Now that it’s confirmed that BF3 won’t appear on Steam, the only mystery was why. While it’s not any great shock to hear EA was pushing Origin hard, now we have definitive word by the BF community manager on Twitter that BF3 will require Origin. We now know BF3 uses the Origin equivalent of Steamworks, which means no matter where you buy the game, you’ll need to activate it on Origin — including retail disc formats. Obviously, if you bought a game on Steam that you had to then activate on a Steam clone, requiring both to run to appease their DRM demons, rips in space time would occur. That’s why Steam is out of the loop but services like Direct2Drive or GamersGate are still in, because they don’t tack on any extra DRM or client restrictions.
Now we know, and knowing is half the battle. Anyone not buying BF3 because of the Origin requirement?