Acivation Limits of games on Orgin/EA

[Dolor]

Steam is FAR more popular than Origin, therefore having BF3 there would get more people playing the game. I forget I even have BF3 installed sometimes because I scan through my steam games to see what I want to play. lol

Exactly. What you are saying is from someone who presumably is a very knowledgeable gamer (given the fact that you are posting here) and understands these things well. There's probably a large number of PC gamers (maybe the majority) out there who don't know or even care about Steam v. Origin. They just log onto Steam because that's where "all" their games and friends are. If BF3 doesn't show up on Steam, they just don't see it and don't buy it. For every person on my Steam friends list like me (very knowledgeable about games), there are 3-4 who know very little about games. It's just one fewer major way for EA to find potential customers who would be interested in their games.

For better or worse, Valve was forward thinking enough to build Steam a long time ago. Now, they have a big audience, mindshare, and popular opinion. And given how little progress Origin has made in the last few years, they are unlikely to ever mount a serious challenge to Steam. In the meantime, they are losing significant amounts of additional revenue in order to fight windmills.