Valve's Co-founder Talks About Steam's Competition

Written by: Austin Regimbal (@austinreg) | April 23, 2012 5:00 pm

28 Comments

Shortly after the revelation over Origin’s new policy change, Valve co-founder Gabe Newell gave his impressions on EA’s digital distribution service.

For a man that has been known to be blunt, Newell’s thoughts on Origin seemed rather tame.

According to PC Gamer, Newell was quoted as saying: “They have a lot of work to do to get to way (sic) they want to be and where I as a customer would want them to be.”

He added, “That’s (sic) isn’t to say that they won’t build stuff in the future that is useful to software developers or gamers but they haven’t done that yet.”

Newell went on to say that Valve’s Steam service is about “making things better for other gamers,” while EA needs to “get their head to the same place.”

Origin has more than nine million registered users and has amassed more than $100 million in earnings, so EA probably isn’t in a rush to change their business model.

What do you think? Is Steam on a completely different level than Origin?

Valve's Co-founder Talks About Steam's Competition

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Comment

http://twitter.com/HallusH HallusH

EA was always about “lets see what others are doing and its working and do that too” so unless EA can buy the whole company like the uselly do. and sometimes the games that come after not so great from these companies.
vavle will always be about lets make great games even it takes time. and EA will always be that
oh what can we re-release this year agian.
Suicideking666

The only reason a lot of us have origin is because you cant play ME3, Swotr, BF3 without it.
- http://www.facebook.com/maaddoc Magnus Hoffgaard-Fredman
  
  Thats wierd, I play SWTOR (physical copy) and its not even in my Origin list of games, only BF3 and ME3 out of those 3 games you listed really needs Origin to be able to play them.
Craig Jasper

Awesome how you have legit news stories with video and let’s me know in my facebook just great thanks guys
TacoBaal

If I didn’t play BF3, I’d have avoided a lot of trouble with Origin. It brings nothing new to the table, and I’m already heavily invested with Steam. I don’t see why I need to be forced to adopt another platform by EA :/ The only reason Origin has 9 million users and $100m in revenue is because EA slapped it on BF3, SWTOR, and ME3, and forced players to install it.
- HarmonBlues
  
  I was just eating Taco Bell and watching an episode of Stargate SG1 with Baal in it. No jokes. Get out of mah head! XD <3
  - TacoBaal
    
    That can’t be a coincidence, lol
http://twitter.com/FishBaitism Fish Bait

Couldn`t agree more, Origin is bloody awful & if it wasn`t for having BF3 & Darkspore I`d of saved hours of hassle & HDD space.
Having said that, Steam has problems too, just nowhere near as bad.
John Lennon

Steam is mostly great. For the most part I praise the platform… but the customer service is pathetic.
jazzbrownie

Steam takes an approach of treating its customers the way that they’d like to be treated. They’ve built a really great service that a lot of people love.

Now lets look at EA. When they decided to launch Origin, they stopped putting new games out on Steam and forced Origin upon us. How in the hell is that good for their customers? All they’re concerned about is their bottom line.

So yeah, Steam is on a completely different level.

And as others have said, the only reason there are so many people using Origin is because you can’t play BF3 or buy swtor digitally without it. As soon as my swtor purchase was complete, I got that buggy pos software off of my computer. SWTOR was the last EA game I paid for. I’ve been boycotting (the purchase of) games they publish since then.
7BitBrian

Steam > Origin
- http://www.facebook.com/people/Bruce-Fauble/1466377126 Bruce Fauble
  
  Agreed
http://www.facebook.com/people/Michael-Johnson/1353890372 Michael Johnson

Jesus christ, Gamebreaker.
I just watched an ad before Mike told me to go to Netflix

Fuck off with all this ad shit.
- http://www.facebook.com/people/Bruce-Fauble/1466377126 Bruce Fauble
  
  It’s called paying the bills. If you don’t like it, find the donate button.
  - Jay Nielson
    
    Because clicking donate will somehow stop him from doing the ad?…
  - http://www.facebook.com/people/Jason-Baesel/11612845 Jason Baesel
    
    Seriously dude they gotta make money to support themselves and keep running, chill your face.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Michael-Johnson/1353890372 Michael Johnson

Oh also. “Origin has 9 million users and has made 100 million”

You conveniently left out the fact that EA FORCES people to use origin, and the fact that the 100 million was generated by the fact they don’t have to pay Valve 25%

No one uses Origin to buy games… No seriously… They don’t.

