Crysis 2 Pulled from Steam, Now Origin Exclusive (Updated)
EA has pulled Crysis 2 from Steam and now offers the PC game exclusively on its just-(re)launched Origin online store.
Thanks to the keen eyes of numerous Steam users who noticed that Crytek's new FPS is no longer available, Electronic Arts has reportedly pulled the PC version of Crysis 2 from Valve's digital distribution platform. It now appears on EA's own revamped distribution platform called Origin as an "exclusive title."
Currently Crysis 2 is still up for sale on GamersGate and Direct2Drive, leading to speculation that EA may be shunning Steam specifically. Still, Alice: Madness Returns, which was launched on Tuesday, has yet to appear on Steam, and the publisher already stated last week that BioWare's upcoming MMORPG Star Wars: The Old Republic would be an Origin exclusive when it launches later this year. A special edition of Battlefield 3 is also slated as an Origin exclusive.
"In the case of Star Wars we're trying to build an audience for Origin," said EA Games president Frank Gibeau. "And it's also an opportunity for us to better manage the downloads and how we bring people over from the beta and that sort of thing. For a lot of reasons it made sense for an MMO, which is a highly complex deployment."
"I think long-term you'll see we believe in reach so we will have other digital retailers for out products because we want to reach as many audiences as possible," he added. "But at the same time if we can use exclusive content or other ideas to help grow our audience then we're going to do that because we're growing a platform."
The company confirmed on Wednesday that it plans to offer more digital titles exclusively on Origin as well as other unique Origin-specific content. Right now EA still has its own special micro-store set up on Steam's platform, offering recently-published titles like Bulletstorm, The Sims 3 Generations, Dragon Age II and many more.
UPDATE: EA said that Crysis 2 was pulled by Steam because of a change in its terms. "It's unfortunate that Steam has removed Crysis 2 from their service," an EA representative clarified. "This was not an EA decision or the result of any action by EA. Steam has imposed a set of business terms for developers hoping to sell content on that service - many of which are not imposed by other online game services. Unfortunately, Crytek has an agreement with another download service which violates the new rules from Steam and resulted in its expulsion of Crysis 2 from Steam. Crysis 2 continues to be available on several other download services including GameStop, Amazon, Origin.com and more." -Thanks Tim!
- Newegg Rejects Best Buy's Copyright Infringement Claim
- Free to Play Games Now Available on Steam
- NEC Says Its Memory Saves Info Without Power
- BioWare Repies to Star Wars: The Old Republic ''WoW Clone'' Comments
- Samsung's Stunning Flexible AMOLED for Q2 2012
- Bill Gates Gladly Admits That He's a Geek, And His Kids Are Still Banned From Apple Products
- Lion Boasts Chrome OS-like Browser Mode
- Deals June 13: 51'' Samsung 3D 1080p Plasma HDTV + Free $200 eGift Card for $799.99
- Wizardry Reboot Gets MMORPG in 2012 Too
- DNF PR Firm Threatens To Punish Sites For Bad Reviews, then Says Sorry
- ARM And AMD Partner On OpenCL
- Previous Generation Radeon HD Powers the Wii U
- Mass Effect 3 May Have 4-Player Co-Op
- BioWare Hacked via Neverwinter Nights Forums
- Deals for June 16: Alienware M11x Core i3 $699
- Microsoft Hints To An August 2012 Win 8 Launch
- Pitchford: People Love Duke; St. John: Clueless Critics
- Deals for June 17: 42'' LG 120Hz 1080p LCD $499
As things stand right now, Mass Effect 3 will be the last EA/BioWare title I buy, partially because of junk like this. The version I buy will be retail if it's an Origin exclusive and not available on Steam.
uhmmmm....
Steam does this with Valve titles...
what's wrong with EA doing same thing Valve is doing?
It is about time EA started doing this. One of the biggest video game publishers and they've stuck with their mediocre EA Download Manager for such a long time. Though many may hate the idea of SW:TOR, Crysis 2, and other EA games being offered not appearing on Steam... I find it an intelligent move, since just offering the game on Steam costs as much as having Gamestop, Amazon, Wal-Mart, etc. selling it. At least now all digital sales will now be sucked up by the EA corporation. ;p
They are making the biggest, money making, mistake ever.
Valve/Steam > EA drool.
I wouldn't ever switch over to a distribution service run by Electronic Arts. That is pure fail.
Games I might have played, but now won't. Not having to deal with a myriad of Steam clones is enough for me to avoid anything that will force me to sign up for one.
E: Ugh. Confronted with the harsh reality that a lot of games I genuinely enjoy are published by EA, and are likely to be stuck on Origin, I probably won't be able to avoid it - unless, of course, I decide that I'm content not to play any new title from BioWare, Dice, Epic, etc., or random games like Alice: Madness Returns. Unfortunately, that's not a decision I'd be content with. Time to brace myself for the inevitability of providing another Steam clone with my credit card info, populating and juggling another friends list, and all the other monotony that comes with it. Le sigh.
