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Posted on June 15, 2011, Ron Whitaker EA Pulls Crysis 2 From Steam, Say it’s Origin Only (UPDATED With EA Response)

UPDATE: We’ve just received a response from EA. Apparently they did NOT pull Crysis 2 from Steam. Rather, it was a result of Steam’s policies. Here’s their response:

It’s unfortunate that Steam has removed Crysis 2 from their service. This was not an EA decision or the result of any action by EA. Steam has imposed a set of business terms for developers hoping to sell content on that service – many of which are not imposed by other online game services. Unfortunately, Crytek has an agreement with another download service which violates the new rules from Steam and resulted in its expulsion of Crysis 2 from Steam. Crysis 2 continues to be available on several other download services including GameStop, Amazon, Origin.com and more.

Very interesting, even though we didn’t get an answer as to whether future titles would be Origin exclusive. I guess we’ll have to wait and see on that one.

ORIGINAL STORY:A couple of weeks back, EA announced that they were launching Origin, a new digital download service that would compete with Steam. During E3, they launched a number of trailers exclusively on Origin. Now, they’ve begin pulling titles off Steam, starting with Crysis 2.

While the game is listed as Origin-only now, it’s still available for purchase from Amazon, Impulse, and Direct2Drive. No word yet on whether EA will be pulling the game from those outlets as well, but we’ve dropped a line to the company to ask. If they don’t pull it from everywhere, it makes it pretty obvious that they’re targeting Steam. That wouldn’t be a huge surprise, considering that Steam is the elephant in the digital delivery living room

It remains to be seen how gamers will react to Origin. The EA Store, which sold digital copies of games like Battlefield: Bad Company 2, lacked many of the convenience features of Steam. It appears that Origin will be much the same, eschewing a client for a web-based interface, but also forgoing things like automatic patching. Unlike Steam, it also allows the buyer to select a physical copy of the game instead of just a digital copy.

It also remains to be seen how well Origin can compete in a market dominated by Steam. However, making games like Crysis 2, Star Wars: The Old Republic, Mass Effect 3 and Battlefield 3 Origin exclusives would probably convince a lot of PC gamers to give it a go, even if it’s only because they have to.