EA may be looking to put its games back on Steam

Interesting. I actually like Origin and have more hours on it than Steam over the past 8 or so years. It worked fine for me most of the time, better than Steam. But I will admit I prefer Steam even if it is getting bloated; then again I don't have the latest update.

I don't mind Origin but would like to see a few launchers disappear. If EGS can get their act together I wouldn't mind Steam/EGS being the two major clients. Having a client for every publisher is simply annoying. But Steam having some competition would be nice and having a similar competitor that caters to other developers would be nice.

Might also have to do with recent EA games flopping. BF5, Anthem and whatnot were not exactly stellar sellers. Might be trying to get more exposure in light of this.
 
Flogger23m said:
Interesting. I actually like Origin and have more hours on it than Steam over the past 8 or so years. It worked fine for me most of the time, better than Steam. But I will admit I prefer Steam even if it is getting bloated; then again I don't have the latest update.

I don't mind Origin but would like to see a few launchers disappear. If EGS can get their act together I wouldn't mind Steam/EGS being the two major clients. Having a client for every publisher is simply annoying. But Steam having some competition would be nice and having a similar competitor that caters to other developers would be nice.

Might also have to do with recent EA games flopping. BF5, Anthem and whatnot were not exactly stellar sellers. Might be trying to get more exposure in light of this.
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the biggest thing i hate about origin is updating games.. there's no excuse for it to take 30 minutes to verify a game then just sit there idle for another 30 minutes before it decided that it should update.. other than that i can deal with all the other bs.
 
sirmonkey1985 said:
the biggest thing i hate about origin is updating games.. there's no excuse for it to take 30 minutes to verify a game then just sit there idle for another 30 minutes before it decided that it should update.. other than that i can deal with all the other bs.
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For me this only ever happened with BF5 and I wonder if it is something specific to that game. BF3/4/1, Battlefront II, ME3 and whatever other games I had never had that issue.
 
Flogger23m said:
For me this only ever happened with BF5 and I wonder if it is something specific to that game. BF3/4/1, Battlefront II, ME3 and whatever other games I had never had that issue.
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hmm might be the case, only other game that ever updates now is apex which did it as well so i uninstalled it since i wasn't playing it anyways.. bought BF1 when it was 5 bucks and they had already quit updating it so never got to test it with that.
 
Only issue I have with the Origin store is the mobile design that frequently crashes the program whenever I'm just trying to browse it. Other than that I've always like the library functionality more than Steam's. It's especially much easier to manage additional content for your games than it is in Steam. I also consistently get better download speeds through Origin's client than I do Steam's. I actually think Uplay has the best store right now as far as navigation goes. I did have one issue in the past where it didn't look like my purchase went through, but confirmed it from the e-mail responses and seeing the products show up in my library after a restart.
 
This would be the best news ever for EA if you like them as a company. Alot of games just don't get played because of multiple launchers. I have to remind myself to play BFV because I forgot I bought the thing. I would want my account to be exported to Steam though if anything. Nobody wants to buy the games a 2nd time.
 
Origin is better than Steam IMO. No shitware to comb through and it's a simple and effective design. EA should stick with it and keep improving on it. Steam is on a long term death spiral, most people I know have abandoned it or barely use it now.
 
Comixbooks said:
This would be the best news ever for EA if you like them as a company. Alot of games just don't get played because of multiple launchers. I have to remind myself to play BFV because I forgot I bought the thing. I would want my account to be exported to Steam though if anything. Nobody wants to buy the games a 2nd time.
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I stopped playing their games because I don't like them as a company, and I'd be very surprised if multiple launchers was a big reason for why any of their games have flopped. Annual releases + quarterly DLC + nickel and diming players as much as possible on as many franchises as possible are reasons I would suspect before "multiple launchers." If you forgot that you purchased BFV then the game probably sucked.
 
Are there any EA games worth playing these days outside sports games (not my cup o tea)?

