EA pulls Crysis 2 from Steam

Crysis 2 has been on sale since March 22 this year in both boxed copy and digital forms. Until today, you could buy and download the game from the number one digital games store: Steam. But not anymore as publisher EA seems to have pulled it from public view.

It is strange to do this for a game that’s already on general release, and there’s no official statement as to why it has happened. The best guess so far is EA has decided to use Crytek’s game as a marketing tool for its own digital games store called Origin.

Crysis 2 is available through Origin, so it seems that EA has just decided to remove its biggest competitor from the equation. Even so, you can still buy the game from other, less popular digital outlets.

While this may not worry gamers too much for a title that has been available for 3 months everywhere, it doesn’t bode well for the future avialbility of EA published titles. For example, the forthcoming Alice: Madness Returns is listed as exclusive to Origin until June 17. Does that mean all future game will be limited to Origin for a few weeks first?

If that’s the case then Battlefield 3 could see gamers having to decide between a boxed copy or Origin download purchase. If you always buy through Steam then you may not be picking up the game for a few weeks after launch.

Read more at Rock, Paper Shotgun

Matthew’s Opinion

I appreciate digital stores for PC games because it gives me the freedom to play on multiple machines and always have a backup copy available to download. I also appreciate the sales that come up such as Steam’s recent introduction of a daily deal.

What I don’t like is the pricing of new games matching those of the boxed copy on launch. This is especially true of the Origin store. This is the publisher after all, selling its own game for the same price as the boxed retail copy, but without the packaging, shipping, and revenue split with a retailer. In other words, it’s a huge profit gain from every copy sold for EA rather than rewarding the player with a lower price for downloading while retaining the same profit margin.

Now add to that the exclusivity period for the game on Origin. Not only does this limit competition and keep pricing high, but it removes the ability for other stores to take advantage of the larger profit margin on a new game release. Instead, EA is overcharging for the game you can only buy through its own store digital form.

If every publisher decided to do this then services like Steam would really suffer. They can sell all games on the market, but only after the early adopters have snapped up copies direct from the publisher. That is not a healthy way to sell games, and I hope publishers realize this soon.