EA games now available on Steam

ARS Technica writes several of EA's games are now available on Steam, this includes Spore, Warhammer Online, Need for Speed Undercover, and FIFA Manager 09. All these games are available without third-party DRM.

EA also announced Mirror's Edge, Dead Space and C&C: Red Alert 3 will come to Steam as well, and probably EA intends to release future titles on Steam as they launch.

One of the biggest stories in gaming this year was the ugly DRM enforcement that accompanied the release of EA's Spore. Will Wright's long-awaited life simulation was marred by a disgraceful DRM debacle that led to one of the most significant online protest campaigns ever started by gamers. The message was clear: gamers did not like SecuROM and, more generally, DRM. Perhaps in an effort to win back PC gamers, EA has now made its big 2008 titles available on Steam without third-party DRM.

As of today, Spore (and its first expansion), Warhammer Online, Need for Speed Undercover, Mass Effect, and FIFA Manager 09 have joined Crysis, Crysis: Warhead, and SiN Episodes: Emergence as part of the collection of EA-branded titles available through Valve's digital distribution platform. Prices are comparable to retail, but the bonus here is that none of the games are packaged with any third-party DRM. The product pages for each game reveal that all traces of the much-loathed SecuROM have been eradicated.