It took Valve a long time to develop the user base they have today. EA is shooting themselves in the foot if they go with a new untested and undeployed platform for all their PC digital distributions.
For the MMO type game it makes sense to go directly to the MMO site for download and hopefully the MMO launcher handles all the updates without having to use something like Steam or Origin for every patch.
Crysis 2 not available on Steam? Now I don't have see the $60 price tag for a crap game, oh noes! So much for waiting for a Steam sale to finally play it.
I really enjoy having a centralized area for all of my PC gaming needs. This ... is ridonculous.
Well they just made the biggest mistake of their lives....
Steam is a very respected and liked among the gaming community. EA is NOT. EA is seriously the evil corporation that they depict in books, movies and anyplace else.
EA is such a trash, POS company. I can't wait until I see their stocks plummet from the losses they'll get from this.
As things stand right now, Mass Effect 3 will be the last EA/BioWare title I buy, partially because of junk like this. The version I buy will be retail if it's an Origin exclusive and not available on Steam.
But what if the retail version is just a key that needs origin to activate?
I bought Shogun 2 Total War on retail... I needed Steam to activate it.
If this is what EA does to ME3 then you are fucked...
Considering EA already treats me like a pirate and a baby killer when i purchase their games. I have a copy of mirror's edge and need for speed that i can't install anymore because i have used up my allotted number of installs(I reformat my computer at least once a year) and they basically refuse to authorize more installs. So the idea of using their download manager/store is not appealing at all.
Ya that is what I want. Having my digital games all over the place and having to remeber a bunch of passwords. I can live without EA`s games. So go ahead. To be honest I lost interest in them after buying the Dragon age game of the year and I could not play it for about 4 months because I had to log into thier servers to play a offline game and somehow my game was registered to someone else.
Make it even a tiny bit harder for me to buy your product and I simply wont.
Also... the only reason I bought Shogun 2 on retail was to get the limited edition version for 30% off on newegg... No limited edition version or sale on steam at the time.
What a dumb move. Steam is extremely popular.. To pull your product from that big of a customer base is plain dumb.
uhmmmm....Steam does this with Valve titles...what's wrong with EA doing same thing Valve is doing?
It's not the same thing, Crysis 2 WAS available on Steam, EA pulled it. That's the kind of douchebaggery (I may be making that word up) that makes people stop supporting a company.
EA is making a big mistake here
The user base from Steam (from casual to hardcore) is big enough to last a good long years to come and EA is turning it's back at it with the idea of lurking them to their crappy un-tested re-launched platform? Talking about a bad and risky move alright.
The XBLA model works when you actually HAVE a console to back it up; EA has nothing of the like. Games For Windows lost to Steam already, and we're talking about Microsoft here. Now they'll push XBLA to PCs with Win8 and prolly Steam won't even be affected, but all the others will.
Cheers!
If it's not on Steam, I don't buy it.
The issue is that Origin like EA Download Manager is absolutely horrible and unreliable software along with Games for Window Live. I have yet to find any distribution even remotely as good as Steam. Keep the ball on Valve's court; a lot of gamers don't want to go to the kiddies’ court with broken rims and no nets.
Crap. That means I will have to buy the box version of BF3.
I have bought Crysis 2 on Steam, does that mean i will be forced to switch to this "Origin" platform.
Sad thing is you will more than likely not see a game on sale on Origin as you would on Steam. Pretty dick move though to pull games from Steam's service.
I for one haven't used Origin, is even some kind of client? Other than something keeping your game updated, all I see is a storefront which you could hardly call a competitor with Steam.
I bet Activision is excited. MW3 will be the only major shoot on Steam this fall. More sales for them.
I'm not sure how cutting yourself off from a popular distributor like Steam will grow your business, sure it forces people to use your service but you still lose that advertising on steam.
Not a sound move from EA.
i hate steam...
Yeah that will really help your sales numbers EA. /sarcasm.
EA knows their sales numbers will take a hit by moving away from Steam. Or at least it would for any other title. That is why they chose their biggest name recognition title to do this move -- hoping the lure of the name "Crysis" is strong enough to make it worth the hassle. Their choices are to 1) Continue to prop up a competitor, or 2) Go it alone in hopes of getting a foot in the door in the form of their distribution app on your PC.
I thought about buying it on Steam last week but money is tight so I was going to wait for the first sale on it...LOL...now it won't go on sale at all!
If it's on Impulse, I prefer it. FREE DRM is better than Steam DRM. But EA DRM servers are quited a mess, unreliable and will be closed down before Steam/Impulse. It was like this in the past, it will come back in the future.
EA IS APPARENTLY DENYING THIS WAS THEIR FAULT.
http://www.computerandvideogames.c [...] -decision/
This is BS... I remember the good old days when you could buy a game, install it and play it instead of dealing with digital distribution crap, "limited/collector's editions", DLCs and redeem codes... Is it actually still possible to buy a game on a DVD without online activation (so that it has NOTHING to do with Steam/EA Store/etc.) in US/Europe?