Battlefield 3 is destined to be one of the biggest video game releases this holiday season, directly competing with Activision's Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. MW3 is the juggernaut of the two; the one which will most likely outsell Battlefield 3. However, BF 3 is the fan favorite. Especially with the PC gaming community, who feel that DICE - the company developing BF 3 - is catering it specifically for them. DICE promises the most advanced gaming experience ever with its release this fall. The "full" experience, they say, can only be experienced on PC. And...they're sort of right.
Battlefield 3 has the following advantages over consoles:
- Plays in 60 frames per second as opposed to console's 30 FPS.
- 64 players compared to 24 on console.
- Advanced graphic options allowing you to tweak your graphic quality.
- Better graphics.
And Then There was Steam
Everyone who plays on PC knows what Steam is. Steam is this massive, successful online game store created by Valve that is pretty much the king of digital distribution. At this very moment, there are about two million gamers online. (This is at 1 in the morning I might add) It surely skyrockets by another two million during daytime. Obviously Steam has a colossal following, so you can imagine the shock and outrage when EA announced that Battlefield 3 will not be available for purchase on Steam for PC users.
- “Gamers can pre-order Battlefield 3 at Origin.com as well as over 100 digital retailers worldwide. EA offers games to all major download services. Unfortunately, Steam has adopted a set of restrictive terms of service which limit how developers interact with customers to deliver patches and other downloadable content. No other download service has adopted these practices.”
Steam's terms of service were also the reason why Crysis 2 and other games were pulled from its store earlier this year. Many thought this was just because EA tried to promote its own digital retailer called ORIGIN, but this turned out to be false as many other digital retailers had Battlefield 3 for sale as well.
Most gamers, like myself, were waiting to preorder BF3 on Steam but seem to be forced to resort to using EA's Origin store, to many Steam users' dismay. Many users want to boycott Battlefield 3 as a result. Stating that they will not buy unless it's released on Steam. (talk about loyal fanbase)
Despite this news, EA says they hope to reach an agreement with Steam.
So will EA Lose Money?
My take is that yes, EA will indeed lose some money as a result - up to 100,000 units which equates to around $6,500,000. But it seems to only be about 1% of estimated sales - about 8.5 million units sold.
What happens next is up to fate it seems.
Could this mean that Battlefield 3 can lose all its advantages over Call of Duty? Who will win this war? Do you even consider it a war?
I know one thing, I'll be home enjoying both games. Diving deep into their campaigns and multiplayer. Critiquing them and finding flaws. Thinking of ways to improve gameplay and plot. Such is the life of a game design student.
And I will enjoy every minute of it.
Oscar Chavez - Oscar is a game design student at the Academy of Art in San Francisco. He's very passionate about the video game industry as a whole.
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