Also, the mobile industry is currently expanding at a higher rate than desktop hardware (look at the last 2 years, gone from single core to quad cores in mobile, graphics performance etc). The rate at which the performance is increasing is much faster than desktop hardware (although not on par in terms of total performance/power), I don't see how paying $99 a year on a Ouya box designed for mobile games will be viable.
Mobile developers will easily fragment the Ouya over several years (and I don't think they can justify getting people to rebuy a $100 mobile console each year. You might as well pay $300 for a console that will last 5-10 years and have the same hardware.
I first created my account back when I got the orange box (before that, I'd usually get retail and play DRM free. Bioshock (retail) was the first game I think that required me to have an internet connection to authenticate and play.
But now I only buy Steam games because they are usually cheaper than their retail counterparts (when not on sale) and huge bargains when on sale :)
As long as Valve/Steam keeps offering great customer experiences (simplicity, free DLC, quality games and amazing sales etc) I will continue to support them. Any AAA game that I'm interested in playing will be available through steam, EA has ruined its reputation in the past few years with recent games. I was never interested in Crysis for the MP and now knowing the SP campaign is just 4 hours, I will pass.
Most of the steamworks games are starting to incorporate the steam workshop, so you will start seeing a going trend of consumer engagement with mods and continuous support (EA has killed off much mod support, closed the sims2 and simcity 4 mod sites/refuse to release map editors for BF3 etc. EA cuts support to servers for all there games after a certain game making it unplayable, many valve games are still going strong to this day, thanks to dedicated servers, CS1.6 still has many users)
For a family, a parent could technically have multiple computers in a house in steam offline mode to share SP games for their kids :D.
DRM is likely something will will have to accept, developers need some form of online authentication to comabt piracy, so don't expect complete DRM-free to ever come back (except for older games from GOG and select games that developers dont utilize steamworks)
Valve games offer free DLC and regular updates, community and social aspects. offline mode and a few other things Origin doesn't offer or simply don't compare.
Many of the steamwork games were decisions developers made to make work with steam because of the already large fanbase with added support for achievements, mods etc.
Origin on the other hand gives no compromise. You want to play a newer EA title, too bad it must go through Origin (did Valve do this when it first started? No).
Valve built a fanbase by establishing a good reputation and quality products.
Compare the numbers, 40M origin users accounts compared to how many Steam accounts? Steam may have less accounts, but the percentage if concurrent users remains high in steam. 1.3M out of 40M origin users on at a given time is terrible...shows that many were forced to use it for certain games only.
If you check the public information on the shares, you will see the the former CEO owns very few shares of the company (less than 1%). That is hardly anything...
Wrong...do some research before you call me out as some HS kid that knows nothing about business. Very few CEOs own massive stock in companies (Steve Jobs was the founder and CEO of his company, who took stocks on top of his "$1 salary" partly because you dont get taxed as much for owning stocks, regardless of value)
If you check, John Riccitiello held close 450k shares (public information for a public company in the stock market).
In comparison, the largest shareholder (FRM LLC owns approximately 11% of EA with about 36 million shares...
<< LINK REMOVED >>+Major+Holders
Who's the one making stuff up and posting it as facts?
1. They have a horrid reputation. They buy publishers and ruin a great franchise...done so on numerous occasions.
2. The way they handled the whole SimCity disaster threatening to ban people who wanted refunds, ban people on forums when they complain about issues with the game...this all sums up the kind of customer appreciation they have.
3. Are bullies in the industry. They know Origin would not succeed in todays market without forcing it upon customers.
4. EA has innovated very little. When they became a monopoly on Sports franshise and milking others (Sims) for the same stuff countless times, I simply find it insulting and will not pay any money towards a company that functions this way.
I though the whole point of being a consumer, is not to bend the knee when someone offers you a lousy experience or product, but instead not pay for their products and speak out why? I'm speaking out against a company I once could respect, but when the offer horrible services, I will not blindly sit by and watch. If someone doesn't stand up for their own beliefs, companies will walk all over you and things will only get worse...I'm not on the EA hate bandwagon...EA brought this on themselves.
Steam doesnt* limit games exclusively to their client.
There may be some games that require steam (Fallout NV for example) but that is because Bethesda implemented steamworks and achievements within the game to work with that particular client. Only Valve could be argued to be exclusive (but allows for offline play). And based on the fact that Valve makes quality and releases free updates and DLC, Im okay with that.
But EA forces all new EA games to use the service, when frankly its not up to par with Steam...
So I'm saying, make it available to any platform you wantm, but make incentives as to why I should purchase it with Origin...Origin is new...but it can't bully gamers into following their way to get people to use it (Steam brough in players with quality games as well as amazing sales, something I dont find often on Origin.
@Leeric420 @theend3r Compared to the rest of the shareholders...a CEO typically holds little in comparison (not too mention CEOs usually sell their shares after they leave a company.
For real changes to occur, they need to clean house with the board of directors.
@SergioMX Sorry, but have you actually tried Origin and compared it to Steam?
I could list several benefits of Steam over Origin. EA did nothing innovating to make Origin worthwhile or improve upon other clients (only made things worse in some cases)...the whole client and BF3 battelog thing was a complete disaster (no unified chat options with friends). I literally had to open multiple chat windows with the same friend (1 for origin chat, 1 for squad chat and 1 for battelog chat). Even simple things like resizing the client is buggy and annoying (would wish I could snap it in Win7 instead of having to manually resize it when i got multiple windows).
I'm not defending Steam, I'm saying, as a disgruntled Origin user, that it causes more problems and is more an inconvenience than anything else.
I will not settle with EA pushing around gamers by forcing Origin as an exclusive client. Simply put, as a consumer, I will speak with my wallet and not endorse tactics that don't benefit the consumer. Its the principle, many here likely agree with me on how Origin is pointless (doesn't add any competition to steam apart from exclusivity).
I wouldn't deny that competition is good, but only if the net benefit is helping the consumer. If EA made games available by choice and provided perks or incentives for purchasing within Origin, thats something completely different (and something I would appreciate).
YoungCardinal's comments