Metro Exodus, true to its name, is exiting Steam. The post-apocalyptic shooter will only appear on the Epic Games Store when it launches on February 15, and will stay there exclusively until 2020. Valve is not remaining silent about it.
Metro is far from the first exclusive the Epic Games Store has locked down since its launch last December, with other big-name games like Hades, Ashen, and Super Meat Boy Forever also confined to Epic’s freshly lacquered shelves for now. But this deal appears to have been a last-minute move, since Exodus was already available for pre-orders on Steam.
Today, Valve posted a notice to the Metro Exodus Steam page. “We think the decision to remove the game is unfair to Steam customers, especially after a long pre-sale period,” the company wrote.
“We apologise to Steam customers that were expecting it to be available for sale through the February 15th release date, but we were only recently informed of the decision and given limited time to let everyone know.”
On the upside, both Valve and Metro publisher Deep Silver have said that Steam pre-orders will be honored on the Epic Games Store, as will previously-purchased pre-order bonuses, expansion passes, and DLC.
Epic’s standard exclusivity period so far has been one year, and Metro is following suit: Deep Silver says it’ll be on sale on Steam and “other storefronts” after February 14, 2020. An emailed statement from Deep Silver noted that “all future DLC for Metro Exodus will be released simultaneously on all platforms,” suggesting a situation could potentially arise in which Metro Exodus is not on Steam, but its DLC is.
Comments
119 responses to “Valve Says It’s ‘Unfair’ That Metro Exodus Is Exclusive To Epic Store”
Unfair to consumers is such a bullshit excuse. They’re upset that they have to actually put some effort into making a decent service because consumers now have a viable alternative.
Regardless of their motive, they’re not wrong – exclusives are anti-consumer. And their position isn’t entirely without foundation, I don’t think Steam has ever required storefront exclusivity like the Epic store is doing. Don’t get me wrong, Steam has made plenty of missteps in the past, but I don’t think this is a pot/kettle occasion.
Correct. Valve has also provided free of charge keys to developers to freely sell on other stores, whether physical or digital. On top of that, Valve maintains the largest CDN gaming network on the planet that was also provided to dev’s free of charge.
There’s reason why the only games coming out on Epic exclusively are Singleplayer or a big publisher with their own multiplayer infrastructure.
Valve still got their cut for those keys regardless of where they were sold, though. It’s not altruism, they’re running a (ridiculously profitable) business.
“Overview. Steam keys are meant to be a convenient tool for game developers to sell their game on other stores and at retail. Steam keys are free and can be activated by customers on Steam to grant a license to a product. … While there is no fee to generate keys on Steam, we ask that partners use the service judiciously.”
No, Steam doesn’t get a cut.
They do if they’re reselling them in bulk on other stores. They’re meant for situations like eg giving away review copies or fulfilling kickstarters.
What part of “Steam keys are meant to be a convenient tool for game developers to sell their game on other stores and at retail”doesn’t make sense?
Okay, so why do developers not just set the price on Steam to $9999, generate shittons of keys, then sell them on their own storefronts for normal prices and pocket 100% of the profit?
Valve always gets their cut.
I don’t pay much attention to the problems that arise on these stores because i’m one to usually shrug my shoulders and just find a way to give them less money like not buying my next game on release. The only significant long term issue i had with steam was the USD vs AUD.
i exclusively use steam it sounds like i’m missing part of the story here any chance you could elaborate on some of those missteps for me, just the worst couple even would be good.
They’ve sat back on their laurels quite a lot, not really doing much to adapt to consumer needs and wants, or being very slow to the table when they do decide to do something. Their haphazard censorship was a mess with some games being removed for no evident reason or games being let on that were clearly inappropriate. They were very slow to respond to the issue of review bombing, and while I do like their answer, I think it could do more. The user interface is still somewhat backwards – I have less problem with it than others do, but it can definitely stand to be improved. Discovery is passable but needs improvement, and users should have much more power over elements do or don’t appear on their landing page.
i remember the censorship debacle, although it didn’t effect me so i ignored it.
i use a skin for steam and have for so long i don’t even remember what the interface looks like but i do remember i was happy when i got the skin so that says something.
by the “sitting on their laurels” etc i’m assuming that has to do with the arrogance and mistreatment foisted on us when they had a monopoly. but i thought that had been getting resolved with the introduction of competition like GOG etc.
i have no idea what discovery is so i’m going to go look that up later tonight. tyvm
Discovery is just the algorithm it uses to recommend new games to you. On the front page you’ll see games listed in some parts of the interface with the text “recommended because” you played a similarly tagged game, or your friends were playing it, or it’s popular, or whatever. It’s not bad, but it could be better.
yeh i looked at it last night it seems pretty crap to me i get hundreds of recommendations for games i would never play, but that just seems to be algorithms in general i cant remember the last time i heard people talking about how well an algorithm was working.
