[Eurogamer] Valve counters EA's Steam sales "cheapen intellectual property" accusation - Page 2

EA own DICE outright

The author makes better points than the Valve guy does, yet big companies never listen and when they FINALLY anger enough people to hurt their bottom line, they just handwave it with a few recycled excuses for the bad sales. For the game industry those are piracy and global depression

It won't be possible for Origin to become what Steam is under the current management. Valve is light-years ahead of where EA is and will probably ever be....these two articles, the one from EA and this one, prove it.

Funny thing the last time I bought a game before i got BF3 (for 30$ on day one release!!!!) was a basket ball game 11 years ago ... I have bought every game Value has ever put out and enjoyed/loved them. To me how they did steam was briliant.

I love there [Steam] mentality, there methodology and there loyalty to customers. HELL, I want to work for steam that are that cool!

I speak with my $ and I spend it on steam.


secondary thought:

EA just does not think it has/need to prove it self to any one[Us, the people with the money, real PC gamers] to do what ever it wants... it is this that will ultimintly lead to more sub par titles and worse management. As it sits they make games that are based off of good games and make the first 30 mins or so really good, only release that much out in beta and then make sure every review is super positive about it and then sell millions and then they drop the ball and the rest oft hte 75% of the game that is left turns to trash, or they purposefully leave stuff out to charge you to down load more .... Screw you.
Edited by Jackeduphard - 7/11/12 at 10:03am

i just lol'd. there's really nothing EA can say at this point except just to follow what steam's doing and hopefully release solid games. there's really nothing i play from EA either way so it doesn't affect me one bit.

Yea, I don't remember when I purchased an EA game last.

In that case It would be awesome if the DICE employee's rallied and all quit and formed a new studio, kind of like how Respawn Entertainment came to be in existance.

Was expecting more tbh. That's probably not Jasons fault though.

The main bulk of it is basically just somewhat vague PR statements and the part that everyone is jumping up and down about is just the editors expletive strewn opinion, not Jason Holtmans reply.

This for instance.

Their customer base is bigger than it used to be and is growing quite rapidly (to the tune of maybe a million new users a year?), so of course sales in different areas are going to be "bigger than they used to be".

"Bigger than they used to be" is a meaningless statement in itself, given that the time frame and numbers are known only to the person speaking. Could be since five years ago, could be since a month ago.

Jason Holtmans reply is a respectable defense of his business. The only "hitting back" is the obviously subjective () piece by the article creator.

Edit: The Eurogamer source is much better, since its not a masked opinion piece sandwiched with official statements in an attempt to validate it as "news".

Problem with that is that many old games still sell for uncompetitive prices on Steam and I can actually do that easier by looking elsewhere without waiting for one of their promotions. Its basically the only reason I dont buy more games from Steam.

I like to buy games when I want them, not when a store finally brings the price down.

I'd still rather have competitive prices from the word go than have random deals thrown at me for a psychological "gotta buy it quick!" effect.
Edited by GrizzleBoy - 7/11/12 at 10:50am

Both Nate and Jason's responses are absolutely true. I rarely ever pay full price for a game, and if I do, it's because their advertising campaign as well as other things had excited me. Take Battlefield 3 for instance. I paid $65 for that game on day 1 because they made everything seem so great. They told us PC was the primary platform for BF3, showed us shots of the game that were phenomenal, and made promises that they wouldn't end up charging us for a member subscription like Call of Duty. Naturally, like most excited gamers I bought it day 1. However, the game wasn't worth it IMO and now I won't be buying another BF game at full price. Ever.

Also, I don't feel these sales "cheapen" IPs. If I don't have the money to spend at the time of a Steam sale and I really want a game, I'll pay full price for it when my budget allows me to. Just because it was cheaper at one point in time, doesn't mean that I won't ever buy it at it's retail list price. The sales do a lot for titles actually. We're always hearing about how a game that made the Daily Deal or Midweek Madness makes more than it had prior to the event. These sales give gamers the chance to try out a game without feeling like they will have spent a large sum on something they may not even like/ever heard of. There are some games in my library that I bought on sale because I wanted to try it, but the regular asking price was too much for me to justify.

EA/Origin will never come close to STEAM/Valve for one simple reason:

Valve has an amazing reputation with gamers. Gamers know Valve is awesome.

EA? The name itself leaves a bad taste in most peoples mouth.