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naznatips on 16 June 2011
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Zkuq said:
zarx said:
Antabus said:

Who said that I like this service?

I like that there is competition, it makes me hope that one day we will see a good DD-service.


Competition is one thing, fragmentation is another.

So you are sayin you want more publishers to remove their content from 3rd party DD platforms and set up there own service so you don't have price competition as content is only available on one service and you need to have a seperate profile and freinds list for each publisher? 

That sounds like a nighmare to me.

...

Valve and Blizzard already do it. The only difference is that they are some of the bigger players in the PC gaming market.


You're missing the problem. We're talking about further fragmenting the PC market. Valve did it first, yes, and it was bad... at the time, but now Steam is the largest PC DD service by twice all others combined, and it does make sense for there to be a 3rd party PC marketplace. It's not good that Blizzard keeps their games separate either. The big difference between Valve and all other marketplaces is that Valve heavily augments their digital powerhouse with value of constant sales, promotions, and discounts, and it's way too late to try to kill Steam. So many 3rd party games only play on Steam now, across many publishers like SEGA, Frictional Games, and Paradox. Again, I'm not saying this is a good thing, but it's a fact of the marketplace now: You can't get people to stop using Steam. 

I'm not saying Origin shouldn't exist. It should, and every publisher should sell their games on their own websites. What it shouldn't do is be exclusive to their own websites. It's like if Nintendo told you you would only be able to buy their products forevermore at licensed Nintendo stores, pulling them from all other retailers. A 3rd party marketplace is a great thing to have, and it's good to have competition in those marketplaces. EA isn't trying to make a 3rd party marketplace. They're trying to make their games exclusive to their own marketplace. I'd say this is the beginning of the end for EA in PC gaming, but we all know that began with Dragon Age II. Seriously, we're talking about hundreds of thousands of lost sales for Battlefield 3 and Mass Effect 3 by snubbing Steam.