Battfle Field peaked with 4 and has slid steadily downward to a COD clone since. No new Mass Effect or Dragon Age due for while.... sooooo, great I guess, welcome back to steam if they come back.
 
5150Joker said:
Origin is better than Steam IMO. No shitware to comb through and it's a simple and effective design. EA should stick with it and keep improving on it. Steam is on a long term death spiral, most people I know have abandoned it or barely use it now.
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The EA store does seem improved since I last used it. Way more titles and a better layout. Steam will still dominate the PC gaming space for a long time.
 
5150Joker said:
Origin is better than Steam IMO. No shitware to comb through and it's a simple and effective design. EA should stick with it and keep improving on it. Steam is on a long term death spiral, most people I know have abandoned it or barely use it now.
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Was with you until the last comment. I agree that Origin is better than Steam at this point, but Steam continues to break records on number of concurrent users. If Steam were to die, it wouldn't be for at least another decade. It's not something to look forward to because who knows if GabeN's promise of being to forever keep your games should that happen be kept should that happen.
 
Armenius said:
Was with you until the last comment. I agree that Origin is better than Steam at this point, but Steam continues to break records on number of concurrent users. If Steam were to die, it wouldn't be for at least another decade. It's not something to look forward to because who knows if GabeN's promise of being to forever keep your games should that happen be kept should that happen.
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Well Steam is doing well because of the slanted China numbers. If we're talking the US, it's dying out slowly. It won't happen overnight but in maybe 3-5 years I don't see Steam being nearly as prolific as it is today. Like I said, IMO Origin is a better launcher/store, it isn't riddled with shovelware, has a clean and simple interface and isn't bloated. I use Origin everyday where I can't even remember the last time I opened Steam.
 
To all those complaining about Steams's "shoverlware", no one is forcing you to purchase any of it. It's really no different then Google ads; based on past purchases & views it tries to highlight other games you might like. And it's not their fault the other companies insist on pushing crap titles to try and make a buck; Steam just offers them a storefront where they can expose their games to users, something I note they *can't* do on closed launchers (Uplay/Origin). Granted, 90%+ of those titles are crap, but there's a few good ones that would never see the light of day if Steam didn't offer exposure.

Steam isn't perfect, but any launcher that allows anyone to publish to it will eventually look exactly the same.
 
People use Origin? J/K, this is great except, as already pointed out above, the games will still likely require Origin, so.... meh.
 
5150Joker said:
Well Steam is doing well because of the slanted China numbers. If we're talking the US, it's dying out slowly. It won't happen overnight but in maybe 3-5 years I don't see Steam being nearly as prolific as it is today. Like I said, IMO Origin is a better launcher/store, it isn't riddled with shovelware, has a clean and simple interface and isn't bloated. I use Origin everyday where I can't even remember the last time I opened Steam.
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Ironic that you point out the Chinese player numbers when the same phenomenon is happening with Epic. The difference is that Steam publishes their data while Epic keeps it hidden aside from ambiguous press releases.
 
Armenius said:
Ironic that you point out the Chinese player numbers when the same phenomenon is happening with Epic. The difference is that Steam publishes their data while Epic keeps it hidden aside from ambiguous press releases.
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What's origin have to do with Epic? Also another thing not mentioned here is Origin Access which is surprisingly good and priced fairly--I don't use it personally but a lot of my gaming friends in their 20s do.
 
