Steam will not feature Battlefield 3 but Battlefield 3 may have earthquakes
Two bits of info which, although have nothing to do with each other apart from the title of the game, are both intriguing and leave you wondering what exactly is going on in the world of Battlefield 3.
Starting off from the video gaming industry standpoint; it seems that Steam, Valves platform for distributing digital media (read PC’s equivalent of the PlayStation Store and Xbox Live Marketplace), will not be offering Battlefield 3 to its users.
The news broke after a list was published by Electronic Arts which had the names of all the retailers who would be offering Battlefield 3 come the game's release in October. While GameStop, one of the largest video game retailers in the United States
of America, was present, Steam was not.
Baird, the well known financial research firm, who responded to questions on the absence of Steam, released the following statement, “The upcoming EA title Battlefield 3 will be sold as a download through GameStop, but not through Steam.”
The statement from the report continued, “Given Steam's dominance - and insistence on users downloading a Steam client application - publishers are likely to be receptive to a competitive alternative.”
It seems that EA is looking to throw its weight behind its own ‘Origin’ platform, where it will offer its own EA titles. Similar to Steam in many ways, the platform will be EA’s own virtual marketplace and will help increase competition, seeing how
Steam could very easily be considered a monopoly for digital distribution of PCs.
Moving on from the corporate side of Battlefield 3 to features of the game itself; it seems as if Battlefield 3 may very well have its own in-game Earthquakes. Yes, there is no typo there, Battlefield 3 may get Earthquakes.
Lars Gustavsson, lead multiplayer designer at DICE, explained that they wanted to add ‘ambience’ to the game. Apparently for people in Sweden, where DICE’s headquarters is, ambience comes in the form of earthquakes.
“It's technically possible to have earthquakes in multi-player using Frostbite 2. We feel like kids walking into sweet shops with Frostbite - it has so many features we never knew we needed, and we're still figuring out how best to use them,” said
Gustavsson.
However, he stopped short of conforming whether or not the ground would start shaking in the game, “We're still looking into ambient destruction in multi-player; it's still too early to say really.”
It seems that the FrostBite 2.0 engine is capable of more than just huge amounts of destruction and generating gorgeous graphics, as the developers are looking to get creative with its abilities.
Gamers can find out for themselves whether or not the ground will start shaking when Battlefield 3 hits stores, but not Steam, this October.
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