Electronic Arts has now made it official. The rumors that we told you about a few weeks ago that Battlefield 3 would not be available for purchase on Steam are now confirmed. While many believe that this decision was made to boost EA’s own digital distribution store, EA claims that the real reason is that Steam restricts the ability of the developer and publisher to directly support the game and its players.

EA apparently isn’t happy with the restrictive terms of the Steam distribution agreement. While the company has worked with Steam before, the biggest rub seems to be their inability to deliver patches and content directly to the players without going through Steam. The decision apparently will affect some future releases beyond Battlefield 3 as well, but EA isn’t being specific.

Battlefield 3 will be available through a number of other digital download services if you insist on going that route; however the potential impact of the loss of Steam sales could be big. It is expected, however, that a number of users will instead opt to purchase a boxed copy this time around. EA has suggested that they would like to work out these Steam issues with Valve, but so far it does not appear likely that this is going to happen before the release of Battlefield 3.