Patrick Klepek of the site Giant Bomb asked EA why their game Crysis 2 was pulled. Though myself and several others on the internet initially thought that it was them being money grubbers, the actual fact is very different.
From his post, the statement from EA follows.
“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.”
Meaning the reason it was pulled was a conflict of interest between Steam, Crytek, and another download service due to an update to Steam’s terms. Because of this, they were unable to do business with Steam. Though I dislike EA for a multitude of reasons, I take back what I said in the previous post regarding EA. Thanks to Giant Bomb for getting this info and making it public.
When conflicts of interest happen within publishers, you simply need to see which path will make you the most money, but at the same time, you can’t let your company become the chew toy of someone else.
There is some speculation however that the “another download service” refers to EA’s Origin, but this hasn’t been confirmed or denied by EA. Additionally, Valve keeps the details of all deals hidden by an NDA so it’s likely that the details of how these rules were in conflict will not be revealed to the public at all. This isn’t uncommon in any business as any agreement between two companies is going to be kept confidential and locked away.
Unless Valve or EA are able to release further details regarding this, what transpired will remain largely ambiguous. I think the safest route to take would be “We cannot and will not agree to the revised terms of service”.
People who have purchased Crysis 2 prior to this even will still be able to download and play the game.
René Sørensen
What about future patches for Crysis 2 – those of us who bought the game on Steam, will we still get the updates?
Rian Quenlin
I’m not sure, you’re better off asking tech support directly.