Bohemia Interactive has just announced that Arma 3 will be a Steam exclusive. The upcoming game, the next in their series of military sim shooters, will rely solely on Valve's platform for distribution, and will feature extensive integrations with Steamworks.
The development was posted to the official Bohemia Interactive blog by Arma 3 project lead Joris-Jan van't Land. The main reason cited for this decision is that it will allow the company to ship sometime in 2013, instead of further delaying the title. The studio faced a major dilemma last year when two of its developers were jailed in Greece. The pair were taking photos of military locations as research for the game when they were arrested and accused of espionage. They were released late last month, but their absence for a significant portion of 2012 slowed down production on Arma 3 considerably. However, by sidelining distribution deals with other platforms and utilizing Steam's built in developer tools, Bohemia believes it can still make a 2013 deadline work.
Joris-Jan van't Land also cites Steam's proven infrastructure, reliability, and the advantages of only having to create and test updates for one platform. He was also keen to remind players that piracy is still a very real consideration, and that the launch windows for games are when the most damage is done.
Think of it what you want, but piracy is affecting us as a business. However, Bohemia Interactive has tried to grow with the evolution of the Internet, rather than to fight it. We have removed intrusive Digital Rights Management (DRM) from our games several months after release, but cannot afford to launch without such technologies. We strongly believe the best anti-piracy comes from offering valuable online services that people are willing to invest in. Supporting that philosophy: we saw we could not deliver in-house solutions on time, but could take Steam's and expand upon them.
The Arma series is widely regarded as one of the most realistic military shooters on the market. However, its insistence on realism and accuracy over entertainment value has made it something of a niche title. It achieved significant prominence over the course of 2012 though, due to an unofficial mod for Arma 2 called Day Z. Despite only using the game's engine and assets, the popularity of the mod combined with the need to purchase Arma 2 to run it contributed to a sales bump of over 500%. Unfortunately, the next iteration of Day Z will be standalone, and will not require Arma 3. How that might influence future sales is still unknown.
Bohemia has yet to announce a release date for the upcoming game, but promises to release further details in the near future.