Bethesda - Launches Bethesda.net

[Thrasher]

Moriender, the delusional and paranoid don't listen to reason and ignore facts that contradict their world view. I wouldn't waste time with them.

 

[RPGFool]

@Moriender

Sorry that you cannot understand the contradiction of your telling others to stick to facts when you in the same post do not do so. Not real complicated.

As to opting out of Origin info collection, consumers are allowed only to opt out of hardware info collection. Had you bothered to read all of what you quoted including the link to privacy policy, you might have seen that EA collects lots more info that you cannot opt out of including:

EA also uses its own proprietary analytic metrics tool and other third party analytics technologies to collect information when you use our online products and services and/or play our games on your PC, game system and/or mobile device. These tools and technologies use server log files, web beacons, cookies, tracking pixels and other technologies to collect and analyze certain types of information, including cookies, IP addresses (including for purposes of determining your approximate geographic location), mobile or other hardware device ID or other device identifiers, browser types, browser language, information passed from your browser (if any), referring and exit pages, and URLs, platform type, click information, information about your media, peripheral hardware, software and/or applications installed on your machine and/or device, domain names and types, landing pages, pages viewed and the order of those pages, advertising conversion rates, the date and amount of time spent on particular pages, other Internet and website usage information, game state and the date and time of activity on our websites or games, information about how your game is used, including game metrics and statistics, feature usage and purchase history, as well as unique hardware identifiers such as MAC Address, mobile unique device ID (if applicable) and other similar information.
​

etc,


As to EA game pricing actually it is you that is misinformed; see for example "Don't Punish Electronic Arts Inc For GameStop Corp's Mistakes" http://www.fool.com/investing/gener...h-electronic-arts-inc-for-gamestop-corps.aspx
stating:

On PCs, EA sells its digital games through Origin, a Steam-like DRM platform which has over 50 million users. By keeping its games within this walled garden, EA maintains tighter control over pricing. It is also reportedly planning an EA Access-like subscription service for Origin. EA's PC/browser revenues accounted for 14.4% of its sales last quarter.
​

See also "Steam sales "cheapen intellectual property" says EA Origin boss" http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2012-06-06-david-demartini-origin-wants-to-be-the-hub

Q: One of the things that Steam does is this random deep-discounting of software, and it works well for them. Do you see that as something you want to do?

David DeMartini: We won't be doing that. Obviously they think it's the right thing to do after a certain amount of time. I just think it cheapens your intellectual property. I know both sides of it, I understand it. If you want to sell a whole bunch of units, that is certainly a way to do that, to sell a whole bunch of stuff at a low price. The gamemakers work incredibly hard to make this intellectual property, and we're not trying to be Target. We're trying to be Nordstrom. When I say that, I mean good value - we're trying to give you a fair price point, and occasionally there will be things that are on sale you could look for a discount, just don't look for 75 percent off going-out-of-business sales.
​

There simply is not any substantial price competition for current (less than six months or so) EA games whether you understand it or not. Go search those re-sellers you listed for substantial price competition for current EA games. As stated above, EA maintains tight control over pricing.

You of course are are free to ignore reality.

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[joxer]

Again about store…

Why would he do the search? You should.
Go on some of sites he mentioned, for example Sims 4 on G2A is currently 30 bucks and on EA store it's 40 (because current 33% discount, otherwise it's 50).
Sims 4 is not available in Valve's store, OMG, such a big deal there is one place you can't buy it and who cares for it being available (almost) everywhere else.

But it's the damned store, not client that lurks in your tray bar. Why are we discussing stores here? We have a nice and shiny Pricewatch thread for that.

Bethesda.net will not be used as a store. It'll be just another lurker in the tray bar.

 

[RPGFool]

Again about store…

Why would he do the search? You should.
Go on some of sites he mentioned, for example Sims 4 on G2A is currently 30 bucks and on EA store it's 40 (because current 33% discount, otherwise it's 50).
Sims 4 is not available in Valve's store, OMG, such a big deal there is one place you can't buy it and who cares for it being available (almost) everywhere else.

But it's the damned store, not client that lurks in your tray bar. Why are we discussing stores here? We have a nice and shiny Pricewatch thread for that.

Bethesda.net will not be used as a store. It'll be just another lurker in the tray bar.

Sims 4 was released in North America on September 2, 2014 for Microsoft Windows. Its not current; it's nearly two years old.

I agree that the RPGWatch Pricewatch thread is great.

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[joxer]

And your point is?
I mean I'm sorry, I don't know if EA released any other game since DA:I nor care(d) as their next RPG ME4 is planned for end2016/start2017 interval.

