We recently broke the news about EA's announced retailer list for Battlefield 3, noting Steam's absence. Unfortunately that doesn't seem to be a mistake. A financial research firm named Baird is said to have held a meeting with GameStop management recently, confirming the absence of Battlefield 3 on Steam in their report. "The upcoming EA title Battlefield 3 will be sold as a download through GameStop, but not through Steam," it read. Heartbreaking, quite frankly. Instead, you can pre-order a boxed cop...

EA's David DeMartini has spoken to Gamasutra on the topic of the recent conflict between Origin and Steam. He reveals that "Crysis was taken down [by Steam] because the DLC was not available through Steam; it was available through [Direct2Drive]." Yet despite that exclusivity arrangement, David goes on to say "We believe in absolute freedom of choice to allow customers to buy through whatever retail outlet... as long as they're buying an EA game, we're delighted. "By all means if your preferred r...