As Battlefield 3 nears its October launch, EA continues to release more and more information on the game in the form of trailers and press releases. Recently, the company let slip that the potentially awesome military shooter wouldn’t arrive on Steam, but gamers still had hope that this was just a blunder by the publisher. Today we learn that Battlefield 3 will definitely not be distributed digitally through Steam.
According to Develop, financial firm Baird issued a statement to GameStop regarding Battlefield 3 and its absence on Valve’s digital download platform. EA will not be releasing the title through Steam as a means of offering some competition to the service. “The upcoming EA Battlefield 3 will be sold as a download through GameStop, but not through Steam,” confirmed Baird. “Given Steam’s dominance—and insistence on users downloading a Steam client application—publishers are likely to be receptive to a competitive alternative.”
As someone who uses Steam often (mostly for indie games), I have to say that it’s a shame Battlefield 3 won’t be appearing on the renown digital download platform. Part of the reason so many gamers enjoy Steam is because of its ease of use. Not to mention that having all or most of your games in one application’s library is just convenient.
EA recently launched its own digital download service, Origin. Though this platform hardly compares to Steam, it is EA’s attempt at competing in the digital download space. I think it’s safe to say that most of us still prefer Steam, though.
