Well obviously the game was being made no problem and was planned to be released on steam, there’s no necessary reason for this move. The only reason that could possibly exist is because Epic lobbed a big bag of cash at Deep Silver.
As for scumbaggery, I’m leaning towards that opinion myself. What Epic is doing here is the same old shit from the old console wars, just without even the excuse of differentiated hardware.
People here trying to talk about how they’re going to set new standards for the PC gaming market and I greatly fear you might be right. But the standard they’re working to cement here is that of walled gardens and limited access, what window’s store tried to do earlier.
I agree completely, I think the times games being exclusive to a certain store is even remotely acceptable is if you actually own the game and the platform (Blizzard and Battle(dot)net as an example).
I would still prefer to see all games on all platforms and just have competition based off of how good the platform itself is though.
necessary no, but i’d still argue that 18% extra cash from every sale is a pretty good damn reason, especially if Epic indeed threw extra money their way (which could be true, and could not be true; in any case 18% is plenty of money; we’re talking millions of dollars extra here [if the game does rly well])
Perhaps If I was Valve, I might think about how I might release a game that many people would want, would get immense hype and was part of a series that has near legendary status. Now where might they find inspiration for that sort of title that would be exclusive to Steam?
Their business practices are extraordinarily low, evident of prior actions and now newer actions taken with Division and Metro. People should be pretty disgusted by Epic and the company they associate with, and anyone willing to do what just happened to associate with them. For example…Tencent. A known powerhouse in P2W practices and known to have a complete disregard to consumers.
They moved from Steam simply because Epic (Tencent) could throw more money their way at the expense of the customer (you can guarantee you won’t see Steam treatment out of Epic). The publisher didn’t care about the customers or what they would think of the move, they just saw that $$$.
I love THQ Nordic as a company so far, but this is (I’m just gonna delete the end of this sentence for the sake of everyone here).
Everything about this game and its PR has been a train wreck. As of right now, it’s the only THQ Nordic game in their main lineup that isn’t getting a GOG release. They pushed Denuvo on, then they suddenly dropped Steam altogether.
This screws over EVERYONE who wanted to buy it there. They lose out on all Steam features because they didn’t buy it in time. Now, they either don’t buy it, or they trust a new store with a crappy interface and no community features.
If you DID buy it on Steam, community features will be limited by the game’s virtually non-existent player base there. The whole idea of “saving consumer money” falls flat even if true because not only did the Steam buyers get fully charged, but they bought the game with Denuvo. If Deep Silver was so adamant about saving money, why are they spending it on controversial DRM methods with some noticeable problems compared to post-Denuvo patch counterparts? That’s not even mentioning how extra development resources will now go to making a Steam API version and Epic version… and with limited resources, guess which customers will be first priority? Not the loyal ones that trusted 4A/DS enough to buy the game months early on Steam, that’s for sure!
It has to be said: DS needs to be brought in line. They’ve done some of the scummiest nonsense I’ve seen this generation. I appreciate that THQN is trying to avoid becoming another EA and trying to give them some freedom, but this kind of crap is a huge blow to the goodwill they’ve been earning with customers.
Now for some good news… Resident Evil 7 got Denuvo patched out. I’m kinda disappointed that VR support isn’t there yet, but I might go for it now. Either way, I’m excited to go through more of one of my favorite series, and still going in without too many spoilers.
I see, that makes things hard to judge then. Is this move by Deep Silver with THQN’s knowledge and/or blessing? Or are they just doing shitty things on their own and we can’t lay the blame on THQN? Should we expect THQN to rein them in when taking such actions and their negligence in doing so means they carry the blame at least partly?
THQN used to be one of few publishers who I’d think of as trustworthy, but if they let these sort of activities go on in their house even if they’re not doing it directly themselves I don’t know if they can claim to be free of this sin.
Either way, it’s on their hands now. They’ve got a month to do something about it, which could also scare the investors that are currently having a field day with the company’s progress. All we can do now is see what happens.
My hope is that, at the very least, Denuvo will be quietly dropped before release. The Epic Store exclusivity move is half assed and disgusting, and we’ll just have to see what happens there… I have a chance that it’s going to stay that way.
You should be. THQ Nordic was on point. They’ve been a stellar company and rising the ranks on goodwill and valuing their IPs, both financially and as an act of goodwill. Much as Deep Silver irked me before the acquisition, I had hope that they would turn a new leaf. I was horribly wrong.
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I think the way I phrased that came across as a bit mean, so I’m sorry about that. I’m still kinda surprised about the whole thing. I haven’t seen a company shoot itself in the foot this hard since Shadow of War, and it’s even more disappointing knowing THQN probably let them do it.
Well, that’s relieving. I do hope this is just a public-statement kind of thing though-- there’s no way THQN can just sit on their thumbs about this.
Still, the non-response is fine-- it wouldn’t look good if your company was bashing your own company on Twitter. I’m just glad there was no higher-up involvement.
I can just kind of mentally picture Lars Wingefors sitting in his office this morning like “FFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUU…”
“…but speaking in the here and now, we definitely want to have the players choose the platform of their liking and make our portfolio available to as many outlets as possible.”
Well clearly not a strong enough desire to do something about your “sister company” pulling this shit though.
Also the game is still the same price in € on epics store as it was on steam. So it would appear only Americans get the price cut. So cheers for that one THQ Nordic (Vienna), clearly not Nordic anymore then are you? Get back here and pay taxes if you want to use our region as a trademark.
They had to say something, though. I at least expect them to acknowledge what happened instead of ambiguity, and they did just that.
It does clarify that the decision wasn’t made by THQN, and that they intend to keep their current policies. If you were planning on getting Biomutant or any other THQN titles, this is some essential information.
