A report from a meeting between retailer Gamestop and financial research firm Baird suggests that Battlefield 3 will not be coming to Steam. According to Develop , the key quote from the report comes directly from Gamestop executives, who said that "the upcoming EA title Battlefield 3 will be sold as a download through GameStop, but not through Steam."

EA recently briefly published a list of retailers for Battlefield 3, from which Steam was conspicuously absent. Other digital download sites like Gamersgate, Direct2Drive and EA's own Origin were on the list, however, and an unnamed Gamestop executive tells Develop that Battlefield 3 will be coming to digital retailers other than Gamestop. It looks as though it's just Steam who are being frozen out.

This is the latest in a series of conflicts between EA and Valve. Last month, Crysis 2 was removed from Steam, apparently due a clash over a DLC exclusivity agreement with Direct2Drive. EA recently announced that Mass Effect 3 will get its own Origin exclusive pre-order bonuses and Star Wars: The Old Republic will only be available through EA's download service. Hopefully Valve and EA will resolve their differences, otherwise we might see other future EA releases like Mass Effect 3 shunning Valve's store as well.