Steam sales "cheapen intellectual property" says EA Origin boss

[Final8ty]

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2012-06-06-david-demartini-origin-wants-to-be-the-hub

 

[BladeVenom]

It's nice of EA to tell us they are out to screw their customers with continually overpriced products.

 

[KaOTiK]

And yet they have the Spore series for 75% off as the daily deal on Steam currently, lol

 

[ImpulsE69]

I would take the opposite view and say EA is trying to overvalue intellectual property..or even worse, price fixing.

They can do as they want, let the market sort it out.

 

[Grooveriding]

Does this guy have any sense of the on the ground sentiments among gamers ?

Good fucking luck converting Steam users over to Origin, especially with a mandate not to be price competitive. This guy is nuts. I reckon a huge portion of Origin users are only using it because Battlefield 3 is tied to it and unavailable on Steam. If their only way to get share in the DD market is to have exclusive games that demand Origin and are compelling enough to get a large group to buy them, they're in for trouble.

 

[motsm]

I only read that question of the interview, but I completely agree. Why is anyone paying $60 for buggy, feature cut games when they can wait a few months and get the fully patched, fully content stuffed title for $5? I'll happily save $55 to get a game that has likely been massively improved since release.

Of course this may exclude MMO's and multiplayer focused games for obvious reasons.

 

[Maximilian]

EA, trolling gamers since 1982

What he really means is steam sales "make us lose money".

 

[QueBert]

He sort of has a point, if a game came out today @ $60 and in 45 days was on Steam for $15, the majority of people would assume it's because it was buggy or just plain sucks.

 

[sigurros81]

He sort of has a point, if a game came out today @ $60 and in 45 days was on Steam for $15, the majority of people would assume it's because it was buggy or just plain sucks.

You're an idiot. Do you even think before you post?

 

[Ancalagon44]

He sort of has a point, if a game came out today @ $60 and in 45 days was on Steam for $15, the majority of people would assume it's because it was buggy or just plain sucks.

If it was 45 days later, then yeah, it probably would suck.

But then the metacritic rating, so conveniently displayed, would tell you that.

Bottom line: Steam's benefit two entities - the consumer and Valve. The consumer, because duh, and Valve, because sales make people buy more than they need. Is there a net loss to the publisher/developer? I dont think so. Its free marketing for your game, for it to appear in the list of onsale items.

 

[YBS1]

I reckon a huge portion of Origin users are only using it because Battlefield 3 is tied to it and unavailable on Steam.

This, exactly this. I'd go as far as to say that virtually all Origin users are using it simply because they are forced to because of BF3. I know I would have purchased it on Steam rather than Origin given the chance. Even still, I wouldn't have bothered with it just for BF3 alone, I only gave in and bought BF3 after realizing Origin would be forced on me anyway for the upcoming Medal of Honor.

It's a horribly designed piece of crap, I still can't get over the non integration of the friends lists between Origin and Battlelog....baffling.

 

[Bobisuruncle54]

I suppose this is why a lot of UK gamers chose to buy Battlefield Premium from India using a proxy so they could get it for £17 as opposed to £40.

They talk about cheapening intellectual property yet they push Premium at a price that is more expensive than the game itself! You can't tell me that some additional multiplayer content cost more to produce than an entire game, with a full singleplayer and a brand new engine and Battlelog.

EA: Charging you more for less.

 

[motsm]

I suppose this is why a lot of UK gamers chose to buy Battlefield Premium from India using a proxy so they could get it for £17 as opposed to £40.

They talk about cheapening intellectual property yet they push Premium at a price that is more expensive than the game itself! You can't tell me that some additional multiplayer content cost more to produce than an entire game, with a full singleplayer and a brand new engine and Battlelog.

EA: Charging you more for less.

Nearly every publisher around right now vastly overcharges for DLC, nothing out of the ordinary here.

 

[Bobisuruncle54]

Nearly every publisher around right now vastly overcharges for DLC, nothing out of the ordinary here.

But more than the actual game itself for less content?

AFAIK only COD and BF are in on that bandwagon so far.

 

[gladiatorua]

I suppose this is why a lot of UK gamers chose to buy Battlefield Premium from India using a proxy so they could get it for £17 as opposed to £40.

That's distributor's fault. If the game is cheaper on steam, than retail sale numbers suffer. So they push their weight around to make the publisher "fix" the problem.
Steam-sales being bad is a big pile of crap. People buy games they would never buy otherwise. Yes, some abuse the system but they can abuse it with retailers with similar success and developers encourage such behavior releasing bugged or even broken games that get fixed months after launch.
Anyway it's all irrelevant, because the ones that actually reduce prices are publishers, not Valve. And if it didn't work it would end like any fad after short period of time. But it continues.

 

[Sentrosi2121]

EA and Steam should just meet at an undisclosed location and have it out like real men; wearing plate armor and riding steeds.

 

[Whirlwind]

I would pay $5 more to get my game on steam if it was $5 cheaper on EA or Origin.

EA,,,,you are alittle late coming to this party...don't you think.

I own one Origin game BF3....I bypassed ME3 because of Origin....I personally wont own another game that forces me to use that service...no matter how good it is.

Too many games out there to worry about having to deal with them bastards and jump thru their damn hoops.

Once I finish the SP in BF3...it is bye bye Origin for me.

 

[ArchAngel777]

Does anyone else see a problem with a CEO (likely a very wealthy man) not understanding that $60 is a substantial amount of money for the turds that are commonly released in today's market?

Most of us only have a few thousand a year (some even less!) to spend on 'wants' which need to cover a wide range of products. When it comes down to it, games are just not worth the $60 retail price. The only time I buy games now is when they are on sale. Because they are simply not worth the money. There are exceptions, of course, but today's games are sub-par and overpriced. While we are at it though, Movies are in the same category. I'll wait for it to hit netflix.

This CEO is an idiot.

 

[Phokus]

He sort of has a point, if a game came out today @ $60 and in 45 days was on Steam for $15, the majority of people would assume it's because it was buggy or just plain sucks.

I think i got Deus EX:HR for $7. I (or anyone else) who bought it at that price didn't think it 'sucked' or was 'buggy'.

 

[PrincessFrosty]

And this is why I'll never use Origin and own 260 games on steam :>

 

[Genx87]

Does this guy have any sense of the on the ground sentiments among gamers ?

Good fucking luck converting Steam users over to Origin, especially with a mandate not to be price competitive. This guy is nuts. I reckon a huge portion of Origin users are only using it because Battlefield 3 is tied to it and unavailable on Steam. If their only way to get share in the DD market is to have exclusive games that demand Origin and are compelling enough to get a large group to buy them, they're in for trouble.

That is the only reason why Origin made it onto my computer. BF3. But BF3 was such a disapppointment it and Origin have since been uninstalled. I dont plan on ever having Origin back on my computer. That thing was a buggy pile of crap.

 

[diesbudt]

EA and Steam should just meet at an undisclosed location and have it out like real men; wearing plate armor and riding steeds.

This is also how government elections should be decided.

 

[JujuFish]

We already have a thread on this: http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2250537

Well, actually, it's a thread on Eurogamer's discussion of this.

 

[dud]

It is obvious that deep discounting (via Steam) does "cheapen" intellectual property but by the time that Steam discounts that property one could assume that the value of that property has depreciated. The game simply is not worth as much as it originally was in the marketplace.

I love his retail analogy of Target vs. Nordstrom and associating the later with "good" value. How often do you shop at Nordstrom and find value?

 

[msparrow88]

this guy is dumb