Battlefield 3 may not be released on Steam

Battlefield 3 publisher EA, posted a list of expected digital retailers on their website, Steam was not included on this list. A few weeks ago EA released a list of retailers from which you could pre order Battlefield 3, Steam was not on this list either, however this was overlooked as a warning sign as other recent games from EA (such as Alice: Madness Returns) was not available for pre order via Steam but was available to download when released.

As the release date for possibly the biggest game of this year comes closer and closer things aren’t looking to good for all the Steam users who had had their heart set on purchasing the game from the digital distribution giant.

Steams exclusion from the distribution list, which includes other popular retailers such as Gamestop, Amazon and Direct2Drive, seems to stem from a disagreement between EA and Valve over policy. David DeMartini from EA recently told IndustryGamers:
“What we’re doing is no different than what they have done historically with regards to how they’ve handled ongoing patches, etc. It seems to be a little bit of a juxtaposition that we find ourselves in agreement with everybody in the channel – everyone seems to find our policy acceptable with a singular exception.”

“I do think there are some policies and principles that everybody should adhere to that are in the best interest of the consumer, and I hope they come to that realisation as well and that they believe in choice just like we do.”