EA Chief Operating Officer Peter Moore has insisted there is no feud between EA and Valve over the inclusion of EA's titles on Steam in a recent interview with Eurogamer.
"There's no feud. Remember, we're the guys who published Left 4 Dead and Portal 2. It's Valve. Gabe's a great friend of EA's. We're a great friend of his, we like to think. They have different terms and conditions that they put on their games that don't meet what we would like to do with our gamers. They insist on being a layer between the game developer and publisher and the consumer. They take a piece of the revenue stream. And they don't allow us to go directly to the consumer to do patches and updates. So we just agree to disagree. It's not a feud. They have their terms and conditions. We do. They don't meet. So we go do what we do, and they're doing very well at doing what they do." - Moore in an interview with Eurogamer
Last year, EA made the decision to push for their own digital store, Origin, and their games were subsequently pulled once Origin launched in June 2011.
Moore emphasises that the current policies and conditions implemented with Steam at the moment means that EA's titles won't be back on Steam any time soon, unless Valve makes some pretty considerable changes to its terms.
"We're very clear on what we want to do to be able to put a game on a platform and interact with the gamer. The current terms and conditions of Steam don't allow that. If they change to meet the contract with the gamer we set out to do, then of course things might change. But until then, nothing's going to change."
However, Moore does say despite their business disagreements, EA would be open to publishing Valve games in the future.
"We've always enjoyed that publishing relationship. And it is my team that does it. But there are no conversations going on right now. I don't know what their plans are right now. So, of course, we've had a great relationship from the publishing end, and I'd like to think they've enjoyed us publishing their content. I certainly think we've done a good job."
Source: Eurogamer
By Nathan Misa