Re: A healthy playerbase, or platform exclusivity? Which one, Popcap, EA?

I don't know, I begin to wonder what sort of reaction such an excuse would have with EA's shareholders.  They are, after all, legally obligated to make as big of a return as possible.  Leaving possible tens of thousand to hundreds of thousand of sales on the table because of such petty reasons (I bet they could reconciliate with Valve if they wished, if that story is true.) seems like exactly the kind of thing a publicly traded company SHOULDN'T be doing, no?

The biggest problem is that they're EA. I'm sure the shareholders decided that they could make a larger profit by creating Origin, and...they're right. If EA were a smaller company this wouldn't be an issue at all. But EA is a huge company and they have some of the largest titles in gaming. Sims, Battlefield, Dragon Age, Mass Effect, etc. They can afford to do this and still make a huge profit. I mean when it comes down to it, opinions don't really matter. I highly doubt EA will open up to Steam especially since the profits gained from GW2 will drastically increase once they add micro transactions into the game.

Basically, just don't get your hopes up.

Except my argument hinges on getting more profit after their revenue stream from the game already dries up.  It's literally turning down free money in favor of... well, nothing, really.

They haven't done this in the past with Mass Effect 3/Dead Space 3/Battlefield 4/ Sims 4. All signs point to them keeping it as an Origin exclusive but who knows. One thing is for sure, if it does go to Steam (which, again, I wouldn't get my hopes up) it won't be for a long time. And I mean a long time.

I think the difference is those games all had their brands built up on Steam before they went over to Origin, and they're MUCH bigger names than Garden Warfare.  You can tell just by looking for a server that GW2 does not command the same kind of playerbase as even Dead Space 3, which was easily the weakest out of those games.

Generally you want to build your brand up and THEN take it away, but that's just me.  I'm just really angry that EA cares more about their stupid little inferior platform with missing features than making sure I have a game I can actually play when I want to play it.  But EA doesn't care about me.  Apparently they don't care about their investors or money, either.  That said, it looks like the only thing they care about it petty grudges.  Sounds like classic EA.

Well...on the PC. Which as I understand has the lowest player base out of all three consoles. And Plants vs Zombies is a massive brand. That doesn't suddenly become any less true just because it's a spin off. And whilst I'm at, EA's profits have definitely gone UP because of their decision. Valve takes (roughly) 30% from all sales. Considering the success of those games and of Garden Warfare which is a massive brand.

Also what mode were you trying to play? Garden/Graveyard Ops? Because I've seen plenty of PC footage of the other multiplayer modes and there's no big issue there.

And the revenue WON'T dry up. They will only sell more copies as time goes on. People will get over their dislike of Origin and buy the game if they really want to play. And even if they don't, (They will) in a few months or so they're almost definitely going to add microtransactions into the game and as long as you have people who enjoy the game on PC they'll buy them. 

People will get over their dislike of Origin?  Uhhh, what?  Origin sales lately have been pretty flat.  What EA needs to understand here is that they're not the big boys in town any longer.  There's no game drought, there's a constant flood of amazing games and they're just not competing on PC.  It doesn't matter if you like gaming on PC or not, you could literally never buy an EA game and never be hurting for titles to choose from.  I've bought like 15 games on Steam in the last month or two, I only got this because I absolutely loved the first.  I can typically get several friends to buy a title to play with me, and those I can't I just gift it to them.

I can't do that with Origin, no one gives half a * about my recommendation if it's on Origin.  It's not like they're really missing out, there's a million other things to play without switching over to EA's inferior-in-every-way service.  Even the "faster downloads" people report are bogus, with EA reporting the "download speed" of the full file size even though it's downloading a compressed file that is much smaller.  Can't even report download speeds honestly.  That's EA!

In the last several weeks I have purchased on Steam...

Street Fighter V (Incomplete as hell but a blast nonetheless)

Factorio (Freaking incredible)

Stardew Valley (Amazing)

Danganronpa (Not as good as 999 but still utterly fantastic)

SUPERHOT (Fantastic!)

