While the game will be available both at retail and at other digital retails -- except, notably Valve's popular Steam -- EA has now confirmed that players will be requiring that players install Origin on their PCs to play Battlefield 3, even if they bought a boxed copy at retail.
The news was confirmed by Battlefield community manager Daniel Matros via his Twitter account. Ironically, this tactic is something EA actually copied from Valve and Steam, which has been requiring Steam installs for its PC games since Half-Life 2.
{Source: GameInformer}