EA games coming to Steam

The large publisher Electronic Arts has announced that they have joined Valve's digital distribution platform Steam, bringing notable titles to the service such as Spore, Warhammer Online, Mass Effect and Need For Speed Undercover.

In the next month the publisher will add Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3, Mirror's Edge, and Dead Space as well.

Steam currently has 15 million active user accounts globally.

"We are pleased to extend our holiday titles to gamers worldwide via Steam -- a revolutionary technology that is one of the game industry's most successful digital distribution services," added EA COO John Pleasants of the deal.

Also notably, it appears as if Spore will have its DRM removed, according to this post on the Steam forums: Does Spore still have DRM?

Written by: Andre Yoskowitz @ 21 Dec 2008 19:04

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9 comments

ZippyDSM

Unless they price point the steam games 20$ less than retail whats the point?

21.12.2008 20:08 #1

varnull

I still don't believe this will be free of damaging rootkits.. and other spyware and nasties.. No Sale.. anyway if you are outside the US steam is a joke.

http://phorum.mustnotbenamed.com/index.p....html#msg129531

Steam is an even more invasive form of spyware than SecuROM is: It spies on you EVERY time you fire up the game, and monitors all of your playing habits. This part isn't even a SECRET! The only reason it is more popularly accepted is because it dresses up all these spying features as "Friendly" and is less concerned with keeping you from playing the game at all than it is with spying on you while you do it. And forcing you to have the latest updates, whether you want them or not, refusing to let you run the game if you refuse to drink their kool-aid. Realize of, course, that anything which forcibly modifies and runs executable code on your system is not merely spyware, but a flat out trojan rootkit. DON'T DRINK THE KOOL-AID.

Free open source software = made by end users who want an application to work.
I would rather you hate me for who I am than love me for what I am not.
Welcome to the other side of the looking glass Alice

21.12.2008 20:27 #2

ZippyDSM

varnull
pokepokepoke*
Which is all well and fine if they charge 50% the going rate, to me its silly you have a distrobutionary method that replies volume sales to amke profit off off for both the distributor and the content rights holder and yet they price it in such a fashion it can never sale in volume thus never making the profits it should make.

Fallout 3 has stole my soul.
Yes it is a action focused FPS RPG but at least its a FPS RPG not a poorly deved shooter like Bioshock!
------
Taking notes to tweak FO3 when they launch the C.K.
http://tinyurl.com/zippyfo3iedas

21.12.2008 20:31 #3

WARGold

Why didn't they discount the price of Warhammer Online? It still costs the same, unless they're offering the Collector's Edition. It's not like they're offering extras for the retail price like new heads or WAR Gold.

I might have to check my Steam later and see if it's worth it. I've been meaning to play WAR but local stores aren't carrying it.

21.12.2008 23:29 #4

ZippyDSM

Originally posted by WARGold: Why didn't they discount the price of Warhammer Online? It still costs the same, unless they're offering the Collector's Edition. It's not like they're offering extras for the retail price like new heads or WAR Gold.

I might have to check my Steam later and see if it's worth it. I've been meaning to play WAR but local stores aren't carrying it.Because they don't have to, they can keep prices high since they have limited revenue streams and think high price+slow sales is better than high sales a lower price.

21.12.2008 23:33 #5

DXR88

tsk..tsk.. varnull... Steam to me is a online store. I don't use the steam client to play my Steam Games.

21.12.2008 23:40 #6

ZippyDSM

Originally posted by DXR88: tsk..tsk.. varnull... Steam to me is a online store. I don't use the steam client to play my Steam Games.
No but it has hooks into some of them. *lick*

22.12.2008 00:30 #7

varnull

Well don't say you weren't warned when you notice odd things happening to your personal information.. Like it being sold to all kinds of agencies without your knowledge or consent...... information gathering spyware.. flat out.

I know Zippy is concerned with these issues.

22.12.2008 00:55 #8

ZippyDSM

Originally posted by varnull: Well don't say you weren't warned when you notice odd things happening to your personal information.. Like it being sold to all kinds of agencies without your knowledge or consent...... information gathering spyware.. flat out.

I know Zippy is concerned with these issues.But I wear a tinfoil hat and have "intelligent" conversions with myself.

:P

22.12.2008 01:05 #9

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