http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/07/11/no-steam-release-for-battlefield-3/#more-65617

Over the weekend, or at least I noticed it over the weekend, EA stuck up “A list of digital retailers who will be selling Battlefield 3″ onto Battlefield.com. I had a good look at it at, but it’s curiously now been taken down. It included the likes of Gamersgate, Impulse, Direct2Drive, and EA’s own (sort of) brand new download service, Origin. Nearly 100 different digital distributors were listed in total, but conspicuous by its absence, it seems there are currently no plans for Battlefield 3 to be made available on Steam.

Over 100 digital distributors listed, but Steam isn't one of them.

EA are really shooting themselves in the foot if they go through with this - especially if they are expecting the game's audience to get the game from another digital service 'because they have no other choice.'

I am eagerly anticipating this game, but I've invested some serious coin into my Steam account, and I'm not about to start trying to keep track of several download service usernames/passwords.

In all honestly, I will now wait until EA cave and put Battlefield 3 on Steam. Consumer desires should dictate business decisions, and EA are definitely ignoring the consumer in this regard.

Absolute non-issue.  
 
I'm gonna copy and paste the reply I made on RPS. 
 
#########################################   

Fuck that... I can wait for BF3, the bigger issue is if they'll put Mass Effect 3 on Steam or not.

The patching/update process is definitely one strong benefit - the convenience of having (with some exceptions) my entire PC game library attached to a single username/client is another.

Regional pricing discrepancies is something that sorely needs addressing, but there are enough workarounds for that (have a friend in the US buy/gift you the game on your behalf).

At the very least, it'll be interesting to see how a decision like this affects sales of BF3 on the PC, especially considering they're touting it as 'lead platform.' Seems like a glaring mistake to ignore such a major portion of that market but I could be wrong.

I'll buy it from whichever distributor sells it at the cheapest and that includes the price of convenience and re-download policy.

I'd prefer everything on Steam because Steam is my boyfriend, as it were, but none of EA's games use Steamworks for cloud saves or achievements or anything like that, so it doesn't really matter all that much. I'll probably get a disc copy or see if Amazon will have it on their digital download service.

Fuck that... I can wait for BF3, the bigger issue is if they'll put Mass Effect 3 on Steam or not.

I don't care for another game platform for the PC so I'll probably buy the retail version or wait until they decide to "give" it to Steam.. and I'm also pretty sure they will.

I'll just buy it retail and add it to Steam manually then.
 
I'm not gonna install Origin EA. I just don't want to have to launch another thing to play games.
 
Unless they make BF3 force the install and use of Origin in which case fuck you.

I really don't understand why, what does EA gain by basically giving a middle finger to the biggest digital distributor? That would be like if they didn't allow best buy or wall mart to sell BF3. Completely baffling.

I don't care for another game platform for the PC so I'll probably buy the retail version or wait until they decide to "give" it to Steam.. and I'm also pretty sure they will.

@Ygg said:

I'll just buy it retail and add it to Steam manually then. I'm not gonna install Origin EA. I just don't want to have to launch another thing to play games.

If it's anything like Bad Company 2 (or Dragon Age or Mass Effect or whatever else I own on it), you won't have to. I bought it retail, entered the code in EADM, and downloaded the game. Haven't had to launch it again to play it since the initial installation.

@No0b0rAmA said:

@emem said:

I don't care for another game platform for the PC so I'll probably buy the retail version or wait until they decide to "give" it to Steam.. and I'm also pretty sure they will.

What if installing Origin is a requirement for playing Battlefield 3, like Counter Strike for Steam? Cause that would be fucking terrible.

Yes, it will give you AIDS.

EA is making a mistake.

I see no problem with that, since i like having the box of the games i love. I like taking it into the shower with me 
 
And about Origin, it's a smooth fast installer downloader that DOWNLOADS the game's INSTALLER. Its job ends there, unlike Steam that has its dick up its games and disallows you to play unless its on and functional.

Typical EA but I was planning on getting the retail version and still am but if they make me d/l Origin on the retail version that will piss me off so much its bad enough there charging 60 bucks on the PC version of the game.

Kinda sucks but it also depends on the price if it did appear on Steam. I refuse to pay more than $70AU for a Steam game and if that means getting the retail version off Ebay so be it.

@No0b0rAmA: I doubt it, but we'll see.

This seems like a good time to post this:

As every other site has pointed out, this does not mean it absolutely won't be on Steam. It just means they have not reached an agreement yet. If you look, they actually already pulled down that statement about digital retailers because of Steam speculation.

Wait and see. If they're not making it Origin exclusive, it would be pretty fucking stupid to not put it on the one major platform.

Look at that. Another news segment with assumptions - considered facts to users. You have absolutely no idea why Steam isn't on the list. For all we know, they could be negotiating new terms in the wake of the events that took down Crysis 2.

I am willing to put 1000 Brad bucks down. That it will be on steam at some point. Plus I think BF3 will be one of those games who will get lot's of physical copy sales.

EA haven't said the game will not be released on Steam.

Dude/dudette, I totally agree with you. Steam is the only platform I am going to purchase Battlefield 3 on, and if it never comes to Steam, I guess I'm not getting it. I'm too interested in other games this year where this game, even though extremely beautiful and intense, I can easily forget about it. However, if it's released on Steam, it sure will be one I will purchase.

@Ahmad_Metallic said:

I see no problem with that, since i like having the box of the games i love. I like taking it into the shower with me And about Origin, it's a smooth fast installer downloader that DOWNLOADS the game's INSTALLER. Its job ends there, unlike Steam that has its dick up its games and disallows you to play unless its on and functional.

