It’s been announced that EA games will cruise back onto Steam starting with Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, which will be released on 15th November. A few other EA bits and bobs, like The Sims 4 and Unravel 2, will trickle onto Steam afterwards, but the bigger plan is to launch the EA Access subscription service on Steam in spring, 2020.
“We anticipate that the core benefits of the subscription service as it exists on Origin or Xbox or PlayStation will be the same as those which you would get on Steam,” EA senior VP Mike Blank told GIbiz after the move was confirmed. “And when I say the core benefits, I’m talking about things like early access, the 10% discount, or that catalog of games that you might see on EA Access today on Xbox or on PlayStation 4.”
Blank added “Since the time we removed our games from Steam, there’s been this dramatic increase in the number of gaming services, which you would think would be really good for players. But I think in many cases, it’s the exact opposite. It creates more difficulty for players, and providing player choice — from my perspective and speaking on behalf of EA — is really critical. It’s an opportunity to make it possible for people to play where they want, to reduce that fragmentation and make it more frictionless… Reducing that fragmentation is really important. It’s the most player-first thing we can do.”
With EA making a Steam return, some are wondering an Epic Store announcement is now on the cards, and Blank was asked about this directly:
“What I’ll say today is we are open to new partnerships. While I don’t have anything to announce today, we are always open to new partnerships that make sense for our players. So we’ll see what the future holds.”
Hmm.
Wireframe #25 is out now
