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How do you guys feel about this? I can't find an official article that states their reasoning or if it's permanent, so it's up in the air right now. Crysis 2 was on Steam, now it's gone. The new Alice won't be on Steam. Most people think it's so they can push their own new "Origin" service.

I'm not too thrilled about having to use yet another game distribution platform. I'm pretty happy with Steam. I was looking forward to Battlefield 3.. but not enough to get it through Origin.

i don't find it suprising as EA no doubt had to pay steam for distributing their games and everyone wants as much of the pie as possible.

in this case though, i don't think it's going to be a good thing for the consumer because as you mentioned now you have to have not only one but two bloatware apps constantly checking for updates and just being intrusive. and while it generates some increased revenue for the game developer/distributer in the short term it is shortsighted because one of the biggest advantages of having a centralized app/game store/distribution site/app is the cross-pollination that happens (bad word i can't think of a better at the moment) where you impulse buy things you wouldn't otherwise have known about. if i go to log onto steam to download an add-on to a Valve game i might see an EA game that looks interesting and i might purchase it - even if i had never heard of the game before that. now fast forward to EA limiting sales to their own distribution site - no more cross-purchases, i have to KNOW about EA's game and actively go to their site to buy it - no more impulse buys.

the one-stop game/app distribution site is the supermarket model of shopping. if i go to the supermarket to buy corn on the cob for a cookout and see some strawberries that look really good i'll buy some. thinking of fruit makes me think of juice and i remember i need juice so i get some. walking to the checkout line i pass a display of chips and salsa... etc... if i had just gone to a vegetable store i would not have purchased the fruit or juice or chips or....

Gah. That's the whole reason I bought an Xbox. The PC gaming world is getting so murky and confused it's hardly even worth playing games on them anymore. Companies, especially EA, are becoming excessively fond of draconic DRMs; games will work one day and mysteriously stop working the next; some games won't work at all without an active Internet connection; have to keep track of CD codes, which sometimes just stop working for no reason; blah, blah, blah…

Although I have to say, the inability to use cheats on the Xbox (without modding or some equally annoying process) is a bummer.