EA Take On Steam

Earlier this month EA announced Origin, their very own digital distribution hub for games. But even then their games were available across other services like Steam, Direct2Drive, Impulse etc. Now it seems EA are aggressively promoting their service as Crysis 2 has been taken off from the Steam store (the game however is still available on other sites like Direct2Drive). This is probably the stupidest thing EA have done all year as taking their games off one of the most popular services for PC gamers is definitely going to affect sales. Also Direct2Drive games are not accessible to Indian gamers due to anal region lock issues.

Can Origin even compete with Steam?

This also means their upcoming games like Battlefield 3, Need for Speed: The Run and The Star Wars MMO will not be coming to Valve’s distribution service as well. I have a feeling this won’t work out too well for EA as Steam and other forum users are livid at this decision promising to boycott or pirate future EA games.