My problem with Valve is simple.
They’ve become a lazy company who cannot be bothered to allocate resources into creating good single player games. They’re too busy pushing esports and live-service games they can monetise with MTX.
And people hating on Metro Exodus is ridiculous (not here, but on Reddit). It’s games like these which keep the industry alive.. who cares if you have to pick it up from some obscure location? I’ll follow the games.
Sure. I’m not judging anyone who does or doesn’t decide to buy it from Epic, I just think it’s a bit of a shitty move from Deep Silver. I don’t know how much Epic paid them for exclusivity, but on raw numbers with no down payment I think there’s a chance they’ll lose more than they gain from the deal. The publisher gets $42 a sale on Steam and ~$53 a sale on Epic, but that means an actual lost sale (ie. someone doesn’t buy the game at all) takes four sales on Epic to make up the loss. They need to sell 80% as many units on Epic as they did on Steam to come out even. That reads pretty risky to me.
I don’t blame 4A Games, the guys that actually make the games, I think this is a Deep Silver decision. I think 4A would have been happy to sell on both platforms side by side.
Valve’s problem is that they take a very big cut of all sales (I believe it’s 30%), and despite taking a huge amount of money from everything, they bend over backwards to avoid having to do any work. They refuse to curate the platform, have absolutely labyrinthine systems (developers complain about stuff like their game being released but not visible on the store page etc), allowed their platform to be filled with shovelware and asset flips, and in all cases either want to rely on their userbase or their shitty algorithms to do all the work for them, rather than just hiring some people.
And that’s aside from the fact that Steam’s interface itself has become a bloated mess with terrible discoverability issues.
Basically they had no proper competition in their space before so they’ve let everything rot, and now they have some competition they don’t know what to do.
yes it’s becoming very obvious I didn’t know that much about steams indiscretions. I mean i knew about a lot of it but because i didn’t notice the effects much personally i had a shallow understanding.
I think it is harder to position this as anti-consumer as e.g. console exclusivity where an exclusive title might require the customer to shell out $400 for a new console when they already own equivalent hardware that could run the game. Assuming this game is Windows-only (i.e. no MacOS or Linux support), everyone who could have purchased it on Steam can purchase it on Epic’s store.
And since both platforms allow publishers to control the price offered to customers, there isn’t the same room for competition on the retail mark up as you get with bricks and mortar stores.
[With that said, it would be interesting to see a big name publisher sell on both stores but price the games to give an equal publisher cut of the sale]
The last part is what’s interesting and ultimately pointless for us as gamers. Metro Exodus was priced at $60 USD on Steam, and the same price on Epic. So the inconvenience of a move to another store isn’t even being compensated to customers with a little discount, it’s just being taken in whole by the Deep Silver. They’re getting $11 more per unit sold, even a little $5 discount would have gone a ways to giving people a reason to follow it over.
You’ve got no idea if those are the numbers though. If Epic is promising a 12/88 revenue share to anyone who wants to publish on their store, then presumably they’re offering something better to secure a year of exclusivity from a big name publisher. Either they’ve reduced their commission even further, offered an advance on sales, or paid out a lump sum.
Also, THQ Nordic publishes a lot more than just Metro, so they might also see it as a bargaining chip to negotiate a better deal with Valve for their entire portfolio. Of course, that kind of behaviour is a bit shitty to Metro’s developer…
Rumour has it that Epic paid out $10 million for the exclusivity deal.
Whilst not huge, it isn’t chump change either.
Genuinely curious about that rumour, any sources of merit? An upfront payment definitely makes more sense than an increased revenue cut.
