[trimbo]

> It was 2008; "big box" software was largely seen as obsolete to the vast majority of developers.

Well, I'm just reporting it as I understood their decision in the moment. I was working on The Sims at that time, and I assure you, retailers still mattered to us bigly.

[bigyabai]

And what you quoted is my opinion as a consumer. Blizzard got it working in 1996, Valve figured it out in 2003 - the industry was moving on.

EA was an outlier, and by the time they capitulated and started Origin it was so bad that people regret signing up for the service. GoG didn't have this issue, Valve didn't have that issue, EA did.