PS: They’re the biggest company because they got lucky with FIFA and The Sims. EA is only good at monetizing games by introducing bullshit like “Project 10$”. OH YEAH, that turned out to be a GREAT step for the gaming industry huh?

You’re both venomously ignorant.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Rebecca-Oakley/100002350570290 Rebecca Oakley

The only reason I have a piece of garbage origin account is because of the sims.
It is nothing like steam.
jayremy

One thing I felt EA had a major plus over Steam was the fact I can truly play ALL of my EA games offline. I try to run any freaking steam game through a couple days where I had no internet service and I couldn’t play a single damn game trying to start up in offline mode, just limits me from trying to run the game without an internet connection.

That really annoyed me about Steam secondly people need to stop being so naive and foolish, Origin and Steam are the same crap. I love that I can buy games with them, I really HATE the fact that I have to use them both to play games with, as I stated above the dependency seems worse with steam.

I do acknowledge the the EA company as a whole is a beast of its own and many times a foul one, things typical to any major money hungry corporation. I don’t mind them beyond the fact of needing them after purchase and having another lame background program running when I attempt to play a game, sometimes also using permitted bandwidth, mainly again with steam (probably because I use it more).

The one thing EA does that the much more lame Activision never does, is always shoot themselves in the foot with the many major game related decisions they make; as usual the customer pays but so does EA in turn.
- pc11
  
  I only have Origin because of ME3 and I CAN NOT play the game offline. As soon as I uninstall ME3 Origin goes out too.
  
  You can play your Steam games by running them directly from the folders in your disc. Steam does not even need to be on… you fail.
  - jayremy
    
    I don’t know about you but a majority of steam games I get are online, not discs. I don’t even see why again steam would ever be needed with a disc, same as origin. Try defending steam all you want I really don’t like either as a program that tries to run on my computer for every game, I only like their online services for when looking/buying games.
    - pc11
      
      The only games that are only online are browser games or multiplayer games or parts of the game. Everything else you can play straight from folders on your computer. You really should look better into how your Steam account works…
      - jayremy
        
        I know what you are saying thought I had already addressed this on my previous comment, but whenever I access steam when my computer is literally offline I am unable to play the games. Steam offline mode wont work unless for some reason I had online up since I had last turned my computer on.
        
        Even if I try to to go to the folders where the executable was installed it still always prompts steam to start. If I just keeping getting a never ending loop of being unable to access offline mode Steam for games. So as I have said am unable to do so, try turning off your internet before you turn on your computer and access offline mode after. There is no other place on the computer I have installed the game, they are all under steam>>steamapps>>common folder.
        
        I don’t even see a reason to have to go out of my was so much to try and even make games offline accessible because I usually play when connected but times to often but still uncommon I am on a different computer or have no internet on this one.
pc11

Origin is basicly malware and spyware that you are forced to install on your computer if you want to play certain games. For me this was ME3 and there will be no other.

The damn program forces me to keep it online to play and all the time it is scanning my computer and sending out information to EA.

On the other hand i like Steam but their European pricing policy is an insult. If the game is selling for 30 dollars on their US site they simply put it at 30 euros which at current rates is 39 dollars
http://www.facebook.com/fredrik.gardsio Fredrik Fronken Gardsiö

I’ve never used Origin, so i cant speak for myself, but the people i know use patchers and cracks to be able to play their games without having Origin installed, because it makes everything worse than it was.
Jado Cast

I got Origin for KOA: Reckoning, which is the LAST EA game I will ever buy. Origin blows big chunks, but I do like STEAM.
Krzysztof Kotarba

9 milion users…. how many of them are “free will users”? I play BF3 I’m forced to use that crap. Only one thing is good on origin, since EA has official distribution in my country all prices on origin are in local currency not in € like on steam.
Revanhavoc

I used to complain about those who complain about Origin because the main gripes were just nonsense about them banning all your accounts if you act like a bad boy (why the heck would they do that to a legit customer?) or something about blocking content streaming in the terms of service(Mike B you are either paranoid or narcissistic to think EA watches you) or even more ridiculous comments about Origin stealing personal information…Get serious.

All that being said, when I got some games that have Origin, then I realized…My God. Origin is so annoying. Why didn’t I read through the garbage and realize that actually Origin is just intrusive and minimizes my games to boot up and takes ages to make a connection. It’s just bad design. So yeah. Origin sucks. You guys were right and I was wrong.

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