Origin Waiving Distribution Fee for 90 Days for Crowdsourced Games

[CeeKay]

I wonder what the catch is.  this is EA, so it cannot be out of the goodness of their hearts.  maybe an exclusivity agreement?

EA announced today that it will waive distribution fees for crowd-funded games for 90 days after launch. The offer is extended only to "fully-funded, complete and ready-to-publish games designed for digital download to PC platforms." InXile's Brian Fargo and Pinkerton Road's Jane Jensen voiced their support in the press release.

granted, they may get more indie devs to come on over to their service, but with the amount of dislike that Origin gets I cannot see the same devs cutting out Steam or any other service.

[TiLT]

The catch is probably Origin exclusivity. Even if it isn't, this smells of EA trying to pretend that they're part of the crowd funding movement, perhaps hoping to be able to claim that they were one of the pioneers behind it over time. There is no way in hell that EA is doing this out of charity. They want to earn money, and they want people to use Origin.

I think the publishers should know to stay the hell away from crowd funding and indie developers. They don't mix.

[heloder]

"Publishers" doesn't really mean an awful lot. Valve is a publisher. GOG.com is a publisher. If you mean Ye Olde Video Game Publishers like EA, then...why? If developers can get a better deal distributing with EA, then why wouldn't they? I highly doubt they're giving EA any kind of exclusivity. EA wants to build a userbase and this is just another tactic for doing so. And hey, if this causes Valve to lower their take from developers, then isn't that what makes competition great?

[TiLT]

"Publishers" doesn't really mean an awful lot. Valve is a publisher. GOG.com is a publisher. If you mean Ye Olde Video Game Publishers like EA, then...why?

I mean traditional video game publishers that are part of the entire process, not just the actual publishing of the finished game. Otherwise almost every indie developer would also be a publisher. Valve and GOG only cover bringing finished games to the market, while a real publisher provides funding for development, builds developer studios, provides tools and manpower, covers marketing, and so on.