Also, Sims 4, two years old game is still receiving DLC every 2-3 months. So far EA made 10 (ten!) of those. Here's also an interesting thing - you can only buy those DLC one by one on EA store, but elsewhere, for example on Amazon, you can buy them in bundles, here's one:
http://www.amazon.com/Sims-Bundle-P...&qid=1462307521&sr=8-1&keywords=sims+4+bundle

 

[RPGFool]

And your point is?
I mean I'm sorry, I don't know if EA released any other game since DA:I nor care(d) as their next RPG ME4 is planned for end2016/start2017 interval.

EA keeps tight price control for current games. Not a problem for me. I simply don't buy their stuff any more.

Don't know whether Bethesda will take a similar strategy; or how privacy-intrusive Bethesda.net will be as implemented. Hopefully they won't go the EA Origins route. If they do, I will happily exist without their games also.

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[joxer]

No, EA keeps tight price for only one thing and that's Bioware Points. And it's going on for years now.
Those are never on any sale. Anywhere.

 

[Thrasher]

Sales on new current games are minuscule and mostly insubstantial. To be moaning about EA not doing the same worthless thing is absolutely ludicrous.

 

[JDR13]

Was there a sale on tin foil hats recently?

 

[Moriendor]

There simply is not any substantial price competition for current (less than six months or so) EA games whether you understand it or not. Go search those re-sellers you listed for substantial price competition for current EA games. As stated above, EA maintains tight control over pricing.

...

EA keeps tight price control for current games.

So? They are just doing what every publisher does. Who do you think makes the prices on Steam? Valve? Please. The publishers dictate the prices of their products, of course. Every publisher on Steam from EA to Ubi to Take2 puts up their own prices and when there's sales they get a heads-up from Valve to put in their prices for the sale. Valve might make pricing recommendations (for indies mostly) but they don't set the final price. That's up to each individual publisher.

And for the third time: Contrary to Valve or Blizzard, you at least have a chance to buy many of EA's games on e.g. Steam, GOG or uPlay while Origin also sells many UbiSoft and other publishers' games (and indies, too).
With regard to digital client stores, Valve games are 100% exclusive to Steam. Blizzard games are 100% exclusive to Battle.net.
Now *that* is tight price control. It is ludicrous to single out EA here who are actually more open than their competitors with their own games.

Also, I already gave a recent game example with Star Wars Battlefront (SWBF). The game was released in November last year for $60 and went on sale in January for $30. On Origin.
Dragon Age Inquisition GOTY was released in October 2015 for $60 and went on sale for $30 around xmas. On Origin.
As for third parties, well, just head over to G2A and filter by platform (Origin). Tons and tons of cheap keys for recent EA games. SWBF can be had for €23.49 or FIFA 16 for €27.76.
Same on e.g. CDKeys.com, of course, where SWBF is €21.49 or Mirror's Edge Catalyst (preorder!) is €35.99 or FIFA 16 is €26.49 etc. etc. etc.

 

[Gorath]

Valve's games can be bought in other shops. They run deals through GMG a few times a year, often cheaper than on Steam.

 

[Gorath]

The main problem I have with Origin is that the DLC seems to be never on discount. Whenever they have a bundle it seems something is missing in it. (Which is a well known strategy from retail. How often do you see book sales for 3 EUR with lots of interesting fantasy and sci-fi books. Then if you look a bit closer you see that maybe part 1 and 4 of a series are on sale, but not numbers 2 and 3.)

 

[RPGFool]

So? They are just doing what every publisher does. Who do you think makes the prices on Steam? Valve? Please. The publishers dictate the prices of their products, of course. Every publisher on Steam from EA to Ubi to Take2 puts up their own prices and when there's sales they get a heads-up from Valve to put in their prices for the sale. Valve might make pricing recommendations (for indies mostly) but they don't set the final price. That's up to each individual publisher.

And for the third time: Contrary to Valve or Blizzard, you at least have a chance to buy many of EA's games on e.g. Steam, GOG or uPlay while Origin also sells many UbiSoft and other publishers' games (and indies, too).
With regard to digital client stores, Valve games are 100% exclusive to Steam. Blizzard games are 100% exclusive to Battle.net.
Now *that* is tight price control. It is ludicrous to single out EA here who are actually more open than their competitors with their own games.

Also, I already gave a recent game example with Star Wars Battlefront (SWBF). The game was released in November last year for $60 and went on sale in January for $30. On Origin.
Dragon Age Inquisition GOTY was released in October 2015 for $60 and went on sale for $30 around xmas. On Origin.
As for third parties, well, just head over to G2A and filter by platform (Origin). Tons and tons of cheap keys for recent EA games. SWBF can be had for €23.49 or FIFA 16 for €27.76.
Same on e.g. CDKeys.com, of course, where SWBF is €21.49 or Mirror's Edge Catalyst (preorder!) is €35.99 or FIFA 16 is €26.49 etc. etc. etc.