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5150Joker said:
Well Steam is doing well because of the slanted China numbers. If we're talking the US, it's dying out slowly. It won't happen overnight but in maybe 3-5 years I don't see Steam being nearly as prolific as it is today. Like I said, IMO Origin is a better launcher/store, it isn't riddled with shovelware, has a clean and simple interface and isn't bloated. I use Origin everyday where I can't even remember the last time I opened Steam.
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no offense but i think that's horse shit.. steams not dying at all in the US, it just plateaued in the US and has stayed at that level ever since which makes the growth in China look much larger than it really is(especially when you remove all the internet cafe's from the equation). is epic gaining users? sure, does it mean those users that have steam accounts are quitting steam? nope not at all, same goes with people using origin, microsoft store, ubicrap, and the 100 other game launchers/stores. just because people use them doesn't mean they quit using steam.. steams not going anywhere and hopefully epic isn't either.. now we just need to kill off the 98 other stores/launchers and i'll be happy.

Gorankar said:
People use Origin? J/K, this is great except, as already pointed out above, the games will still likely require Origin, so.... meh.
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it will for the DRM but just having another source to buy the game is worth it because right now it sucks with the fact that you can't buy EA games from 3rd party sites thus the price stays fixed for way longer than it should for some really obvious bad games.
 
sirmonkey1985 said:
no offense but i think that's horse shit.. steams not dying at all in the US, it just plateaued in the US and has stayed at that level ever since which makes the growth in China look much larger than it really is(especially when you remove all the internet cafe's from the equation). is epic gaining users? sure, does it mean those users that have steam accounts are quitting steam? nope not at all, same goes with people using origin, microsoft store, ubicrap, and the 100 other game launchers/stores. just because people use them doesn't mean they quit using steam.. steams not going anywhere and hopefully epic isn't either.. now we just need to kill off the 98 other stores/launchers and i'll be happy.
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Well Valve's Source games were basically killer apps for Steam when they were released: Half Life, Team Fortress, Portal, Counter Strike, Left 4 Dead were/are all major reasons to get on Steam. Now development on 4/5 of those franchises is all but dead, and no one outside of Valve seems to know why. They touted Source2, yet they only ever used it for Dota2 and a digital card game that was DOA.

I used to associate Valve with PC gaming because their games were awesome and flagship products on the Steam platform; everything from the server browsers to friends lists to the overlay was fully integrated. Now it's just a store, and they've abandoned most of their IP. These are some of the reasons I'm all for these competing launchers chipping away at Steam's market share. They got fat and happy and their drive (as a developer) disappeared; I don't feel any loyalty to Valve or see any reason to root for them over any other platform. They aren't pushing PC gaming and the games they have left are rife with loot boxes.

So while a claim that Steam is dying is utterly ridiculous, there are certainly plenty of reasons that gamers might be spending their time and money elsewhere these days.
 
Armenius said:
If Steam were to die, it wouldn't be for at least another decade.
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If they do die, Epic or some other company would buy them. But I wouldn't worry about it since Valve still has tons of money and a massive user base.
 
Aix. said:
Well Valve's Source games were basically killer apps for Steam when they were released: Half Life, Team Fortress, Portal, Counter Strike, Left 4 Dead were/are all major reasons to get on Steam. Now development on 4/5 of those franchises is all but dead, and no one outside of Valve seems to know why. They touted Source2, yet they only ever used it for Dota2 and a digital card game that was DOA.

I used to associate Valve with PC gaming because their games were awesome and flagship products on the Steam platform; everything from the server browsers to friends lists to the overlay was fully integrated. Now it's just a store, and they've abandoned most of their IP. These are some of the reasons I'm all for these competing launchers chipping away at Steam's market share. They got fat and happy and their drive (as a developer) disappeared; I don't feel any loyalty to Valve or see any reason to root for them over any other platform. They aren't pushing PC gaming and the games they have left are rife with loot boxes.

So while a claim that Steam is dying is utterly ridiculous, there are certainly plenty of reasons that gamers might be spending their time and money elsewhere these days.
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Steam is the Netflix of the gaming world. Both dependent on third party IP to succeed. The difference is that once the big studios started and continue to abandon Netflix, they stepped up with their own content. Steam has sat around on its bloated ass just allowing any kind of shitware on its platform and refusing to update their own IP. Consequently, there are much fewer AAA games on steam now each year and less reason to use it. Epic using exclusives is one thing but companies pulling their games to their own launchers has made steam far less attractive and they still haven't done anything about it.
 
