EA confirms Dragon Age 2 DLC caused Steam removal
by Steve Watts, Jul 28, 2011 7:30am PDTEA has confirmed in a statement that Dragon Age 2 was pulled from Steam due to a conflict with Valve's new policy on downloadable content. We suspected as much yesterday when the story broke, but EA senior VP of global e-commerce David DeMartini puts the reasoning in no uncertain terms, even calling Steam's policies "restrictive."
At EA, we offer our games and content to all major download services including GameStop, Amazon, Direct2Drive and Steam. Unfortunately, Steam has adopted a set of restrictive terms of service which limit how developers interact with customers to sell downloadable content. No other download service has adopted this practice. Consequently some of our games have been removed by Steam. We hope to work out an agreement to keep our games on Steam.
Left unsaid are the exact terms of Steam's new policy. As reported yesterday, the new terms seem to restrict games from being sold if their associated DLC can't be sold directly through Steam. Dragon Age 2 (and Crysis 2 before it) sold new content with BioWare Points, and were yanked from the service. The word "new" is important, because games can apparently use the same DLC distribution system and be grandfathered in, as long as they don't introduce any new downloadable content.
It's all a bit muddy at the moment, and it's good to know that EA is at least attempting to work out an agreement with Valve. In the meantime, fans will have to grab certain EA games elsewhere.
Splinter Cell Blacklist co-op modes partially detailed
FIFA 14 on PC won't use Ignite engine
Ace Attorney Trilogy coming to iOS next week
Far Cry 3 editor jazzed up with Blood Dragon shinies
Epic Mickey 2 for Vita coming June 18
Poker Night 2 antes up on iOS
Warhammer Quest hitting iOS May 30
Super Stardust dev making 'spiritual successor' for PS4
Dungeons & Dragons: Chronicles of Mystara preview: classic arcade revival
Final Fantasy XIV gets reborn on August 27; collector's edition detailed









Comments
EA has issued a statement regarding the removal of Dragon Age 2 from Steam, confirming that it's due to "restrictive" DLC policies from Valve.
EA has issued a statement regarding the removal of Dragon Age 2 from Steam, confirming that it's due to "restrictive" DLC policies from Valve. : Shacknews
Thread Truncated. Click to see all 133 replies.
A record of the history of this is here: http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-1722641.html - I was involved in all this, so I remember it distinctly.
You must be logged in to post.