Electronic Arts yesterday announced that it will be giving away a free play of Battlefield 3 via its online streaming games platform EA Origin. This surprising move to give away one of the publishing co.’s most popular games for gratis was believed to be to sway customers away from the über-dominant Steam. In timely fashion, and quite possibly in response to EA’s actions – today Valve announced it will be offering its existing and joining Steam subscribers a full and extended weekend of online Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 play free-of-charge!
The two games went head to head in the pre-Christmas scramble in 2011, with Activision’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 selling 6.5-million copies in its first 24-hours, eclipsing EA’s Battlefield 3 which took a week to make 5-million sales. But both titles did well in the annual awards with MW3 taking the title for Best Shooter at the Spike VGA awards and Battlefield 3 sniping the very same accolade from IGN.
The COD: MW3 deal from Steam will span from 6pm this evening (UK time) until Monday and will allow PC gamers full access to the online multiplayer scenarios, but not the solo missions. Still game enough and for free – who’s complaining? You can head over to your Steam account now (or set one up if you fancy giving it a try) and pre-load the game ready for the free play later tonight!
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