After being away from Steam for most of the decade, EA made a grand return to Valve's platform with last week's release of Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order. While it was unlikely to flop, the early numbers are in and the game has done pretty well on Steam.
According to Valve's own stat tracking, the title peaked with 46,550 concurrent players on launch day. That's not gangbusters well, but it is notable because of Jedi: Fallen Order's status as an EA title. Players can sign-up for "Origin Access Premier" and play the game for $14.99 (or buy it at a discount). Many chose to forgo that and grab it on Steam.
A taboo still exists around EA's own digital distribution service. Many have sworn off the company because of perceived faults with the Origin software. Others are just tired of EA's gimmicks with microtransactions and loot boxes. Apparently, none of that was enough to tank Jedi: Fallen Order on Steam.
With EA still planning to make a grand return to Valve's platform, this likely means good things for the company going forward. With a pretty sizable collection of titles that have been withheld over the last decade, Steam players are in for some real treats. Mass Effect 3 can finally exist alongside its predecessors and Titanfall 2 might even see some new life breathed into it.
It's unlikely that EA will continue to launch massive titles on Steam alongside Origin, but getting the back catalog of EA titles -from before the company became super greedy- would be nice. If anything, it will go well with the EA titles from pre-2012 that were already on Steam.
For now, Jedi: Fallen Order is a certifiable success. It will be interesting to see how many players nabbed this on Steam over Origin or if "Access Premier" had an uptick of subscriptions just to play the game. The main benefit of being on Steam is that an actual discount for Jedi: Fallen Order might happen in the future. Origin tends to forgo massive sales with prices remaining fairly high for an awkwardly long period. Now EA may have reason to improve its own service.
Source: VG 24/7