A better deal than 88% doesn’t undermine my point, it reinforces it. They’re gaining at least $11 per unit based on the general offer alone, a better deal simply means they’re gaining even more, and have even more flexibility to offer a consumer discount.
Making a game hardware exclusive is (arguably) anti-consumer.
But good luck arguing that on PC when all the store fronts are freely available for download.
I do however understand the dream for wanting all games on one platform (I have 600 games on steam myself).
I feel that way about exclusivity pretty much across the board. I don’t think it benefits consumers when a particular third-party brand or product is only available in one retailer, whether it’s clothing or video games or TV shows on streaming services or anything else. All it does is restrict choice and pad the pockets of the storefront.
I’m not suggesting it’s the most egregious example of an anti-consumer practice, but it rates on the scale, at least for me.
It is literally just a different website how is that anti-consumerist, that is a bit of a far reach. It is a mild inconvenience to type a different url and create another account and that’s the worst of it. I’d also so for a large portion or video gamers they have already been to the epi site so it will auto-fill making it even easier.
It’s anti-consumer because it forces consumers to purchase from a specific, single storefront with no choice of vendor. Unlike Steam, this is an artificially created exclusive, not a naturally occurring one. Convenience has nothing to do with it, there are plenty of reasons why people don’t want to install game launcher #27, or have to use a different launcher for one game when their other three hundred are somewhere else.
This decision offers no benefits and only inconveniences to the consumer. The deal exists solely to benefit Epic and, if the deal is sufficiently profitable, Deep Silver. Consumers gain nothing.
Are you saying any digital service that provides any exclusivity to a product is anti-consumer because you realise that puts Valve in the same right, not just in games it sells but DLC as well? Are you excluding hardware game vendor exclusions such as the big 3(Sony, Nintendo, & MSFT) and also considering Cable boxes as well as satellite avenues. Does this extend to real-world items found exclusively within Coles and Woolworths and vice-versa?
I mean this sincerely is it any different to any business practices that any other company is doing literally right now?
I’m saying that any digital service that secures exclusive rights to a third party product is anti-consumer. Valve doesn’t do this, they don’t have or ask for exclusive rights to any products except their own. I don’t exclude hardware, third party console exclusives are equally as anti-consumer. And I noted elsewhere, this applies to any product – clothes, TV show streaming rights, games, everything. If it’s third-party, it should not be exclusive to a single seller.
… what?
This is exactly what Deep Silver is doing, they OWN their product and they can by your own logic choose where they sell it exclusively. How exactly is that decision by them any different than Valves?
Vales decides it doesn’t want DOTA 2 on any other platform forever; Done.
Deep Silver decides it doesn’t want METRO EXODUS on any other platform temporarilyDictionary ; Done
No, it’s not exactly what Deep Silver is doing. Valve owns Steam, Deep Silver doesn’t own Epic. Valve’s games on Valve’s store is called first party, Deep Silver’s games on Epic’s store is called third party.
there are many companies doing this right now your right, but trust me zombiejesus may not be listing all the things you can think of but if it is 3rd party exclusivity then hes against it.
On the topic of coles/woolworths what they are doing is kinda the reverse they make coles brand something then slowly faze out the other brands offering the same thing. Milk for example here in the NT most coles shopping centres or service stations now dedicate almost all of the fridge space to their own coles brand milk, while they do still have the other brands they don’t get deliveries on the weekend for those other brands so over the weekend if you want milk you only have one choice that is anti consumer. So they have a monopoly and now they are excluding 3rd party as much as possible and in sneaky ways that don’t get them spanked by the ACCC.
One of the reasons this is bad for consumers is that it removes competition and the product becomes shit because they don’t have to compete. Try coles cranberry sauce one day it’s fucking awful its like 30% sugar or something absurd it tastes like jam for fuck sake.
So your logic is that because other companies in different markets do it, It’s suddenly okay?
Exclusivity is anti-consumer no matter where it is.
You are reaching incredibly with your comment
Are you saying my statement is untrue without providing counter arguments? My logic isn’t mine I was applying Zombie Jesus logic so there isn’t any reaching there. If you don’t have a good counter argument don’t start making personal attacks on me. Dismantle my points and refute them with your facts.
Also if exclusivity is anti-consumer why is no one talking about Valves constant anti-consumer behavior prior to this article and why are we siding with them when clearly their interest align with their wallets and not out best intentions?
