It was recently revealed that EA is going gung-ho with support for crowd-funded titles (think Kickstarter games). In an interview between GI.biz and EA's David DeMartini, it is said that EA is doing this as an "acknowledgement of (the) hardcore community."
When asked about if there are any requirements or restrictions in place for these developers, DeMartini had this to say. Is this perhaps offering a bit of a jab at Valve and their Steam service in the process?
Either way, this sounds like a very positive move for both EA and their Origin service. Perhaps Origin will one day take over as the go-to digital distribution platform for indie developers.
(via)
I've looked at a few comments online and seen people saying "boy this looks fishy because it doesn't look like there is anything wrong with it. Why is EA doing this?" EA has been a strong advocate of independent game development for a long, long period of time.
I think this is an absolute, logical extension of our close relationship with independent game developers. Offering the ones that are crowd-funded an opportunity to get published on Origin and not charge them any fees is an acknowledgement of the hardcore gaming community, it's an acknowledgement of some of the most popular IP that has ever been developed and it was just an obvious thing to do and we just did it.
I think this is an absolute, logical extension of our close relationship with independent game developers. Offering the ones that are crowd-funded an opportunity to get published on Origin and not charge them any fees is an acknowledgement of the hardcore gaming community, it's an acknowledgement of some of the most popular IP that has ever been developed and it was just an obvious thing to do and we just did it.
When asked about if there are any requirements or restrictions in place for these developers, DeMartini had this to say. Is this perhaps offering a bit of a jab at Valve and their Steam service in the process?
Absolutely consistent with the entire rest of our approach on Origin; we don't force anyone down the path of our SDK. We don't force them to be exclusive on Origin. We really don't put any rules on these crowd-sourced games or non-crowd-sourced games that are going to be published on Origin. We really are open and open-minded to anybody that wants to have their property available for sale on Origin. Along those lines, there are no restrictions, no clever hooks, there are no ways to try and tie them into us.
Either way, this sounds like a very positive move for both EA and their Origin service. Perhaps Origin will one day take over as the go-to digital distribution platform for indie developers.
(via)