Speaking to gamesindustry.biz, Electronic Arts' COO Peter Moore claimed that Valve's Steam and EA's Origin are not in direct competition, all the while asserting that Steam has no dominance over the PC digital distribution market.
"I think Steam does a fabulous job," he said. "They have a great catalog of games. It's got a broader catalog than we do, and a different focus on the business model than we have. We didn't go into business to compete with Steam. We went into business because we saw the future being direct-to-consumer."
Moore noted that Origin already has more than 50 million registered users. Of course this is a fraction of Steam's user based, but Origin is working hard to close the gap with incentives including its "On the House" program, where older AAA titles are given away for free. In the end, Moore believes that EA deserves more credit than it is given in PC gaming.
"We've been making games for the PC platform before Gabe Newell was graduating high school," noted Moore. "And we've been the number one publisher forever, and have been the one developer/publisher that has supported the PC platform even more than Microsoft over the years. Yeah, you may say that's a low bar, but that's who we are, and our roots."