The Unofficial Battlefield 3 Thread

[Gremlin]

Hmm it is business...

 

So tell me one thing, if EA wants to place its games on Steam, EA will have to pay steam some amount of money, correct? So what is wrong if EA is trying to avoid that and try to do some way of launching its own games..

 

When you bought MW2, it required Steam am I correct?

 

When Steam came out for the first time it carried only valve games and than slowly began to have other games..

 

 

It is the same thing with Origin..

[bilcliff]

I made the video, so yea it's correct.

 

You are forced to register on Origin, because Battlelog is linked to Origin. So your Origin name will be your Battlelog name. Just like Steam profile name is linked to Valve games.

my bad i wasn't paying attention to the youtube user account

 

i dont mean to nitpick but BC2 was launched before origin therefore origin wasn't essential to play. whereas BF3 is going to be launched after. so theres a chance it will behave differently isn't there? like how you can add a non steam game to steam and launch it that way. but a game like MW2 that has steamworks will require steam to launch.

 

if EA wants to place its games on Steam, EA will have to pay steam some amount of money, correct? So what is wrong if EA is trying to avoid that and try to do some way of launching its own games..

EA doesnt have to pay steam to place games on steam, just like they dont pay a retailer like gamestop to stock the game.

 

The problem alot of people have with origin is the pricing. EA are cutting out the middle man, but not passing any of the saving onto the consumer. They are charging the same price as you would for a physical retail copy of a game but saving on the distribution costs. also they have got huge region pricing differences. here in australia i can get Alice madness returns on steam for $49.99USD and with the current exchange rate makes it pretty much $49AUD. Alice on origin for australia is $79.99AUD or about $80USD. Same game and they're cutting out the middle man. but having it on origin costs me, the consumer, $30 more. Why? Why should i pay 61% more for the exact same thing? MOH is $69 on steam and $79.99 on origin.

 

There are those out there who dislike steam, they see it as a form of DRM. same argument applies to origin.

[Deathmineral]

Considering Steam has a crap ton of games, how are they running a race with no legs? Compared to Origin, which only has EA games.

I'm not talking about all the games in the world though, I'm talking about the game this thread is based on. My point is that they're singling Steam out in order to keep them from being a competitor and making money. If they did this to everyone else, I would totally fine with it but they're not, they've specifically said that Steam is the one place they aren't going to allow to sell it. So like I said before, they're essentially eliminating them from the race.

 

I'm not saying they can't do it either, it's quite clear that business doesn't operate fairly, but as long as they're going to compete in such a manner, I do intend to hold it against EA and it puts them right up there with Activision for companies I don't want to buy games from anymore.

 

EA doesnt have to pay steam to place games on steam, just like they dont pay a retailer like gamestop to stock the game.

 

The problem alot of people have with origin is the pricing. EA are cutting out the middle man, but not passing any of the saving onto the consumer. They are charging the same price as you would for a physical retail copy of a game but saving on the distribution costs. also they have got huge region pricing differences. here in australia i can get Alice madness returns on steam for $49.99USD and with the current exchange rate makes it pretty much $49AUD. Alice on origin for australia is $79.99AUD or about $80USD. Same game and they're cutting out the middle man. but having it on origin costs me, the consumer, $30 more. Why? Why should i pay 61% more for the exact same thing? MOH is $69 on steam and $79.99 on origin.

 

There are those out there who dislike steam, they see it as a form of DRM. same argument applies to origin.

In the examples that you've given, what I say isn't true but as for games like BF3, where steam isn't a seller, EA basically has a monolopy on that particular game and could easily charge everyone $100 for it because there aren't any competitors to offer a better price. The regional pricing issue actually isn't anything new though, steam has actually been doing this to people for a long time now, check out this thread on the steam forums if you're curious. I'm not trying to justify the prices or anything though, I'm just mentioning it to show that Steam isn't necessarily the good guy either.

 

In my opinion the DRM argument really only applies to people that don't use Steam or anything like it already, if you already use Steam then the DRM part of any digital distribution shouldn't really matter to you. However I think there could be an exception made for this as Origin has different rules as well, for example deleting games or accounts that are inactive for certain amount of time, this is one my reasons for avoiding Origin.

[WhenKittensATK]

i dont mean to nitpick but BC2 was launched before origin therefore origin wasn't essential to play. whereas BF3 is going to be launched after. so theres a chance it will behave differently isn't there? like how you can add a non steam game to steam and launch it that way. but a game like MW2 that has steamworks will require steam to launch.

I can see where you're coming from, but we'll just have to agree to disagree until the game finally releases.

 

The difference between a SteamWorks game and BF3 is SteamWorks games are integrated into Steam. Whereas BF3 will have its own Battlelog. Integrating Origin into BF3 seems pointless as it doesn't have any server browser like Steam and only a friend's system, both are available on Battlelog. They only thing I can see them doing is allowing players to join BF3 friends' games through Origin's friend's list, which wasn't available during Alpha but allowed through Battlelog's friend system.

 

Origin doesn't have an add non-Origin function that I've seen. I entered my Steam BC2 CD Key into Origin and it activated the game. So it doesn't function the same way as Steam would. Maybe someone can test this out with post Origin-Release EA games?