Well to be fair, Valve basically did that back in 2003(?) when they locked updates to their back catalogue into Steam, and did the same with HL2. But nobody cares now because we’ve forgotten how shitty Steam was at launch. People hated it back then and hated being forced into it. Epic are doing the same but they need third parties to grow the platform – which is shitty, but a logical extension of what anchored Steam in the early days.
My problem lies mostly with third party exclusives. First party is still a little shitty, but passable. Valve selling their own games on their own platform, okay. EA doing it on Origin, okay. I’d rather they didn’t, but it’s passable. Securing exclusive rights to third party titles, I draw a line on that.
And I agree that it’s worse – but the principle of locking in anchor games to make your store ‘essential’ is common to both. Steam was forced onto customers way back then and people hated it, especially because it was a complete mess on release.
Valve’s outlook is just the same as Epic’s – the reason they could afford to be more ‘generous’ with not locking things down is because they had such a massive market share and so many people unionically screaming ‘No Steam, no sale!’ that they didn’t need to do that. They did it by hitching it to a popular franchise to ram it down everyone’s throats and being the first to do so. As the balance tips Valve might have to rethink their approach.
The principle is only the same if you set aside the ‘third party’ part, but that’s the critical point of difference, and the essential problem. Valve and EA and Epic are welcome to lock in their own first party anchor titles if they like, but it’s a very different thing to doing it with a third party title.
They have also spent time promoting it. I’ve definitely seen it lots front and center when I load the store page. That space could have gone to another game.
Its the fact they committed to Steam and allowed customers to pre-order on Steam (but also other Steam Key vendors) to suddenly change the terms and conditions of sale suddenly… after purchase is bullshit.
“Will it be on Steam? Is a purchase factor for some consumers, having a comprehensive library platform is desirable… and have the option to purchase from any key vendors.
Also Steam has a right to be pissed, thats cancelled sales and refunds, this is costing them money that they will have to recover from thd publisher and thats going to be ugly.
I disagree. There have been viable alternatives for YEARS. Origin, Uplay and GoG. Orgin did DLC better than Steam, so Steam adapted to it. GoG sold older games, so Steam started to do it. Uplay had a rewards system in place, so Steam got one too. The only real difference is that Epic, compared to EA and Uplay, still have a some what decent rep, and in terms of GoG, people just don’t seem to remember its there in the first place, even tho GoG is owned by CDP.
As for Valve being upset, well, I think any one would be in this given position. Valve has taken money for something that there now no longer able to sell/provide at the given date. And with it basically being 2 weeks notice, its a bit short on time. On top of that, all the sales Steam has gotten are now going to be given to Epic, witch will posubly boost the number of people using the Epic store. There literately being forced to hand customers over to there competitor.
The biggest thing here, is that Epic is the first company to actually do Console style exclusives. EA stopped putting there games on Steam over difference in the way they did DLC, but Epic, as far as I am aware, is the first to actually contractually run 1 year exclusives for games. This is a MAJOR deal. We are looking at the biggest shakeup the market place has had since Steam.
How would you suggest they realistically do that?
Boo hoo.
And so 2019, the year of anti-consumerist behaviour by online storefronts begins. I wonder how close to treading on Antitrust laws this is.
After the Valve vs ACCC case and the rise of Fortnite popularity resulting in high customer and parent complaints over credit card charges and onkine purchases, credit fraud, link scams, and poor service this may cone up sooner rather than later.
Antitrust requires you to have a monopoly in one area and then use it to leverage another market. Epic definitely does not have a problem. Valve might, but they would have to do something really shady, like forcing manufacturers to distribute drivers via Steam and not let any Steam game start that didn’t have a Valve-delivered driver or something. Which would be insane and obviously wouldn’t happen.
don’t give them ideas
The thing i am pissed off at is that if i want to play this game i now have to install yet another bloody PC platform for some arbitrary BS reason, There is already Steam, uPlay, Origin, Battle.net and a couple of other small ones.
Preorders are still live for today, alternatively wait a year and it’ll be on Steam.
Doesn’t look like you can pre-order on Steam anymore. I’m not seeing a pre-order/purchase buttons.
Yeah went down earlier today sadly.
