EA: "We lied about not doing deep discounts like Steam".

[Barfo]

lol

So figure this one out. You may remember that twelve days ago, there was quite a lot of discussion over EA’s Origin store boss saying they wouldn’t be engaging in “deep discount” sales on their Steam-rivalling service. David DeMartini (whose name sounds like he should be the star of a Bond spoof) said, “We won’t be doing that,” when asked about such services. Explaining why he added, “I just think it cheapens your intellectual property.”

Today on Origin, Dragon Age: Origins is available for £5. That’s discounted from £40 – an incredible 87.5% off!


Spore is 75% off, as is Darksiders, Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit, and Battlefied: Bad Company 2. 66% savings can be found on Alice: Madness Returns and Darkspore, while Dead Space 2, Shank, Battlefield Bad Company 2 Vietnam, Mirror’s Edge, The Saboteur, Gotham City Imposters, Gatling Gears, and Batman: Arkham Asylum are all half price.

That’s half the price of their current Origin prices, of course. Not half the price of their original prices. In fact, most of those games are now available for 87.5% off their original launch price. That’s an awful lot of intellectual property EA are cheapening today.

“Occasionally there will be things that are on sale you could look for a discount,” said DeMartini less than two weeks ago. “Just don’t look for 75 percent off going-out-of-business sales.”

Uh-oh!

 

[smackababy]

This thread is amazing because all I can read is the headline and lol. =( Work blockage is lovely.

 

[PrayForDeath]

Today on Origin, Dragon Age: Origins is available for £5. That’s discounted from £40 – an incredible 87.5% off!


Spore is 75% off, as is Darksiders, Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit, and Battlefied: Bad Company 2. 66% savings can be found on Alice: Madness Returns and Darkspore, while Dead Space 2, Shank, Battlefield Bad Company 2 Vietnam, Mirror’s Edge, The Saboteur, Gotham City Imposters, Gatling Gears, and Batman: Arkham Asylum are all half price.

That’s half the price of their current Origin prices, of course. Not half the price of their original prices. In fact, most of those games are now available for 87.5% off their original launch price. That’s an awful lot of intellectual property EA are cheapening today.

Just for you, Smackababy.

 

[Barfo]

This thread is amazing because all I can read is the headline and lol. =( Work blockage is lovely.

Edited OP for your convenience.

 

[Kalmah]

It's kind of sad that Dragon Age Origins is only $5. That game is probably the only game on there worth its full price.

It still doesn't make up for taking over developers, dumbing the games down to appeal to more customers(affectively destroying their franchises)
Destroying devs such as Bullfrog. I still want my DK3 assholes!

 

[EDUSAN]

isnt 40 bucks a bit pricey? isnt DAO in steam? i thought it was at 20 ...

 

[lupi]

The only thing amazing here is that people believed the initial statements.

 

[gothamhunter]

what's the current sale price for Dead Space 2? Just curious.

 

[darkewaffle]

They're old games, it's hard to cheapen (wrt value, not price) what there's already so little demand for. The original comments were most likely aimed at Steam's history of quickly dropping prices for newly released, high profile titles. Steam had Witcher 2 and Portal 2 for 1/3 - 1/2 off just 2-3 months after release, and I recall DNF, Rage, Deus Ex, Total War Shogun 2 and even DA2 being highly discounted just a few months after their debuts as well.

 

[AlexAL]

Have seen ME1 and ME2 for 4.99 each for download a couple of days ago.

 

[DaveSimmons]

They're old games, it's hard to cheapen (wrt value, not price) what there's already so little demand for. The original comments were most likely aimed at Steam's history of quickly dropping prices for newly released, high profile titles. Steam had Witcher 2 and Portal 2 for 1/3 - 1/2 off just 2-3 months after release, and I recall DNF, Rage, Deus Ex, Total War Shogun 2 and even DA2 being highly discounted just a few months after their debuts as well.

Many of those were titles where the retail boxed price had also dropped like a rock because of weak sales, for example DNF and DA2.

If the Amazon price had dropped to $40, Steam offering 1/3 off a $60 list price is just matching that.

 

[mindcycle]

Seems like the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing. Pretty typically for EA.

 

[borisvodofsky]

still!, buy buy buy.

 

[Barfo]

still!, buy buy buy.

It's still Origin, so no.

 

[sandorski]

Seems like the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing. Pretty typically for EA.

this

 

[pontifex]

not seeing any discounts on Origin at all. Did they remove the sales once this article came out?

noticed it was in british pounds. is this EA UK only?

 

[thujone]

yeah i'm assuming this must have just been for EU folks

 

[Wreckem]

lol

People seem to be missing the EA guys point.

DAO was released in 2009. Thats quite a while ago.

I believe EAs problem with Steam discounting is: quite a number of fairly new(well under a year from release) get ridiculously reduced by huge discounts. Deeply discounting a fairly new release does cheapen ip. Reducing prices of a game release several years ago is not.

What cheapens EA's IP the most however is their current practice of slapping BioWares name on every studio they one and then releasing shitty games.

 

[lamedude]

I guess they don't have Targets and Nordstroms in the EU so the quote doesn't apply.

 

[Annisman*]

I don't see the huge problem so many people have with EA.

Have they 'dumbed' down a few titles here and there ? Sure, but even those titles are usually still great games. EA rarely makes a bad game.

 

[Maximilian]

I don't see the huge problem so many people have with EA.

Have they 'dumbed' down a few titles here and there ? Sure, but even those titles are usually still great games. EA rarely makes a bad game.

lol horse shit

 

[BladeVenom]

EA rarely makes an original game.

Fixed that for you.

 

[busydude]

Have they 'dumbed' down a few titles here and there ? Sure, but even those titles are usually still great games.

Please list those great games.

 

[WhoBeDaPlaya]

I don't see the huge problem so many people have with EA.

Have they 'dumbed' down a few titles here and there ? Sure, but even those titles are usually still great games. EA rarely makes a bad game.

If this were Slashdot, you'd be immediately ridiculed for your non-single digit UID.

 

[KaOTiK]

lol horse shit

:thumbsup: