Mass Effect developer BioWare has revealed that the PC version of forthcoming sci-fi RPG Mass Effect 3 will not be available on Valve Software’s popular digital distribution platform Steam. The game will be available on publisher Electronic Arts’ own online service, Origin, and some other online distributors. However, all copies of the game- both downloads and physical copies- will require using Origin to register the game.
This marks the most recent episode in an ongoing clash between Electronic Arts and Valve. Electronic Arts started Origin back in June as a way to sell downloadable versions of EA games directly to the public. Since then a number of prominent EA titles have either ceased to be available on Steam, such as Crysis 2, or have never been for sale on Steam at all, such as Battlefield 3 and the new Star Wars MMORPG, Star Wars: The Old Republic. Electronic Arts explains the decision not to sell on Steam as the result of what the company describes as overly restrictive terms of service that interfere with EA’s ability to interact with players and provide patches and additional content.
I don’t find that terribly convincing. I don’t think it’s really meant to be that convincing, honestly; it seems like one of those PR statements companies put out when the actual reason for an action is fairly obvious but would be bad form to explicitly acknowledge. Electronic Arts does still allow some of its other games to be sold on Steam, and given the importance of the Mass Effect franchise and EA’s ambitions to turn Origin into a viable alternative to Steam as a digital distribution platform for its own games the idea of keeping one of EA’s more hotly anticipated games off of Valve’s service- and so giving fans of the franchise a reason to install Origin on their computers- seems natural enough. It’s just that “Obviously, we’re doing this because we hope that it will weaken one of our rivals” isn’t the sort of thing you say out loud.
I’m of two minds on this. On the one hand, I’ve been quite happy with Steam, which is where I’ve bought the majority of PC games I currently own. I’m not thrilled about the prospect of having to have multiple online distribution platforms installed on my computer to play new games, especially if other companies decide to follow in EA’s footsteps by creating their own similar ventures and pulling their games off of steam to make their own service more appealing. That could become very obnoxious. On the other hand, more competition for Steam would be a good thing. Like I said, my experiences with Steam have been quite positive- but steam currently enjoys overwhelmingly dominant market share in digital games distribution, so it’s good to have the looming threat of new rivals to force Valve to continue maintaining a high-quality service.
Electronic Arts is apparently trying to give Origins the same sort of features Steam offers- online chatting, social networking, in-game achievements, cloud saves, and so forth. I’m a fan of the Mass Effect games, so I guess this means that I’ll be trying it out myself soon enough.
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