As I explained earlier, unilateral sales on Origins isn't the same as competitive market pricing.

As to the third parties; SWBf is currently $23.99 on Origins; so we have no price competition there. FIFA 16 is more than 6 mos old and received a 4.5 user score on Metacritic so EA allowing lowered pricing is to be expected in view of both timing and obvious problems there.

Mirror's Edge Catalyst has been plagued by multiple delays and has reportedly lost momentum; a bit of pump priming there is probably wise but is hardly representative of standard EA sales operating procedure in view of the problems. But it is nevertheless a surprising exception to the rule.

Who knows; maybe EA has seen the light and is going to do a 180 degree about face. Their privacy policy is still highly problematic (including issues like the highly misleading 'opt out' provision you cited) but perhaps they'll fix that too. If EA could manage to fix their problems in a pro-consumer manner, that would be a great development for everyone.

The bottom line is that EA is scrambling to climb out of a very deep hole that they dug for themselves. I hope they succeed but regardless, I also hope that Bethesda has better sense than to dig themselves into a similar hole.

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[Zloth]

The only problem I have with Origin is that it's another thing to deal with. I wonder how long it will be before somebody makes a meta-store app that shows you GOG/Amazon/Steam/and so on all on one page/app? That could lead to some interesting legal situations….

What is all this "bloatware" silliness, by the way? Steam is taking up about 50MB of memory right now. I could run 100 instances of it and I don't think any game would even noticed the memory loss (maybe GalCiv3 on an insane sized map). Most games wouldn't notice the 10-20% CPU usage, either.

So what do we actually know here? The creation kit for FO4 has an alpha version of some sort of launcher (to launch the CK I presume) that has you log in to Battle.Net and there's a 'redeem code' (disabled) button in the upper right. There's NO word from Bethesda about it becoming a store front, there's just that button up there on software that clearly calls itself Alpha. Even that is on the word of one poster. Has anyone actually gotten the creation kit here?

 

[Moriendor]

Valve's games can be bought in other shops. They run deals through GMG a few times a year, often cheaper than on Steam.

Yes but those (GMG) are 3rd party key stores. We were (mostly) talking about game clients and with regard to game clients Valve and Blizzard are the most restrictive ones because you can not buy their games anywhere else.

 

[lostforever]

The main problem I have with Origin is that the DLC seems to be never on discount. Whenever they have a bundle it seems something is missing in it. (Which is a well known strategy from retail. How often do you see book sales for 3 EUR with lots of interesting fantasy and sci-fi books. Then if you look a bit closer you see that maybe part 1 and 4 of a series are on sale, but not numbers 2 and 3.)

I have nothing against Origin as a platform these days but I do hate that fact EA (yes they own Origin) never bundles DLC.

Anyway I do really like to own all my games in one place but competition is also necessary to keep Steam/Valve in checks. Don't think for a moment that somehow Steam/Valve will play nice if we don't have Origin/gog/etc in the market. So multiple clients is something I am willing to live with...

 

[abharsair]

While I agree that competition is probably a good thing, I do also like to have my games conveniently in as few places as possible. Then there's also the chance of download services getting shut down (e.g. Games for Windows Live or Desura), and while that's theoretically also possible for Steam, it is at this point highly unlikely.

 

[lostforever]

While I agree that competition is probably a good thing, I do also like to have my games conveniently in as few places as possible. Then there's also the chance of download services getting shut down (e.g. Games for Windows Live or Desura), and while that's theoretically also possible for Steam, it is at this point highly unlikely.

This is actually a an argument for having multiple platforms. Don't put all yours eggs in one basket etc.

 

[Moriendor]

I have nothing against Origin as a platform these days but I do hate that fact EA (yes they own Origin) never bundles DLC.

Well, there is a Dragon Age Inquisition GOTY that includes all the DLC. I hope that they will stick with bundling DLC into GOTYs (or other complete editions) for their upcoming games.
The only RPGs that do not have bundles are the ME series and Dragon Age 2 (DAO has an ultimate edition). Let's hope that future MEs/DAs or other RPGs will follow the positive trend set by DAI.

 

[abharsair]

This is actually a an argument for having multiple platforms. Don't put all yours eggs in one basket etc.

Like I said, it's theoretically possible that Steam might go down at some point in the future, but currently it seems much more likely that I'd lose my few Origin or Uplay games instead.