Well that’s a whole new level of backstabbing your customers. Metro was bad, in my opinion this is worse. This was a backer funded game, they raised funding from customers by promising steam and gog keys. If they have no intention of fulfilling that promise to their backers then the campaign is simply fraudulent.
“a year of paid DLC” yeah that’s a very empty promise that says nothing. Could be they don’t push out a piece of DLC at all for the first year, could be a selection of funny hats. No matter what it turns out to be it by no means erases the trust betrayed.
I’m glad I didn’t back this game for sure, glad I know now to never do so for snapshot games.
In fairness, a company like Snap Shot may bite the bullet in a case like this because it means they can provide a better product with additional funding, in theory.
They do deserve some criticism for taking the deal, obviously… but unlike Metro, this wasn’t a developer being dragged through the coals because a publisher is lining their pockets with Epic money the devs will never see. This is a calculated risk being taken by developers that at least got to evaluate the situation first.
Tim Sweeney - “The game business will change more in the next five years than the past ten”
“Yes, we’ve worked to ensure it’s genuinely worthwhile for developers to move to the Epic Games store,” Sweeney replies openly. That’s because Battle Pass has given the company one hell of a war chest, or as Sweeney puts it: “Fortnite’s success has given Epic significant latitude to help developers.”
“We’re giving game developers and publishers the store business model that we’ve always wanted as developers ourselves,” says Sweeney.
“It’s nearly perfect for consumers already… There is no hope of displacing a dominant storefront solely by adding marginally more store features or a marginally better install experience. These battles will be won on the basis of game supply, consumer prices, and developer revenue sharing,” Sweeney reckons.
“Epic succeeds when our partners succeed. Our whole business model is built on supporting this thesis,” says Sweeney.
Epic games are not just trying compete with Steam, they’re killing sub-vendors. I can’t buy the Division 2 for cheaper price at 2Game, GOG or GMG because of them. Epic Games are literally ruining the best part of being the PC gamer.
i mean, since it uses drm, and is uplay, you would probably never get it on GoG regardless of their deal with Epic
but yea, overall point agreed, it’s the first real step towards true PC “exclusives” when making monopolistic deals that also limit price competition like this
-and is why i hope Epic don’t manage to do it with too many games i’m actually interested in, or in the future(kinda hope Valve decides to lower their cut or “something” to bring back devs enthusiasm about the platform )
especially if(/when) games quit physical retail too at some point, -and could then only buy at uplay/epic/X for whatever price they decide to demand
Well we can add Outer Worlds to the Exclusively on Epic store list, luckily it was the publishers (Private Division) making it an exclusive but it’s still a bad move.
Epic is an abomination. They’re nothing but a plague.
This will be the first Remedy game I ever have to skip. I’ve been following Control from the moment it unveiled, even the zero info we got in the Project 7 days. I was so excited for this one… so thanks a lot. Thanks for nothing.
I hope Epic gave them a lot of V-bucks to make their betrayal worth it.
the “main” problem there, as i see, is once again you have games that advertised not just “on” the steam store, but outside off it in promo material, that it would be on steam
it just doesn’t look good when pulling out of “promises” like that imo… too bad there are no rules about this sort of thing being unlawful/false advertisement,
Will be curious to see how many of the angry/upset steam users “stand fast”, or goes the way of MW2 “boycott”
i’m thinkink Epic is doing the right thing (businesswise), people are “fickle”, forgetful, and eventually they will cave because there was abother shiny bauble in the bush across the street they really “wanted”, and “naow”, not a year later…
curious, very curious… gonna be interesting to see how this thing plays out in the long run, and if Valve are gonna pull up their pants and make a(/any) move, at all, with how (fast) this is going…
I think, and greatly hope that Epic is shooting themselves in the foot doing this though. I know if I had a game I thought was good and able to attract customers in the works I for sure wouldn’t go ahead and put it in the Epic store at this point in time.
Why?
Epic has been chucking great sacks of cash at people to put their game into the epic store, why would I go ahead and do so for free? I’d be doing my best to catch Epic’s eye though hope they’ll want to make it rain for me too.
In the end Epic is only going to have games they’ve paid for in the store, steam will have everything else. This is part of why I think steam has not made any great movements to respond to this. They can’t go and make a counteroffer to everyone who’ve taken Epic’s bait just to maintain the status quo, that’s not a very attractive investment strategy.
I think they will do something behind the scenes about devs and publishers using steam’s resources and trademarks to market their games without launching their games on steam though, that’s in my opinion the big weak point they can put a lot of pressure at.
how long you wanna guess before epic shakes moneybaghands with humble and does a monthly with many/most/all (except early unlocks) being epic store keys to “invite” customers to Epic?
well, does seem like we got a mw2 “boycott” on our hands, -and probably things will be rolling more towards epic if they can actually boast those numbers and keep them up similarly with their other titles
You know how Epic wins? Instead of massive golden handshakes/handcuffs (delete as applicable) they give the publishers/developers the same favourable split, BUT, use that handcuff money to reduce the price of games for however long that wad lasts. So lets say a $10 million bribe - for that game it’s half price on Epic, with the publisher getting returns equivalent to the full price, until the bribe money runs out on making up the discount half. (Have I explained that well enough? Not got my glasses on at the mo’ so squinting at the screen).
Imagine Sekiro being $60 on Steam and $30 on Epic…
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