Yeah, I seriously wanted to hate Origin but I said WTF, I'll download a game on there just to see what it's all about. I will say that it's 100 times more stable than Steam and downloads waaaaay faster. It actually uses all that my bandwidth can deliver where Steam always is slow. I do love Steam and have over 150 titles on it. I love how easy patching is. I'm still not sure what I'm going to do though. I don't want to have a disk in the drive. Can you activate EA games purchased at retail on Origin?

Anyhow, the bottom line for me is that I want BF3 and I will be playing it. I just don't know how I'm going to make my purchase yet. I would for sure have just bought it on Steam before, but now I have to decide what I'm going to do.

i still doubt that ea aren't going to put their biggest game of the year on steam.

I don't want to have a disk in the drive. Can you activate EA games purchased at retail on Origin?

@Ahmad_Metallic: Ah nice, then I'm going to just buy retail via Amazon then. I have 3 purchases coming up that will yield me 60 dollars in refunds.

i will wait for battlefield 4 then :P

I would be amazed if EA don't sell Battlefield 3 on steam. Steam's user base is huge and EA will eventually realise what a stupid mistake denying it would be.

I wouldn't worry, it'll appear on Steam.

I'll wait. I'm kind of done with buying games retail, and I have no interest in Origin.

@Binman88: I like disks too, Steam I find is generally overpriced outside of sales, but man those sales. 

That sucks. Steam offers a lot of impulse purchases through sales BF3 could take advantage of later in its life cycle.

 
Steam is a wonderful platform, no doubt about that, but looking at Origin and how EA wants it to be their lead Digital Distribution platform, this move doesn't surprise me at all. 
 
I am a guy who enjoys Steam and its offers, but at the same time, I like some of my games to be in disc form rather than one's and zero's and Battlefield 3 is definitely one of them.

@TrueEnglishGent: Yeah, but "when" is key. I must have this game on release day.

Yo origin is just a storefront. Unlike Steam it does not require to be running in order to play games. It's more like D2D in that sense.

So yeah no problems here. I'll buy it where I can. It's all the same servers regardless right?

Another origin question: Assuming origin is running (in sys tray or whatever) will it or does it prompt you to install patches? I know BF3 is mostly an online for most so I'd be aware of a patch, but what about SP games?

@wolf_blitzer85 Most people are making assumptions about Origin that are simply not true. I agree it's more similar to D2D than Steam. My D2D beef was always the patches. It may be improved now, I haven't bought a game from them in a few years, but I used to hate waiting for patches while others had it. STALKER comes to mind.

Oh well, I'll just add the game as a non-steam game to my steam library...

fucking dumb

@Ahmad_Metallic said:

@ericdrum said:

I don't want to have a disk in the drive. Can you activate EA games purchased at retail on Origin?

Yes! I scratched my Bad Company 2 disc last year, so i went on EADM (now Origin), redeemed my serial key and downloaded the installer of the game! Now i have it on my external HDD

See this is a good sign. Ahmad, do you know if you can download it as many times as you want? Because with different companies, obviously, digital purchases are very different. Like on PSN, I deleted some episodes of Mad Men I had on my PS3 so I would have some more space, and later found out that even though I BOUGHT THEM, I could not re-download them. This was last year so maybe they changed it but that really bothered me.

I only buy PC games on Steam, so I'll just wait for EA's inevitable release of it on Steam. Hell I just got BFBC2 on Steam so I could just uninstall Origin, I'm not going to back to it.

@LunarAura said:

I'll buy it from whichever distributor sells it at the cheapest and that includes the price of convenience and re-download policy.

I think they realised the re-download policy was a terrible idea.

"No steam no sale, not a ‘steam fanboy’ but I just CBA with other crap"

This will matter just as much as it did for starcraft 2, and by that i mean it wont.

Absolute non-issue.  
 
I'm gonna copy and paste the reply I made on RPS. 
 
#########################################   

Was never going to buy this from Steam, and will not buy this from Steam if they get it. I love Steam, but what I love more is buying new games, day one, for nearly half the price Steam sells them at (and installing them immediately upon receiving the disc).

I can pre-order BF3 for around £25, which equates to about €28. Compare that with the price Steam would likely charge for it – between €49.99 and €59.99 – I’m actually shocked people are willing to spend the extra €30 for the “convenience”. Apparently installing a retail copy of a game is hard work for these people.

Let’s forget about the pricing, and just consider the fact that people are annoyed because they can’t buy this game from their favourite shop. I cannot fathom what attachment people have to Steam that makes them so hesitant to use any other download service. Is it because seeing an “official” list of games in your Steam library gives you a warm and fuzzy feeling? Is it the patching/update process? Because those are the only two things I see buying from Steam actually gives you. All of their other benefits can be used with non-steam games simply by adding them via the “add non-steam game to my library” option.

@Ahmad_Metallic said:

@ericdrum said:

I don't want to have a disk in the drive. Can you activate EA games purchased at retail on Origin?

Yes! I scratched my Bad Company 2 disc last year, so i went on EADM (now Origin), redeemed my serial key and downloaded the installer of the game! Now i have it on my external HDD

See this is a good sign. Ahmad, do you know if you can download it as many times as you want? Because with different companies, obviously, digital purchases are very different. Like on PSN, I deleted some episodes of Mad Men I had on my PS3 so I would have some more space, and later found out that even though I BOUGHT THEM, I could not re-download them. This was last year so maybe they changed it but that really bothered me.

I can wait until it's on Steam. I have a lot of games that are waiting to be played.