, too.  I imagine they'd rather see people buying DLC armor and weapons rather than having the modders crank out goodies for free.

[Drevin]

Morroian wrote...

KCFender wrote...

Also, $59.99 for the STANDARD edition? A little price increase there? Really? Because the economy is so good right now, and you guys at EA/BioWare are really struggling, right?

As another poster inquired, didn't you guys used to be cool?

You do realise price is set by EA don't you not Bioware themselves.

This comes up a lot and and only true to an extent. Examples are , "EA sets price.", "EA decides on distrabution models","EA choses what comes in game packages", etc..

I agree with those statements; however, if you are suggesting that a powerful developer like bioware has no imput or say, then you would be wrong.

[StingingVelvet]

Addai67 wrote...

And I'm far more upset about the $60 price for PC version (it started out at the usual $50 but went up in October) than the Steam thing, though taken together it's a bit of shafting on the part of PC players.  If we knew we'd get a toolset, I'd be happy to pay that extra as our contribution into the kitty for the ability to mod.  But that's a big question mark, too.  I imagine they'd rather see people buying DLC armor and weapons rather than having the modders crank out goodies for free.

EA raised all their PC titles to $59.99 at the same time, as did Ubisoft and Activision.  With Blizzard and id already using that price point for years I would say it is pretty standard at this point.

I don't really mind it.  Games have been $50 for 20 years and it makes sense for them to raise in price eventually... $50 today is a lot different from $50 20 years ago, inflation and all.