Yep, I am frustrated by this so much. Even though I am so excited to play this game, I have so many other games to play. I will easily wait a year to have it on steam.
I think that because Deep Silver had already offered it for pre-order on steam, they should not have made it Epic game store exclusive afterwards.
Sure it has been a long time since Valve has deserved respect, they have been the king for so long they started to get too controlling, they need competition to be put in their place… however they are thoroughly correct, well from a consumer point of view, I dont want to get Epic but in order to get this game now I have to. (sure the reason why Valve is complaining is different) they arent wrong about it being an awful thing.
wow i didn’t know valve was so hated i must have missed a lot of shit they did.
They are just very greedy. Very controlling. Like any company which has no real peers or competition, they just became very heavy handed. The Epic store, like GOG before it are good for consumers, because they offer customers a choice, and in doing so put pressure on Valve to be more consumer based if they dont want to lose market share.
that is true it is never a good idea to have a monopoly in anything and while i do welcome the competition with steam i also feel that epic having exclusive titles is much the same issue.
Although i don’t have a dog in this fight as i never pre-ordered the game and it isn’t a game i would play in any case i am totally unaffected.
Except the problem is that the Epic store doesn’t offer consumers a choice. If you want this game there is only one place you can get it now, the Epic store. Not even GOG is getting it. At the moment, Epic is the one being greedy and and controlling as they monopolise developers and games in order to steal power away from Valve.
Their intentions may be for the greater good but their actions are going down the path of “evil”.
Yeah totally.
yeah this is different than uplay and origin and bethesda becauser its only their own titles that are restricted to those store fronts. this is a complete 3rd party publisher that is placing the game only on epic’s store and no one else. this also means that epic must of given deep sliver an absolute shit load of cash to do this because they are going to loose a lot of customers by not having this selling on all stores
They offer us choice like where you can purchase Metro Exodus from….oh 🙁
Unfair because it uses a different launcher? I have bought ubisoft games off steam, and still have to use uplay.
We don’t give a shit, valve.
Unfair because customers have been able to prepurchase it on Steam up until now, only to have the devs pull it less than 3 weeks from release.
Wow, it’s almost like you didn’t read the article.
I did, the full thing “both Valve and Metro publisher Deep Silver have said that Steam pre-orders will be honored on the Epic Games Store, as will previously-purchased pre-order bonuses, expansion passes, and DLC.”
So you think exclusives in any game of any sort are good and great for consumers?
Its a different launcher, not a different platform
Depends. If it’s exclusive because it makes use of features exclusive to a particular platform then yes. Some of my most favourite games of past generations have been the ones that make use of the unique features of a given platform, whereas the generic games that get freely ported to every platform tend to be less interesting. Or alternatively when those games do get ported to differing platforms, they end up watered-down or hamstrung because of the differing feature set. I don’t usually consider a lesser experience to be a good thing for consumers.
Valve also spent time promoting the game for quite a long time.
i’m supposed to feel sorry for the massive corporation losing advertising money?
i don’t know about your experience with uplay, but my experience was fucking awful excuse my language but there really is not better way to describe it.
i think maybe you should have written “i don’t give a shit, valve” considering it is painfully obvious some people do give a shit.
I don’t know when your last experience with Uplay was, but I’d argue it is on par if not better than Steam these days… Pretty much always cheaper to buy direct from their store too, by a significant amount in most cases.
It’s actually the only digital store where I’ve consistently gotten new Ubisoft games cheaper than from some third party key sites, that in itself is basically unheard of for other platforms.
It used to be an absolute dumpster fire no doubt, but it has improved massively in recent years.
i admit the last time i used it was i think about a month and a half after it launched so i should probably have shut my big mouth about it.
maybe i will give it another look now though. buying a game on or near release that has EA any where near it makes the inside of my skull itch so at the very least i need to get it as cheap as possible. (not that i will buy this game but for future ubisoft products i will bear this in mind)
yep Ubisoft games i get from Uplay and 3rd party i get from steam
Doesn’t really bother me that much, it’s their game and they can sell it or not sell it as they see fit – it’s up to the consumer to vote with their wallet and don’t buy it if you don’t like the way they do business.
