Earlier today, Crytek’s Crysis 2 was pulled off digital distribution platform Steam. Speaking to Gamefront, publisher EA confirmed that the game was no longer available on Steam, but that the game was removed from the service by Valve, rather than EA itself. According to EA, Valve took Crysis 2 down from Steam due to new rules that conflict with Crytek’s agreement with ‘another download platform.’
It is currently unclear whether the other download platform EA refers to is actually EA’s own Origin service, though Crysis 2 has been spotted as carrying a “Only on Origin” label as of today. The game remains available on other services, such as Amazon, Direct2Drive, Gamersgate, and Impulse.
Though no official statement has ever been given on the matter, upcoming EA titles including Alice: Madness Returns and Battlefield 3 are available for pre-order through several download platforms, though not through Steam. Whether any of these titles will come available for the platform is therefore unclear.
Valve has not yet made an official statement on the matter.
Well this just got interesting. Now to see how much of a success EA’s new download service is this time around.
This might hurt EA in the long run. Sure, they are cutting out the middle man, but Steam has been such a good middle man. I think people would rather have the ‘I can find everything’ service rather than going to the publisher services.
I’m all for competition, but in all honesty, there’s starting to be too many digital download services.