EA Steam Crysis 2 Debacle Explained?

EA continues to try to explain and hopefully quell the debacle created by the removal of Crysis 2 from Steam. EA has been doing damage control recently as if their dam just broke and flooded a small town. While the voices of ire seem to have quieted around the pre-order bonuses for Battlefield 3, many PC gamers, EA haters, and Valve enthusiasts are still up in arms about Crysis 2 being removed from Steam as an apparent move to promote Origin.

Admittedly, most of the fear/anger over the issue is assuming that the Crysis 2 debacle is an omen of greater evils to come. I believe that people care less about Crysis 2 than they do about the impending Battlefield 3 and the future of EA and Steam's relationship.

Head of Origin David Demartini was next in line at EA to go on the defensive about Origin and player choice. So gung-ho in their defense they gave the page on which the news can be found,

the name, "http://www.ea.com/news/demar-at-ea-we-believe-in-choice." In this document Demartini links EA's "official policy on selling games on third-party download sites..." Here is an excerpt from said official policy:

Any retailer can sell our games, but we take direct responsibility for providing patches, updates, additional content and other services for the individuals and communities that play our games. These players are connecting to our servers, so we want to provide them with the very best service. This works well for our partnership with Gamestop, Amazon and other online retailers.

However, when a download service forbids publishers from contacting players with patches, new levels, items and other services – it disrupts our ability to provide the ongoing support players expect from us. At present, this is the case with only one download service. While EA offers its entire portfolio to this site, they have elected to not post many of our games. We hope to find a mutually agreeable solution to this issue soon.

Basically EA says that Steam is not offering them control over patches and that while other download services will try to sell any piece of poop that EA decides to fling their way, Steam can afford to have more discriminating taste; I am looking at you, Impulse and Littlest Pet Shop. Steam has always kept my games nice and up to date (as a matter of fact, that is how I was introduced to Steam), but apparently EA is upset that they don't have more control over

just how up to date their games are.

EA's damage control is taking an ax to their breaking bridge instead of a hammer. It seems like every time they put fingers to keyboard to squash the angry internet people their mouths are filled with gasoline that just spews into the ever growing flame of discontent. EA, take it from me, random blog writer in the sea of wannabe game writers, STOP IT! Go with your initial claim that you, as a publisher, allowed Crytek, as a developer to make a proprietary publishing deal with Direct2Drive and that it was out of your hands. Reddit has new topics every day and I am sure some other game developer will step up and do something bone-headed that makes people forget about how mad they are at you.

You can read the whole lot of Demartini's spun words here.