Arma 3 to be Steam exclusive

Arma 3 is Steam-exclusive, Bohemia Interactive has announced. Without this move, project lead Joris-Jan van't Land says "there was a very real chance there would be no Arma 3 this year."

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Arma 3 will be exclusive to Steam, according to project lead Joris-Jan van't Land. He says that the goal as set by the Bohemia Interactive CEO is to release the game in 2013, and feels that "without going Steam-exclusive, we would not be able to release Arma 3 in 2013."

In a lengthy dev blog post, van't Land says that the Steam DRM and distribution network will help the company, while touting features like automatic patching to make the experience smoother for players. You'll need to run the game through Steam, but it will support an Offline mode. The post also notes that boxed copies will be available in most regions, but they'll simply be Steam codes in a retail package or possibly contain data to speed up the installation. Finally, van't Land suggests "there was a very real chance there would be no Arma 3 this year" without the Steam support, so even without the features he feels it's worthwhile to hit their goal.

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From The Chatty
  • reply
    February 21, 2013 10:30 AM

    Steve Watts posted a new article, Arma 3 to be Steam exclusive.

    Arma 3 is Steam-exclusive, Bohemia Interactive has announced. Without this move, project lead Joris-Jan van't Land says "there was a very real chance there would be no Arma 3 this year."

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      February 21, 2013 10:37 AM

      This is an interesting development. Hopefully it will make it easier for people to play online together.

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      February 21, 2013 10:44 AM

      It seems like a good move to me.

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      February 21, 2013 10:44 AM

      nice

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      February 21, 2013 10:45 AM

      Steam workshop support please, Bohemia.

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      February 21, 2013 10:46 AM

      Oooh, ARMA3 THIS YEAR!!!!

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      February 21, 2013 11:13 AM

      Make sure to create a new account and only have this game in that account. That way you can give to a friend once you are done with the game, since Steam does not allow you to transfer games to someone else when you no longer have a use for it. Good way to get around the "renting" format.

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      February 21, 2013 11:31 AM

      Yesssssssssssssss

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      February 21, 2013 1:16 PM

      At first I wasnt pleased but when I think about it making everyone get the same patch the same day ( not a dayslater like some of the patches for ARMA2) will just simplify everything. Steam is the way of the future and there is no stopping it.

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        February 21, 2013 2:32 PM

        Agree. This coming to Steam is a great option. Saves them lots of money and helps us to know we have the latest version. I'm all good with this being on Steam. ;)

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      February 21, 2013 1:33 PM

      Lame. Waiting for the Origin release.

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      February 21, 2013 1:51 PM

      I think this is a good thing, but how do the more hard core arma 2 guys feel about it? Any shack-tac people think this might be a problem?

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        February 21, 2013 2:34 PM

        It would suck if you had to enter your command line options into steam before launching every time. But I don't think that will happen. Hopefully the servers will pass the running mod list to the client like most games do. Failing that, they could make the mod list a text file or something instead of on the command line so 3rd party launchers could still modify it on the fly. Or a dozen other implementations I'm sure.

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          February 21, 2013 3:43 PM

          You can edit game profiles in Steam to always pass command line options. You can also make windows shortcuts and add command line options to those too! Not the web style steam:// shortcuts that the steam client makes for you mind; you need to make a shortcut to steam.exe and use -applaunch <app id> followed by the options you want.

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        February 21, 2013 2:38 PM

        I think it's great. If they use the workshop for mods that would be even better. If not it's not that hard to set up shortcuts to launch steam games with command line parameters in them.

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      February 21, 2013 2:15 PM

      ahahaha aw yes

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      February 21, 2013 3:25 PM

      Steam Workshop support for mods? Please god.

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      February 21, 2013 4:06 PM

      I have a feeling this will make it's way to GOG after the full release has been taken care of. All the expansions and such.

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