I'd greatly prefer seeing EA put its games back on Steam, new and old alike. I've never been a fan of Origin or this whole "everyone must roll their own incompatible launcher" nonsense, though I admit the "1st party" endeavors like UPlay and Origin were less annoying than "3rd party" types like Epic. Ultimately though, if Origin could be outmoded or at very least all EA titles on Origin could also be available on Steam - thus giving people a preference - that would be idea.

Note that this could have huge benefits to users and the games themselves. Take for instance Apex Legends, the Respawn (Titanfall series) developed, sadly EA published Battle Royale which seems to be the "best" of the big names (Fortnite, PUBG, Apex Legends etc) battle royale type g ames in terms of actual features. The WORST thing about Apex Legends is its EA monetization-to-content clusterfuck, but putting that aside its a pretty solid game for the genre. That said, right now it requires Origin to play exclusively, and there's a pretty unusual yet frustrating element for Linux (and maybe Mac) users. At the moment Apex Legends plays just about flawlessly, in the technical sense, using Proton (or WINE + DXVK etc.) but because the game uses EasyAntiCheat, Proton/Wine users are instantly kicked from the game even though their systems are running it just fine in a technical sense. Bringing Apex Legends to Steam, may encourage the devs and Easy Anti Cheat (perhaps even Valve / Proton devs themselves) to champion a workaround and allow players on Linux (and perhaps OS) to play? I'm not naive enough to assume the game would get a Linux port, but perhaps on Steam it would at least be given Wine/Proton compatibility.

Overall, any move away from proprietary, first-or-third-party launchers/stores to something like Steam is a benefit. I've little patience for EA overall but I'd have to give them kudos for such a decision.
 
5150Joker said:
Epic using exclusives is one thing but companies pulling their games to their own launchers has made steam far less attractive and they still haven't done anything about it.
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Valve won't give up that 70/30 revenue split. They won't budge until they see that it doesn't work anymore. Imagine having 20 or more game launchers in just a few years!
 
gamerk2 said:
To all those complaining about Steams's "shoverlware", no one is forcing you to purchase any of it. It's really no different then Google ads; based on past purchases & views it tries to highlight other games you might like. And it's not their fault the other companies insist on pushing crap titles to try and make a buck; Steam just offers them a storefront where they can expose their games to users, something I note they *can't* do on closed launchers (Uplay/Origin). Granted, 90%+ of those titles are crap...
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That is like saying you don't have to stare at or appreciate graffiti on houses or stores. It looks trashy and I'm less inclined to shop at a trashy place. And Steam is starting to feel like the ghetto of digital game stores. When I see crap and/or a crappy interface I back out and you're potentially loosing a sale. I'm not alone here. What makes them more money? Loosing customers for higher end games, dealing with refunds for asset flips or enforcing better standards? Only Valve knows.

Likewise, it is indeed Valve's fault to not better keep up with quality control. Indie games are perfectly fine. Garbage games are not.


sirmonkey1985 said:
no offense but i think that's horse shit.. steams not dying at all in the US, it just plateaued in the US...
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This is true. However longer term, if they keep loosing AAA titles Steam will loose relevance. But that would take a long time. For most of us, we have many games we still play, plan to replay, or haven't even started yet on Steam.
 
dark_reign said:
Valve won't give up that 70/30 revenue split. They won't budge until they see that it doesn't work anymore. Imagine having 20 or more game launchers in just a few years!
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Its important to note that Valve only gets the 30%, which is a TON less than just about any console developer/publisher, and Valve and Steam offer WAY more content - from hosting for patches and updates, community features, payment and region-relation processing, Steamworks integrations including ready-made multiplayer, friends lists, and lots move - for that. It really isn't an insane amount to ask especially considering you'd need to have your own infrastructure, build your game systems (note: a major reason why Japanese games came to PC at all was because of Valve and Steam - these were devs/publishers used to letting the consoles handle all the online/multiplayer and similar networking stuff, as opposed to building it themselves. Until Steam showed up with this, many games didn't get ported and those that did often lacked any online features compared to console versions).

