Is EA gearing up to sell games on Steam once again? Could we be about to see Apex Legends on Steam?
EA has dropped the biggest hint yet that they are preparing for a comeback on Steam after they posted a fairly easy-to-decipher GIF via Twitter.
— Electronic Arts (@EA) October 25, 2019
The company made the decision back in 2012 to stop selling new release PC versions of their games via Steam, and instead focus on growing its platform, Origin. It meant that games released before then, such as Dead Space and Dead Space 2, Battlefield Bad Company 2, Command & Conquer 3, and The Sims 3, are still available to purchase from Steam, but you can only buy all of the sequels to those games through Origin.
However, the Tweet, which shows a mug with EA branding accompanied with no real message, blowing off a lot of Steam from it, leading to the biggest indicator yet that EA is willing to work with Steam again. It also follows evidence that the Steam Database has logged about games that are currently attached to the Origin platform.
looks like EA are indeed getting ready to come back to steam
🙂 pic.twitter.com/p5KVTlu40c
— lashman (@RobotBrush) October 22, 2019
It may mean that exposure to some of their biggest game franchises, such as Apex Legends which is still doing well in the free to play scene, and FIFA which currently has no presence on the Steam store at all, may start to gain the benefit of Steam’s enormous user base. While EA has been subject to a lot of negative PR as of late, this will undoubtedly curry favor with the PC user base, in truth, has been relatively well-favored by EA. This favoritism is thanks to Origin and Origin Access, along with the many free games they’ve offered.
The move could also be seen as a stance against Epic Games’ recent move into PC game distribution, as EA typically only made first-party games exclusive to Origin. Whether this could be the end of the Origin store is unknown at this time.
