I will worry about all this at a latter date when I can see a game worthy of currency.
Steam and all the other download/purchase sites can go forth and implode for all I care. If Sony can get hacked, then im sure as hell any of these can be and they have your payment details. Steam was removed from my computer a while back and although I have an account its not in use, and I have never bought a game using it so no loss.
I get where you're from Gally, but I'm not that bothered that steam has my details (even though they dont as I enter them everytime and dont save anything other than my name to the servers). However, I do bank online and as we know if sony and every other victim of the current spate of hacking can get done then its only so long before a dedicated team of hackers break a banks security, then lots of people have trouble.
For me its not so much about my details being stolen, if you look hard enough on the web you can find anyones details anyway from the thousands of interactions you have online every year. for me its about the ease of use that steam brings. For the service they offer I've had very few issues, where as with services that have been offered historically by EA I have had some problems therefore I'd naturally choose the path of least resistance (or issue) when buying my software. Thats the bit that scares me with Origin, is it going to be as buggered up as previous offerings from EA, will it contain useless and intrusive DRM for the software that I've bought? Will it check with the servers every time I play a game (even if I have a hard copy) and if no connection is available render the software unusable?
If BF3 isn't on steam then I dont think it's going to stop me from buying the game anyway, but it will certainly make me think carefully about getting a hard copy (even though I prefer downloaded games these days as DVD's and boxes take up valuable space in my house).