The whole bellyaching about the "revenue split" was simply invented by Epic in their underhanded way to try to break onto the scene. Uplay and Origin often offer 3rd party titles on their platforms as well, and have a 30% revenue split (or worse) . The whole thing was basically a marketing tactic by Epic and is completely unrealistic when nearly everyone else did the same or worse and got less; not to mention even stores/platforms like GOG etc. What's worse is that the 30% split is only the "starter", and games that sell well offer a smaller and smaller split to Steam with every milestone. Furthermore, indie titles have had certain deals (previously on Greenlight - not sure about now) where they'd get a smaller revenue split given in deference to the smaller size of their project.

Given that Epic has been the least ethical and the most harmful, them clutching pearls about a revenue split is really frustrating. This is not to suggest that Steam is perfect or can't evolve, but the whole thing is really been mostly about big companies who offer FAR less than Valve/Steam making their own "but I want all the money" systems when it comes to the first parties like Uplay and Origin, or are bad faith actors like we see with Epic.
 
Everytime origin asks what they could do better, I tell them to quit making shitty software and sell me battlefield on Steam.
 
RanceJustice said:
The whole bellyaching about the "revenue split" was simply invented by Epic
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No it wasn't. Long before Epic came on the scene there were numerous discussions, especially among indie developers, about Steam's revenue cut. Hell as far back as eight years ago when gaming news sites broke the news that "Battlefield 3 will be an Origin Exclusive", I remember there being a lot of discussion about the revenue split as well.

As much as you want to give Epic credit, the discussion about Valve's split has been around a long time, ever since CDNs (content delivery networks) and better ISP peering greatly helped lowering the cost of bandwidth and file distribution globally. Other launchers from other tripleA devs, like EA, Ubisoft, Bethesda, Rockstar etc probably wouldn't even exist if Valve had lowered their cut as bandwidth and hosting costs lowered every year.
 
Drexion said:
No it wasn't. Long before Epic came on the scene there were numerous discussions, especially among indie developers, about Steam's revenue cut. Hell as far back as eight years ago when gaming news sites broke the news that "Battlefield 3 will be an Origin Exclusive", I remember there being a lot of discussion about the revenue split as well.

As much as you want to give Epic credit, the discussion about Valve's split has been around a long time, ever since CDNs (content delivery networks) and better ISP peering greatly helped lowering the cost of bandwidth and file distribution globally. Other launchers from other tripleA devs, like EA, Ubisoft, Bethesda, Rockstar etc probably wouldn't even exist if Valve had lowered their cut as bandwidth and hosting costs lowered every year.
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If valve's cut was so bad why did they stop making physical copies of games? right, they got even less money of those sales, valve is not that bad if you look at the traditional way of selling stuff in you know brick and mortar shops.

Triple A devs have the money and means to do it themselves and get all the profit, with the lowering of the bandwith and hosting costs like you mentioned it would be silly for them not to do it.
 
5150Joker said:
Consequently, there are much fewer AAA games on steam now each year and less reason to use it. Epic using exclusives is one thing but companies pulling their games to their own launchers has made steam far less attractive and they still haven't done anything about it.
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The only AAA Publishers that don't sell on Steam are EA and Activision Blizzard. Ubisoft, MS, and Bethesda tried to break away but went back. The gamers I know that buy AAA games lessens every year; they've all been moving on to F2P stuff like LoL and Warframe or "cheap" indie games like Mordhau. I myself won't buy a AAA game unless it's on a deep deep discount (Battlefront 2 at $6) or something that I know I'll enjoy that has a reasonable sale (AC:Odyssey Ultimate Edition for $30). Having said that I'm starting to think that services like Microsoft's Xbox Game Pass is going to be the future; $5 a month for the ability to play a bunch of highly rated games is a good value even if you do lose them when you cancel. The problem with that is that every publisher is going to want us on their own monthly sub.
 
