[PC] Things you probably guessed: No Steam launch for Mass Effect 3

[PC] Things you probably guessed: No Steam launch for Mass Effect 3

I think a lot of people saw this coming after 2011's Battlefield 3 Origin debacle. Now it seems that Mass Effect 3 is joining the Origin flagship as well with both physical and digital copies apparently requiring Origin to run.

The news comes from BioWare's manager, Chris Priestly, in a FAQ that was posted recently. In it he mentions that "during initial release, Mass Effect 3 will be available on Origin and a number of other 3rd party digital retailers, but not on Steam at this time." This leaves a pinch of hope that it might saunter onto Valve's digital platform after launch, but people have long since stopped holding their breathes for Battlefield 3 to do the same thing.

BioWare is sticking with the classic "restrictive terms of service" as the reason for it missing launch, but we still don't expect any changes any time soon. No one else is complaining after all.

Do you think this is going to harm Mass Effect 3's launch on PC? Or are you getting it on console anyway?

Written by: Kyran Morrison

RE: [PC] Things you probably guessed: No Steam launch for Mass Effect 3
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Displeased. I guess I might have to boycott this until a steam release.

EA has done this because they don't want to sell their DLC on the steam store where valve takes a small cut. Kinda makes a bit of business sense until you realise using the EA solution is a pain in the ass as you have to buy the DLC from the site and download extra files and install them separately. The steam version basically has you buying from within steam and then it gets downloaded and activated without any user interaction. Having a PC game and it's DLC on steam will always result in more sales because pretty much every PC gamer has steam installed and it isn't a pain in the ass to buy things (In fact it's pretty much the opposite, I frequently find it hard not to buy things on steam).

Also Steam Achievements, Steam Cloud, Steam Overlay Integration, blah, blah.

Problems with origin Origin looks through your _entire_ file system and sends data off to EA about it. There are viruses that don't abuse a users privacy as bad as that.It's another application installed to run this game that doesn't add anything to the user. No Achievements, No Steam CloudLooking at EA's past with download clients, who knows if it'll be around in a couple of yearsEA has used some pretty bad DRM in the past, Steam forces developers to use their user-friendly DRM, which has been generally accepted as the best solution to the problem.The customer service is apparently non-existent.The prices on origin are ridiculous. PC games do not have the same licensing fees that console games do, They shouldn't cost anywhere near as much.

Forcing people to use their (very flawed) system is not the way get people to use it. If anything it's the way to make it fail. (This post was last modified: 01-17-2012 09:40 AM by Irony.)

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