 

P.S. You can buy BF3 from many places other than Origin, however you being in AUS isn't exactly helping your situation.

 

.............

Valve does the same exact thing with Steam and Valve games, I don't see your point of sticking to just BF3. The big picture is always necessary to put things into perspective.

 

Steam's Policy doesn't work for what EA wants to do with BF3, so they won't release it on BF3 its as simple as that. I rather get my BF3 updates the day they are OK'd by DICE than waiting 1-2 weeks later because it didn't work with Steam's Patcher. /End

[DanTheGamer11]

I thought all this Origin thing was about patching the game?

[WhenKittensATK]

I thought all this Origin thing was about patching the game?

Origin is a digital distribution system for EA. You can buy EA games on it (updating included), use a friend's system, use an in-game overlay, it's linked to your EA Persona, and etc.

Edited August 14, 2011 by Krazyxazn

[DanTheGamer11]

Origin is a digital distribution system for EA. You can buy EA games on it (updating included), use a friend's system, use an in-game overlay, it's linked to your EA Persona, and etc.

 

Yeah I know but I thought the BF3 thing was over the methods or time of patching the game?

[Fogel]

Just as some people hate Activision (can't blame them) I hate EA - I mean I truly hate EA. But I really don't see what the issue is with Origin. Maybe I'm just not getting it or have a full understanding of all that it implies. So here is how I currently see Origin:

 

1. Steam shunned EA first (source)
   
2. Steam's business model doesn't jive with how EA wants to release patches, etc. (see Krazy's post and link above)
   
3. The same account I HAD to sign up for to play BC2 is automaticaly being converted to Origin with no work from me (seems like a simple rename to me - "EA Account" => Origin)
   
4. So far we've heard nothing from EA stating we HAVE to have Origin up to play BF3 ...which if it holds true it makes it a better solution than both Steam and Battle.net
   
5. Holds a library of your EA games ...not sure if you'll be able to download as much as you want to any computer you want like you can with Battle.net
   

 

I mean honestly it looks no different to me now then when I had to sign up for an EA Account to play BC2. Seems like the biggest beef people have with it is that it is not supported by Steam. If you don't need to run extra software to play the game then it will be the best solution of the DRM Gaming Libraries (Steam, Battle.net and now Origin) being enforced by games.

 

The funny thing is Steam's popularity is what has spawned Battle.net 2.0 and Origin. Granted it is the deals that makes it popular, but what Gaming Publishers have learned is people are willing to deal with this kind of DRM. So really the Steam fans only have themselves to blame.

[WhenKittensATK]

You can also be logged into the same Origin account on multiple PCs, without being booted. Tested this myself. You still can't game on multiple PCs with the same account though.

[bp9801]

Maybe its been said before, but BF3 will require you to be logged into Battlelog and also use Origin for digital and retail copies. Origin to hold the game, Battlelog to launch it.

[WhenKittensATK]

The Gamescom EA press briefing will be held Tuesday, August 16th @ 4pm CEST / 7am PDT / 9am CDT / 10am EDT

 

I just sent this Twitter message to every single BF3 dev I'm following on Twitter, hopefully at least one answers back.

This issue seems to be a popular topic: Does Origin need to be running (background) and Battlelog mandatory to launch BF3?

[bilcliff]

In the examples that you've given, what I say isn't true but as for games like BF3, where steam isn't a seller, EA basically has a monolopy on that particular game and could easily charge everyone $100 for it because there aren't any competitors to offer a better price. The regional pricing issue actually isn't anything new though, steam has actually been doing this to people for a long time now, check out this thread on the steam forums if you're curious. I'm not trying to justify the prices or anything though, I'm just mentioning it to show that Steam isn't necessarily the good guy either.

 

In my opinion the DRM argument really only applies to people that don't use Steam or anything like it already, if you already use Steam then the DRM part of any digital distribution shouldn't really matter to you. However I think there could be an exception made for this as Origin has different rules as well, for example deleting games or accounts that are inactive for certain amount of time, this is one my reasons for avoiding Origin.

I wasn't calling steam the good guy. but its not necessarily steam that charges different region prices, most of the time its the publishers. all valve games are usually the same price here as in the usa. valve gained huge props in my books for letting me get a launch day AAA title (Portal 2) for less than $45AUD. My major point in my last post was the fact its cheaper to get any game listed on Origin via Steam instead. Which makes no sense seeing as there is a middleman involved.

 

I've never liked EA's download rules i remember buying the BC2 vietnam expansion and there were a whole bunch of terms used like you only could download for a period of 12 months , limited number of downloads etc. none of that with steam unless the game itself has activation restricitons

 

I can see where you're coming from, but we'll just have to agree to disagree until the game finally releases.

glad you understood the point i was trying to make. my brain wasnt functioning very well last night and that was the best i could come out with

 

The Gamescom EA press briefing will be held Tuesday, August 16th @ 4pm CEST / 7am PDT / 9am CDT / 10am EDT

 

I just sent this Twitter message to every single BF3 dev I'm following on Twitter, hopefully at least one answers back.

for the investigative journalism

 

but ive got a feeling you'll get this same response