Evertown (Great fun!)

Pony Island (Great game that messes with your expectations!)

Chaos Tower (Silly fun)

Plague Inc Evolved (A blast)

Devil Daggers (Simple and amazing)

NeonXZS (Woo!  6DOF fun!)

XCOM 2 (Buggy as hell but addicting as hell)

The Division (Surprisingly compelling betas that convinced me the game was worth it)

The Witness (No comment needed!)

Firewatch (Loooove this oen)

Rise of the Tomb Raider (Extremely well made and fun)

And that's me cutting out like 6 games.  This isn't like 2007 or whatever when I'd be settling for a port of Resident Evil 4 without lighting effects because there was so little to choose from.  We are spoiled for choice.  And if EA doesn't give half a * about their game having a decent playerbase, why should I try to get my friends in it?  I hate how little they respect me as a consumer here.  Lobbies are still empty, it's completely depressing as someone who really, REALLY loves this game.  But even if I got all my friends to buy it, that wouldn't fill up the servers.  This is as full as they're gonna get.  It only goes down from here until they have a completely massive sale.

The fact that I care about the success of this game more than EA (from what I can see, at least) is... unreal.

Do you have any idea how much money they're making by not switching over? They'd lose thirty percent of the profits. So they'd have to sell significantly more copies of the game to make up the profits they'd be losing by putting it on Steam. Especially considering what's coming out later this year.

And let me rephrase what I said: any gamer worth the title of gamer will get over themselves if they really want to play the game. And if you really know people who say something along the lines of "Oh that game looks co-Oh nope. Never mind it's on Origin. Not worth a second of my time." or "You're my friend and all but your recommendation is worthless to me because it's on Origin." Then I suggest you get new friends.

This is the issue with PC gamers (and I'm saying this as someone who has over 300 games in my own Steam Library), I mean really. You don't even deserve to call yourself a gamer if you decide you don't like game based on the fact that it's exclusive to a certain platform.

This year EA is going to release another Battlefield game, Mirror's Edge Catalyst, and probably the biggest title of them all Mass Effect: Andromeda. They have no reason to open up to Steam any time soon with the money they'll get from Mass Effect alone.

I feel like I'm saying the same thing over and over and you're not reading it.  I want them to put it on Steam AFTER their Origin sales dry up.  Which it looks like they did about 3 days before the game came out if the population I'm seeing is any indication.  Also, I disagree with your statements about "a title of gamer" and such.  I fully understand why someone who is a consumer does not want to support an inferior platform.  If my friends tell me they've seen a movie that changed their life, but I'll need to go buy a VCR to play it, I'm gonna say "I don't care about what the movie is, I don't want the hassle of this nonsense."

It's not a directly apt comparison, but you get the idea.  People already despise EA, and even more don't like installing unnecessary software on their computer for just one or two titles.  I 100% get that.  I'm willing to put up with it, but I don't hold anyone else to my standards.  It has nothing to do with whether or not they like the game, it's more like "The game sounds cool... but I don't care enough to put down what I'm doing, make an account on this other platform I'll never use besides this one game."   I mean, I think thinking less of your friends because they won't install a crappy third-party game client on command is waaaaay crrrrrrrrazier than them not wanting to install it to begin with, y'know?

In short, I get what you're saying, absolutely, but reality is GW2 sales are dismal on Origin and I as a paying customer am voicing my opinion on a valid and profitable solution.  Not asking for the moon.

I feel like I'm the one repeating myself so to put an end to all that I'll just go back to the original point:

H* will freeze over before EA goes to Steam. It's a perfectly logical decision for them to make, they aren't going to lose any money from said decision, and they aren't going to make enough money to make up the loss of profit if they did open up to Steam.

And out of everything that I said I stand by what I said about your friends. It takes like two minutes to make a new account on a new platform. And if you're recommendation isn't enough to your friends...you should get some new ones. Plenty of my friends hate Origin, but they have plans to buy GW2 when they get the money because I recommended it.