Despite all the big talk this year, EA is hurting. They’re laying off 10% of the workforce world-wide, which is about a thousand people. Some studios are closing, others are being consolidated. And now, EA games are showing up on Steam.
Yeah, on Steam, when EA has its own online store. Perhaps sales there aren’t too great. Why else would they put some of their “big” titles on a competing distributor?
Foremost of the bunch is Spore. And according to the Steam forum, there is no DRM on it, aside from what Steam uses. Some people are still dubious, though, and I don’t think there has been an official announcement that Spore has no SecuROM.
On the other hand, if you’ve been holding off on Spore because of the odious DRM – even though EA has now issued the install revoker – you may want to keep an eye on this.
Other titles currently available – but no word yet on what, if any, DRM they have – are Mass Effect, Need for Speed Undercover, EA Sports FIFA Manager 2009, and Warhammer Online.
Scheduled for future release are Mirror’s Edge, Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3, and Dead Space. I’ll just mention in passing that both Mirror’s Edge and Dead Space had disappointing sales.
Looks like EA is really desperate for money, and they’ll take it any way they can get it. Even if it means going to the competition. For those interested, I provide a link to the Steam forum topic discussing the DRM (or lack thereof) on Spore.
As some on slashdot have noted, Steam is even worse in the resale department than securom, has a charming cross-collateralization “feature” (lose all your Steam games at once), and is ripping off Europeans on currency conversion to the tune of 1 Euro = 1 US Dollar. It’s not that much of an improvement, if any. DRM is DRM.
Verbose is right. A coworker had his Steam account hacked and password changed. He eventually did get it back after faxing documents to them but was without all the games for over a couple weeks.
I don’t like the idea that they can pull the plug on you at any time. I would hate to have hundreds of dollars tied up on games and then be accused of activities violating the EULA or something and have the account suspended. Offline mode does not always work either. I have had the file clientregistry.blob get corrupt and been unable to play offline. You can delete it but you have to go back online to get it fixed and recreated.
The other thing is resale, or in my case giving away games. My son and I had shared a Steam account since he was 14, both of us having purchases on it. Now that he is 20 and has moved out of the house we couldn’t just create a new account and transfer those games. We ended up repurchasing some. I have no interest in Counterstrike so I would have given that to him, instead we had to buy it again on his new account even though it is still on my account and I will never play it.
On the plus side, EA has offered to publish Tim Schafer’s upcoming Brutal Legend (umlauts excluded). So I’m feeling kind thoughts towards EA these days.
Yeah Coyote, but who knows what awful DRM may be included with that? I’d wait to feel kindly until the game is released and we know what they’re doing in that regard.
Xian, that’s why I avoid games that require online activation.