Ok so this has been motivated due to an argument that myself and another writer on tecstories had earlier today. Now what I had said was that Origins, owned and operated by EA could and might start to push into the Games Distribution market and could quite effectively completely remove Steam (owned and operated by Valve Corporation) as a means to purchase further games, the reason I say this is that we all have games on Steam so none of us want Steam to go. 

Now as we all know, the big titles nowadays seem to be releasing with Steam, both HardCopy and digital, and example of a game would be Bethesda's Skyrim or Blizzard-Activision's popular Call of Duty series of which Modern Warfare 2, Black Ops and now Black Ops 2 is being sold on Steam. What most of may have noticed though is how much these games are, Skyrim is $60, same was with Modern Warfare 2 when it came out and the same was with these big titles that choose to use Steam as their form of content-delivery.

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Now to get to the meat of the conversation, why is it that EA, a company that matches if not exceedes Valve in terms of profit, cannot develop a content-delivery system that will not only beat Steam, but completely obliterate it. Let's look at why the prices are as they are on Steam for example, when a developer approaches Steam as their form of content-deliver, Steam demands a 30% stake in the sale, so for every copy of a game bought on Steam, Valve gets 30% of that sale, thus the reason for the $60 ~ R500 pricetag on CoD and Skyrim. So think about it, Bethesda for example used to sell games for ~R350 (South African, deal with it Americans ) now this was when they weren't using Steam. Now due to Steam, Bethesda must now add that 30% fee incurred which now bumps up prices for us to R500 ($60).

Ok so back to Origins, why is it that Origins cannot simply publish games but at a lower price, for example, instead of demanding a 30% fee, instead only charge a 20% fee. Now you may say, as bob did, why would EA do this, surely they should just keep it at a 30% fee. You are now the customer, would you pay for Skyrim at 30% (R500~$60) or Skyrim at 20% (R420~$51), now this is taken with a base of R350. So already you can see, should Origin (Electronic Arts) cut the fee by a mere 10%, you're telling me that yourself as the customer would rather go to Steam? No, didn't think so. So to clarify, even though EA will be maing 10% less per game than Steam, more people would buy from Origins so they would actually nmake more money, Economics Next thing you may think, well surely Steam would then match if not beat Origins prices? Yes they would, I have no doubt that they would. But lets remember something, at the moment Valve = EA in terms of money generated more or less, so for Valave this is their livelyhood, EA not so much they could put the fee all the way dow to 1% if they wanted to and would still be making a profit. Valve however would suffer greatly since Valve is mainly based around Steam as their form of revenue. So again EA would benefit and would succeed in taking Valve's customer base.

Now for an example, at the moment since EA hasn't really pushed for other Game Developers to use Origins, I can give 1 example and it's a good one none the less. 

Most of us now of a game known as Kingdom of Amalur: Reckoning, now this is the first game I have seen that uses Origins as one form of content-delivery with the other form being Steam. Short and sweet, the price for Reckoning on Steam? $60 ~R500 on Origins? R349.99, However we must take into account that EA does publish this game thus does not need to incur a fee ,but if it did add 20% it would be R420, ok so now as we can see by the price which one are you going to be buying? the Steam version or the Origins version..?

Let's me clarify any points here, what I am trying to say is that EA could completely ruin Steam just for giggles since they would just carry on operating as if they never had Origins, so am I not right in saying that Origins could and may be the next big content-delivery system. Another thing you may be thinking, why does this guy prefer Origins asopposed to Steam? Well one major glaring point, everygame I have bought on Origins, not once have they said "This game is currently unavailable" due to some update I dont have, Origins says: sure man lets just play, who cares about updates, do it in your own time. So to me that is less intrusive. That's why I prefer Origins. Inb4 Origin EULA, it isn't that harsh, sure it stops you from sueing them, but really are you going to? Some people also think the EULA robs people of the right to make a dispute public, have you guys heard of blogs ? facebook ? There ways to make ones self heard.