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!

I wouldn't ever switch over to a distribution service run by Electronic Arts. That is pure fail.
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.
Steam does this with Valve titles...
what's wrong with EA doing same thing Valve is doing?
I wouldn't ever switch over to a distribution service run by Electronic Arts. That is pure fail.
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.
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.
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.
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...
Make it even a tiny bit harder for me to buy your product and I simply wont.
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.
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!