Allan Schumacher wrote...
Merin said...
To spite customers? No. Corporate suits, as you call them, don't give one darn about their customers, only their customers' money. And something that is counter-intuitive but so true about so many executives, so many "smart business people", is that they would rather NOT make a sale than make a sale and share the profit with another.
Perhaps there's more to it than you are aware of. And that I even feel comfortable discussing. For a company that has been trying to recover , the idea of refusing to "[make] a sale and sharing the profit with another" is patently absurd, since as you say EA has little issue sharing their profits with other distributors (they even still sell Sims 3 stuff on Steam to this day).
In the context of the EA / Steam thing? I'm sure there's vastly more information that I am unaware of than what I am aware of. I've not personally followed much of it, much of the theorizing, etc. What I did see was the creation of Origin, and all the distasteful crap that goes with that (starting with the name and the memories it brings of EA buying then dismantling a game company that truly "created worlds") and saw that EA and Steam are having some kind of hissy-fit with each other. I'm sure Steam, on it's part, is being unreasonable on some levels, too, for it's own business interests. Color me unsurprised if that is true.
But in the practice of profit maximization, one way to is to cut out as many people you have to pay as possible. This always leads to disaster, but businesses continue to do it. One major example - Marvel leaving Diamond to create their own distribution arm - it lead directly to their bankruptcy, and now they have a worse relationship with Diamond as a result (this is ignoring that Diamond is effectively a monopoly and that, Marvel's interests largely being selfish, the industry would likely have been better off if Marvel HAD succeeded.)
EA creating Origin is no different than Marvel creating their own distribution arm. In both cases it stemmed, I'm sure, from disagreements between the two companies. And, had Marvel succeeded, it would have brought other publishers under it's distribution arm (why not - extra profits, cuts into Diamond's market (hehehe, they think)) -- but it didn't.
Merin said...
Share money with Steam and help Steam grow to have a larger market share, even if that just helps sell more EA games? EA'd rather not. They'd rather keep more of the proceeds and have less sales, in a bad attempt at having their own digital storefront.
Allan Schumacher wrote...
This is just a conspiracy theory. Both sides drew their lines in the sand. Steam had reservations with us doing the same thing we did in DAO that we continued to do with DA2, for which they pulled DA2 down. When I found out the reason our games were removed, I wasn't particularly thrilled. But as a Steam gamer, I hold both companies "responsible" for not coming to terms. I personally don't think it's good for either company to not have access to each other's goods, but evidently neither were all that keen to budge very far.
I don't think it was a CONSPIRACY, and I don't think EA is trying to cover anything up. There's spin on both sides, but that's PR, not cover-up.
It's rather insulting to have what I said called a conspiracy theory, as if there are others out there with tin-hats and web sites calling into Coast to Coast. Profit maximization is a real thing. Marvel did these exact same thing (as have movie companies... Viacom's creation of Blockbuster was to destroy the video rental business, and it succeeded greatly (a topic for another time.) Microsoft creating Internet Explorer and giving it away fro free destroyed Netscape. It's a common business practice to try and kill the companies that could be helping your products because you want more control or don't like the terms (which, in the end, boils down to you wanting to keep more of the profits, i.e. profit maximization.)
Conspiracy theory. Huh.
You'll have to forgive me if I don't travel to RPGCodex for information. Personal bias - I've had extremely negative experiences with several of their members in other forums, I'd rather not tip-toe into that nest of vipers.
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