EA Tries to Work Things Out With Valve

There may be forty million different stories about why EA games are disappearing from Steam, causing each of us to curse aloud. EA has issued a statement in response to Valve's recent removal of Dragon Age II. 

"At EA, we offer our games and content to all major download services including GameStop, Amazon, Direct2Drive, and Steam," it begins.

"Unfortunately, Steam has adopted a set of restrictive terms of service which limit how developers interact with customers to sell downloadable content. No other download service has adopted this practice. Consequently some of our games have been removed by Steam."

"We hope to work out an agreement to keep our games on Steam."

It goes without saying that EA's lack of presence on Steam undoubtedly hurts the sales of its games, including the much-anticipated Battlefield 3, which is noticeably absent from the service.

As I mentioned yesterday, Steam's monopoly on digital distribution raises questions about its practices.

Is EA really in the wrong for breaching its restrictive guidelines, which prohibit developers from selling DLCs directly while circumventing Steam? Ultimately, those with the biggest to lose are the gamers themselves.