NC37Hey EA...you know how much more successful BF3 would have been had you not fought with Valve?

AetherI have been a member with them since September 14, 2003. I got steam when I bought my ati radeon 9800xt. It came with a steam voucher that gave me every valve game to date and HL2/CS2 when they released. What a steal that was!

Valve certainly knows how to entice its customers to buy stuff... especially this holiday season.

robalI'd be interested in BF3, but won't buy it anywhere else than Steam.
Sorry, I'm too old and too happy with Steam to consider using anything else.

tiggerI wonder who the oldest steam member is on tpu, I joined in 2004.

INSTG8RMember since 2005.

134 games and counting(not even including DLC and Add Ons that comes up to like 184...)

NC37If the little guy can provide a competitive product that doesn't suck...then yes, root for them.

Origin has not provided this, nor do they seem capable of providing it in the future. The software is a mess, literally spyware, and for a little guy, EA should be running competitive specials. EA is not. I have not seen them run one deal on Origin that I could not get less on Steam or Amazon.

Here is deal, the little guys aren't running the deals Steam is, or at least not to the same volume. Now no Steam is not always cheapest, but when Steam sales come, I've found more often than not they are cheaper or at least on par. I'm talking about the major sale events, not minor specials.

I will say that this year's holiday sale, Steam was about $.50 higher on titles that have been historically low on the sales. So they were up a little.

But could they become like M$ or Apple? Sure, there is no debating that. But so far, I don't see Valve making the same moves. They are making record sales during sale times when they aren't getting the bigger cut? Really, that shouldn't be. This isn't a time to point fingers at Valve and cry monopoly. We need to point fingers at them and then tell the rest of the industry..."Why the heck are you charging us premium when they clearly do more business when not charging premium?!!"

Be mad at Valve all you want for HL3 or L4D2, but when it comes down to it, they aren't punishing their customers with this crap nickle and dime strategy that M$ and the rest of the industry seem to crave.

If Valve really was the big evil monopoly, they would never run a single Steam sale again. They'd insist their service is a premium and even likely charge subscription for it. Instead they are running deals all the time and doing what the customer wants.

This is the same business strat that Amazon uses. Now sure Amazon's shipping and support have gotten horrid, but they just give the customer what they want and the customer will continue to support them. It is a customer centric strategy which pays off a lot more in economic hardship times than telling them what they want. M$ and Sony can't do it...they treat the customer about as good as they'd treat an enemy.

When Valve stops doing this, they'll lose all their business almost overnight. Heck I would right away drop Steam. And I've gone from hating Steam and one time to now loving it. Origin will fail because EA cannot comprehend this. Their EULA on Origin shows just how they think of their customers. Sorry but treatment like that will not be embraced unless users are forced onto it...ie: XBL.