A friend of mine recently bought CIV IV on steam for ￡2.49

Good lucking finding a retail copy of that game for the same price

Sorry but that's not quite right. The EA terms also state that your account *may* be cancelled due to non-usage(not definitly will), so I don't see how that is any worse than Blizzard saying they may terminate you for no special reason at all, removing your access from WoW, Sarcraft2, Diablo, etc.

I'm not trying to say their terms are awesome(they aren't), I'm just saying that many service providers that a ton of people subscribe to have equal or a lot worse terms and conditions.

Indeed, http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/06/15/eh-crysis-2-steam-axe-not-an-ea-decision/

This. Nearest retailer here wanted $20(plus sales tax), I got the complete collection for $7.49.

http://www.24retail.co.uk/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=1348798

it's a bit different for a MMO to terminate your account than for a digital distribution service to terminate your account. if they take on the role as the retailer then the real life perspective of what they would be doing is going to your home to take back a table you own but have been storing in the basemant for over a year, an MMO on the other hand would be like them taking back a table you have been renting

Battlenet is not only MMOs

Thing is even Valve has this clause for example:

If you use any kind of subscription service you are not safe from termination period, it could happen right now, no matter how much time has lapsed.

Fixed.

Actually after reading it EA's terms for terminations are actually pretty well defined and don't include any "We can terminate you whenever the [censored] we want for no reason" clauses like Valve and Blizzard's.

Well then I definitely won't be buying any EA products. I am already opposed to them and Steam is the only digital distributor I tolerate. Oh well good thing I can't think of anything EA makes that I want.

So your point is that you can find retail games for almost as cheap as you can get them on Steam. Yeah, there's no reason to buy digital games at all. :rolleyes:

Eh I wouldn't be so dismissive about what he said. Take Portal 2 for example which is 50€ on steam right now and 35€ on Amazon, which is a fair price difference.
Really most recently released games tend to be cheaper in retail than on steam.
(though I personally don't mind paying a bit extra for the convenience of digital distribution)

That's the thing with Steam, it's almost never cheaper for new games, but when they do the really large discounts on games that are a few years old those are usually unmatched.

From the EA ToS:



I think what they mean is that if you buy DLC and don't redeem the code for it after 24 months you can't redeem it anymore, same for creating an account (they use the word 'may' for accounts while they used 'will' for entitlements) but they make it rather vague under which conditions accounts will be canceled. I'd say they tried to keep the possibility for canceling 'empty' accounts, but the ToS certainly does leave enough room to go further than that.


Can't really comment on the steam ToS yet, but thanks for directing me to this clause (I'm currently writing a paper on DRM and probably will include a paragraph on these 'services' and their effects on consumers).

Absolutly!
But thing is, not everyone can have or want their gametime to be ruled by steam sales. So some people saying digital distribution is universally cheap and that's why it's superior to retail just isn't quite right.

Indeed. I'm most definitely not pre-ordering Skyrim on Steam for 50 euros, or for the same price in local stores here. Instead, I go to amazon.co.uk and can get it for 32 euros.

Would that I knew the exact exchange rate... euros are stronger than the US dollar now aren't they?

So, interested in using origin to play video games?


http://support.ea.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/2085/showhome/true


lol, ea

I did say earlier that this was a smart move by EA but now after thinking about it for a couple hours this is a terrible move by EA. I don't have a problem with EA taking their games off of Steam that's not the problem, what the true problem is it's Origin. EA is aiming for a DRM monopoly on their games which is a terrible idea. DRM is already bad enough and now EA puts in ridiculous rules because Caesar John needs his extra dollar. "Yeah I don't care whether your having problems Downloading BF3 I'm still getting your money anyway Hah Hah".

That was already discussed earlier and people seem to misinterpret it. If you start a download on a computer (no matter if you finish it or not) that counts as a new install. However resuming, or redownloading on the same computer you already started once will not count as *another* one.
You can redownload the game on the same computer/OS install as often as you want.



So Valve having a DRM monopoly on every single PC game would be better how exactly?

And like I said the strategy EA is currently employing is not one to make a few extra bucks off of a handful of [censored] console ports, that's not what you build and promote a new service for. They want to use PCs as a core gaming plattform, which is more than you can say from almost any other publisher.

It's about €1 = $1.40 at the moment.

double post

Well then, I should request to get paid in euros. :tongue:

And so it starts

I find it rather edifying to see Steam fans complaining about this.
/end smug remark

I think that this shows one of the fundamental flaws of the Digital Distribution Service model. I assume that most people know the differences in the various type of Physical Distribution models so I will use those for comparison.

Standard Purchase
You pay for a good and ownership is transfered to you, this is pretty much any store but I believe that GOG would be a digital anolog for this model. (That pun was unintentional but I'm leaving it in because I found it hilarious)

Rental
Payment is made for temporary use of a good. The best example here is video rental. If you get a video membership for a brick & mortar video store you may pay a small rental fee to have access to a film for a limited period of time. Online you may rent from Blockbuster which allows you to download a movie file that is only watchable for a limited time.

Membership Store
Many people have memberships to the likes of Costco or Sam's Club and can get good prices on many items provided their membership is current. Online memberships include sites like Netflix or Hulu, where for the price of the membership you watch any film they have available. You do not have any control over availability, if you want guaranteed availability you need to go elsewhere and purchase the title. If your membership is canceled you loose access to the entire library.

The digital distribution model being used by Steam and now Origin is not like any of these. You have paid funds in exchange for goods that, according to a purchase agreement, are tied to continued membership. If membership is canceled all goods are forfeit without compensation. I can think of no physical distribution of a good that uses such a model. I'm pretty certain that there are laws in place to prevent such a business model. Laws concerning digital goods are relatively new and most are untested by the courts. In the case of CDs or DVDs, they cannot be produced in a way that prevents the purchaser from converting the data to a format for use in their portable player, this rule was upheld in court and caused a shift in music and movie distribution.

I now expect that, given the size and influence of both EA and Valve, there will soon be legal challenges to how digital distribution is regulated. Especially if Origin starts to sell titles from other developers.

I have to agree and it will be fascinating to see what happens. Hopefully something good that benefits consumers is the end result, although I'm not holding my breath.