EA Confirms No Battlefield 3 on Steam

[Easton Dark]

"The service limits our ability to deliver patches and downloadable content directly to players."

Bull crap EA. You aren't doing this for the players. If you were, you'd have it on Steam as well.

 

[LiquidGrape]

Valve's policy is having all DLC for titles sold on their Steam platform available for purchase directly via Steam. Opportunistic, yes, but also practical for the consumer.
EA's policy is to cut out the middle-man, regardless of how that might impact the consumer.

Remember the Time Trial DLC for Mirror's Edge? EA wouldn't make it available for or even compatible with a Steam copy of the game, causing a great amount of discontent on the Steam support forums. I wouldn't be surprised if that is what caused Valve to introduce this policy of being capable of supplying all related content in the first place.

Is either being an "evil" coroporation here? Not really. At least no more "evil" than corporatism is in and of itself.
But I'd say there's a clear distinction here between those who act in the best interest of the consumer, and those who do not.

 

[Dense_Electric]

Why the hell am I not reading News about "Diablo 3 not on Steam" or "Minecraft not on Steam" (or any of the other dozen/hundred of games out there that don't appear on Steam) which should be getting the same kind of baseless vitriol as this?

Because Blizzard and Notch haven't been going on about how those games are going to outsell their hugely popular competitors, and a large percentage of the PC-gaming population buys off Steam almost exclusively. It's not that EA is hurting their sales, it's that they're hurting their sales while going on about how great their sales are going to be.

 

[DarksideFlame]

The only game from EA I care about is Mass Effect 3 and if the game itself is a worthy conclusion to the series and not rubbish then I will get no matter if I have to get it from origin or any other place

 

[drakythe]

You don't need to use Origin to play Battlefield 3.
Getting a Retail copy or just using any of the other half a dozen Digital Distributors out there it will appear on like Direct2Drive or GamersGate will do the trick just fine.

It won't take any of your experience away as Battlefield has always had Stat Tracking/Achievements/Friends List/Clan Support/Voice and a lot of other things packaged directly with the game for a while. What you would do by buying it on Steam is just adding another DRM on top of it you would have to run whenever you want to play the game...

Hell if you are such a ... "fan" of Steam, you can even use the "Add a Non-Steam Game" feature and you'll be able to use the Overlay and talk to your friends and do everything else you always do anyway... ffs...

Why the hell am I not reading News about "Diablo 3 not on Steam" or "Minecraft not on Steam" which should be getting the same kind of baseless vitriol as this?

QFT.

I'm not super familiar with Steam's internal workings, but I do know that Torchlight has tools to make mods for the game, and if you have the steam version, your mod has to support some changes made in the steam version of the game. Yeah, I think EA is blowing this out of proportion, but I am glad to see someone standing up to Steam.

Yes I have games on Steam. Do I try to avoid that whenever possible? also yes.

 

[SamStar42]

What a ridiculously stupid decision this is.

 

[antofdeath]

Does anyone else get this feeling that this is directly related to the fact that EA only likes customers who pay shiv and leg out the ass for DLC and steam has a funny tenancy to like to go and sell "Super bundles"?

 

[CM156_v1legacy]

This just in:
Sticking your hand in a blender might be a bad idea. We bring you this report from people with a firm grasp on the obvious. Tune in next time when we tell you that using your cat as ammo might not work out

Really, did anyone NOT see this coming?

 

[Chicago Ted]

Now, there is little chance for me to get BF3 on the PC. I'm sorry, but every encounter I have with an EA PC or Online service has been nothing but shit. I regard almost all of their online services as the worst ones I've had to put up with, and am not going to continue to try them after several problems I've had before.

Guess I'm getting my copy for XBox.

 

[TerribleAssassin]

"The service limits our ability to deliver patches and downloadable content directly to players."

Bull crap EA. You aren't doing this for the players. If you were, you'd have it on Steam as well.

Seconded, not to mention a rough 30% if not more of the PC market were anticipating a Steam release.

And, also, Steam is the easiest way to deliver patches, takes like 10 seconds and does it instantly, and no traipsing around websites.