Conman said:
Um isn't this thread about how a triple A publisher is coming back to Steam?
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and don't forget microsoft is going to start releasing their games on steam as well.. lol

Bankie said:
The only AAA Publishers that don't sell on Steam are EA and Activision Blizzard. Ubisoft, MS, and Bethesda tried to break away but went back. The gamers I know that buy AAA games lessens every year; they've all been moving on to F2P stuff like LoL and Warframe or "cheap" indie games like Mordhau. I myself won't buy a AAA game unless it's on a deep deep discount (Battlefront 2 at $6) or something that I know I'll enjoy that has a reasonable sale (AC:Odyssey Ultimate Edition for $30). Having said that I'm starting to think that services like Microsoft's Xbox Game Pass is going to be the future; $5 a month for the ability to play a bunch of highly rated games is a good value even if you do lose them when you cancel. The problem with that is that every publisher is going to want us on their own monthly sub.
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i'd have to agree on that front and agree publishers will find a way to screw up the whole subscription crap as well.. only AAA games i've bought in the last 3 years was BFV, BF1(when it was 5 bucks), and BL3..other than that most of my games are indie/early access or F2P stuff. but could just be i'm getting old and don't really care for games geared toward the 12-21 year old demographic anymore.
 
Bankie said:
The only AAA Publishers that don't sell on Steam are EA and Activision Blizzard. Ubisoft, MS, and Bethesda tried to break away but went back. The gamers I know that buy AAA games lessens every year; they've all been moving on to F2P stuff like LoL and Warframe or "cheap" indie games like Mordhau. I myself won't buy a AAA game unless it's on a deep deep discount (Battlefront 2 at $6) or something that I know I'll enjoy that has a reasonable sale (AC:Odyssey Ultimate Edition for $30). Having said that I'm starting to think that services like Microsoft's Xbox Game Pass is going to be the future; $5 a month for the ability to play a bunch of highly rated games is a good value even if you do lose them when you cancel. The problem with that is that every publisher is going to want us on their own monthly sub.
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You can have AAA f2p titles, Apex Legends is one of them and so is Fortnite with neither being on Steam.
 
Conman said:
Um isn't this thread about how a triple A publisher is coming back to Steam?
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Hence the "if". If EA brings titles back to Steam that can reverse the trend. If they don't, well, look at how AAA releases are going otherwise.

Honestly, if it makes gamers upset and stops them from buying games I'd be happy if they put everything on Epic no exceptions. Let them throw their temper tantrums. If it financially hurts game developers, I'll all for it. We need 95% of all developer studios to shut down as it is and let the current drop get out of their job and force them to a career change. Maybe 10-20 years from now the current generation of developers would've died off and maybe we can start seeing proper games again. Otherwise, gamers get what they fucking deserve.
 
Flogger23m said:
Hence the "if". If EA brings titles back to Steam that can reverse the trend. If they don't, well, look at how AAA releases are going otherwise.

Honestly, if it makes gamers upset and stops them from buying games I'd be happy if they put everything on Epic no exceptions. Let them throw their temper tantrums. If it financially hurts game developers, I'll all for it. We need 95% of all developer studios to shut down as it is and let the current drop get out of their job and force them to a career change. Maybe 10-20 years from now the current generation of developers would've died off and maybe we can start seeing proper games again. Otherwise, gamers get what they fucking deserve.
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Speaking of temper tantrums or at least unresolved anger.. You're starting to worry me.

Anyhoo, I'm all for Battlefield: Bad Company 3 on Steam. Make it happen, EA.
 
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