Anyone not buying Battlefield 3 because of Open Beta?

You know steam may dominate the online sales but their prices have always seemed fair to me, it's not like they mark up the prices any higher than retail. I have a few amazon dl games and it's nice to have them but steam makes it so much simplistic to go through my games. Origin however is just a pita to use and really needs a design overhaul, and requiring origin just to play a $60 game is ridiculous

 

How? How is origins a PITA? I really see no issues with it and everyone needs to remember it is still in BETA. It's designed similar to Steam, So I just don't get the complaints about it's design. Sounds to me your problem is more fanboyism then anything. Origin is also not required to play the game just to download the game big difference.




Uploaded with ImageShack.us

 

^ OMG I never even knew you could display your Steam games like that! Thanks for showing that lol now my steam game library looks 10x better.

 

I really like having all of my games in one spot.

 

I agree. I was really upset SC2 wasn't available on steam. At least I can install it, and it self-updates, and I can launch it from the steam interface.

BF3 is problematic. I don't think there is going to be any way to make it work neatly with steam.

I'm the type of person that doesn't have a billion icons on my desktop or all over my start menu bar.

The only reason that firefox and steam icons are visible below is that those applications are running. Normally it's blank. This is not the type of person who wants 5 different game launching applications.



On a separate note. I see that I have quite a few games on my steam list. It's growing... I wonder how much I spent, exactly?

 

That is a fine and valid argument. What the person I quoted says is not.

 

which part is not valid to you?

he was saying steam prices are mostly very fair, and that origin is a PITA.

I've used origin and I personally haven't had any issues, but I've heard other people have been having issues.

Steam prices are slightly inflated in general, during sales they often have very good prices.

 

The pita issue I have with Origin is the fact that it's a laggy system for me, even after a reinstall it'll still freeze up and I'll have to end the process. I actually got Dragon Age through Origin and it's a useable system but still has some bugs that need worked out in order to get me to use any more than I have to

 

If you re read my post he said that Origins has a bad design. I never mentioned any of the sales. I agree and Origins has had some great sales as well. I use BOTH and I am happy with BOTH, anyway to each their own. Just makes no sense that Origins needs a design overhaul when it is similar to steam and the design is fine. Also, Steam has issues all the time, not everyone has a problem free time with Steam.

That is something I can agree with. I apologize for calling you a fanboy, but it seems everyone is bashing an unfinished product, which might have it's issues, but the issue of it not being steam is kinda pointless. Competition is good for us in the end.

 

That's true, but the thing with origin is that it isn't really competition for a distribution service. It's EA taking their ball (BF3) and going home (not allowing it sold or activated on steam). You can buy it via D2D, amazon, gmg etc, so why specifically exclude steam? If BF3 doesn't even use origin for more than patches and downloading like you say, you could still have it on steam and use their awful battlelog like normal, and the game would never know the difference.

No, true competition would be offering BF3 on steam (and anywhere else for that matter), but then offering it on origin for a cheaper price, or have it include a dlc free or something. The major reason people like steam is because everything is in one place, they often have excellent sales, all your games stay updated automatically, friends list, VAC integration... and it even acts as its own type of DRM in most cases. Origin doesn't offer anything new. There is plenty of incentive for pc gamers of all types to use steam. The incentive to use origin is... BF3.

 

I don't know enough about how patching and DLC distribution will be done on BF3, but that seems to be the sticking point between them. Unless Steam backs down, I don't see BF3 getting on there.

SW:TOR will be an Origin exclusive for DD so there's another incentive. ME3 might not be available on Steam either so that could be another. Oh, and I don't see any Valve games being sold on other DDs (e.g. GG, D2D, GMG).

 

another interesting note is that EA is fine with putting their game up on steam just like you said, and still letting origin do the patching, etc. Valve won't allow it. It would break the usability and expectations of steam.

 

Not really, I saw a couple of games offered in Steam that uses their own updater and patch system.

 

If it ends up releasing on steam on the condition that you use origin to update it then that's just as bad, if not worse.

While I haven't used origin myself and I can accept the fact that it works reasonably well given it's a new system, they shouldn't release a game on it untill it's pretty much bug free. Releasing a buggy game (BF3 will have bugs when it releases, probably some major ones) on a buggy system just doesn't seem right.

Also, while I enchourage competition in markets I don't see this as competition, if I had the option of buying it on steam or origin then I'd actually be more enclined, but the fact that they aren't giving us the choice kinda ticks me off. Competition is good in general, but if it means that you have all your games over dozens of different platforms then that's a real turn off.

I agree with what has already been posted in that we should have a seperate company for game distribution. They take something like 5% of all profits to fund themselves and it becomes a standard for all games to run on (5% is plenty to make money from, though it isn't enough to significantly impact sales). It would also be good if valve agreed to make it interface with steam so that you could still have all your old games.

 

that would be great. good luck getting valve to sign onto that hah

 

Wings of Prey requires its own patch system. I have no clue why because it's confusing as heck, Steam updates would have been better. But just an example.

 

it's probably just about money in the end