 

[Lord Krunk]

You don't need to use Origin to play Battlefield 3.
Getting a Retail copy or just using any of the other half a dozen Digital Distributors out there it will appear on like Direct2Drive or GamersGate will do the trick just fine.

It won't take any of your experience away as Battlefield has always had Stat Tracking/Achievements/Friends List/Clan Support/Voice and a lot of other things packaged directly with the game for a while. What you would do by buying it on Steam is just adding another DRM on top of it you would have to run whenever you want to play the game...

Hell if you are such a ... "fan" of Steam, you can even use the "Add a Non-Steam Game" feature and you'll be able to use the Overlay and talk to your friends and do everything else you always do anyway... ffs...

Why the hell am I not reading News about "Diablo 3 not on Steam" or "Minecraft not on Steam" (or any of the other dozen/hundred of games out there that don't appear on Steam) which should be getting the same kind of baseless vitriol as this?

The concern is more that Steam is the biggest digital distributor by a mile, and thusly they are alienating a big portion of the online community. Sure, you could use another online distributor but seriously, who wants to have to log into 5 different programs to play different games? It's a waste of time.

Another thing is that Steam is well known for the fact that it patches automatically; as a PC gamer I know how annoying it is to hunt down patch after patch after patch from sources whose reliability is dubious.

It's convenience. EA's meddling, incidentally, is inconvenient.

Also, anyone else find it funny that EA of all people are the guys complaining about a publisher being a money-grubbing scumbag?

 

[Covarr]

They say it's too restrictive, but what they mean is it's a serious competitor to Origin. The reason they're not pulling it from other distribution channels is that they don't take them seriously.

Why the hell am I not reading News about "Diablo 3 not on Steam" or "Minecraft not on Steam" (or any of the other dozen/hundred of games out there that don't appear on Steam) which should be getting the same kind of baseless vitriol as this?

It may have something to do with the fact that they're not bragging about it, and it's not a significant change. Blizzard's games have never been on Steam, and neither have Mojang's. EA, on the other hand, seems to be going out of their way to say "nyeh nyeh, we're better than Valve".

Not to mention, it IS a poor decision. A lot of people buy all their PC games from Steam for one reason or another. I usually buy thing's when they're on sale, and Steam tends to put games on sale a LOT more often than some of its competitors.

P.S. Thanks

 

[Macgyvercas]

Can we all just say "Fuck you, EA" enough to drive them out of business?

 

[Wuggy]

Wuggy Confirms: No Battlefield 3 purchase will be made.

Seriously, I wasn't that interested to begin with, but this is just another nail in the coffin. This is not a good move on EA's part, which I'm somewhat happy for.

 

[Alphakirby]

Now that it's not on Steam,I officially don't give a shit about it. Because I am not downloading EA's stupid ass attempt to trump Valve just to play a first person shooter.

Congratulations for not reading the article.

Thank you,I take pride in my ignorance. =P

 

[LiquidGrape]

So, let me get this straight. EA want to release the game on Origin, a few other DD services, and on Steam. Steam says no, only on our platform or not at all. And EAs pulling the dick move here? Right.

But let me guess, you didnt read the article, checked the comments section and saw that all the cool kids were hating on EA so you decided to do the same. Yep, that must be it. Because if you actually had read the article before making a reply, you would have noticed that BF3 does not need Origin installed to run.

You realise that isn't at all what Valve's policies denote, right? This is a matter of Steam demanding that all DLC and such content be compatible with, and available directly via Steam.
Whether or not one agrees with that decision is naturally up to each individual person, but for being someone who accuses others of not reading up on the subject matter, you do seem a tad ill-informed.

 

[esplode]

"Battlefield 3 will not be available on Steam as the service restricts our ability to directly support players," a rep said. "The service limits our ability to deliver patches and downloadable content directly to players. No other download service has adopted these practices. At EA, supporting our players is a top priority, and we are happy to partner with any download service that does not restrict our ability to connect directly with our own consumers."

Anyone who played the older games remember how well EA 'supported' their players with updates and DLC for previous Battlefield games. Support for them seems to mean incredibly slow first party downloads that can't be done conveniently ingame.