The part that DOES bother me is that they already took pre-orders through Steam then pulled the rug out. They should either at least honour the pre-orders they already took through Steam on Steam or, if they can’t do that, make the hard decision to resist the Epic store’s rivers of exclusivity gold, release it on Steam and chase the exclusivity money for their next game where they can be clear from the outset about how they’ll be selling it.
i thought it said they are honoring the pre-orders, also if it’s still for pre-order on steam and epic is honoring them you could wallet vote so to speak by getting it thru steam right?
It says Steam pre-orders are being honoured through the Epic store. I took that to mean that if you pre-ordered on Steam you’ll still only be able to get the game from the Epic store? I could be wrong in my understanding of that – I’m not sure how that would work in practical terms ie matching different accounts on different stores etc.
yeh nvm i think your right you still have to get it from the Epic store, thinking about it now it could be a huge pain in the ass glad i never pre-ordered it.
i usually do pre-order games though so maybe i will have to stop that now that this could happen to me.
From their FAQ – sounds like preorders will be honored via Steam (given the DLC will be delivered via steam). They’re just not accepting any more pre-orders/purchases through Steam.
Ah, not so bad if that’s how it works. I haven’t read their FAQ, just the article and the article seems a bit ambiguous to me on that point.
I dream of a day when operations like Steam, Netflix, and their various competitors, compete on service and not on content.
Fuckit. I only played Last Light a year ago, a good five after it came out.
I’ll just wait out Exodus. No rush.
Same here… if a year from now I don’t have another shinier new game to purchase and play instead. It will be interesting to see how this mentality will affect their sales. It seems like a bold bet to expect that a game from a new franchise will be good enough to carry a change of provider for the customers.
To be fair, Exodus looks like the best PC games to come out in years.
This, Rage 2 and Cyberpunk are the PC games I’m waiting on.
(Funnily enough, that’s 1 game on the Epic Store, one on the Bethesda Store and 1 on GOG)
gunna be waiting a while for cyberpunk though, im guessing may next year at the earliest as may is traditonally when CPR likes to release their games
Last time i checked CDPR confirmed Cyberpunk would be coming to steam and would not be exclusive to GoG
CDPR have tended to have more extra stuff and/or better prices when you buy their games off GoG instead of Steam though.
I was lagging behind in my replay of 2033/Last Light, so a delay is welcome, but a whole year? Now I’ll definitely be waiting for reviews – the open world stuff and Expansion Pass announcements already had me worried…
Unless Epic confirms Australian consumer rights laws, I’ll be giving MetroEx a miss. In this age of gaming, refunds for crap is a big loyalty feature for me.
Epic’s refund policy seems to be the same as Steam – less than two weeks since purchase and max two hours playtime gets a refund regardless of reason. No word on any other conditions yet, and honestly I don’t remember what additional requirements the ACCC had for Steam aside from the conditions above.
They bought in an identical refund policy to Steam a couple weeks ago.
in protest, they should make half life 3
A couple of counter arguments to comments:
“Valve had advertised the title/that space could have been used by something else”
Yes, but Deep Silver paid for that marketing. Valve isn’t a charity.
“Exclusives are bad”
Where were you when BF3/ME3 and so on were listed on Origin only?
Listing the game only on an in-house marketplace is by default “exclusive” as in it excludes all other options. The last BF game to be on Steam was Bad Company 2. Uplay being in games that are supplied via steam isn’t an exclusive. It’s just that Ubi wants to have a direct relationship with their customers and manage updates through their own platform. They were smart enough to negotiate that with Valve.
“This is bad for the consumer/not saving the customer money”
The move to Epic Games Store has nothing to do with being good for the consumer. It is all about giving the developer/publisher what Valve will not. The money saving part is obvious, the less obvious parts that are a positive for them- they get their customer’s email address/contact details allowing the company to have a direct relationship with their customer (ie. marketing). They don’t get review bombed/downvoted driving away sales on the sales platform itself. They don’t have to compete with others in the same genre. Epic seeks them out and attracts them. They get a contract with clear language outlining their obligations as well as their rights. They (likely) will get a bug tracking tool (valve doesn’t provide this).
If I were Epic and I really wanted to kick the hell out of valve- I’d be super efficient (keep my costs low), provide the best developer tools (developers love us), get the biggest names on my platform each generating massive revenue / page impressions (lots of visitors) and curate a small marketplace of high quality titles (customer love).
Remember when Valve was cool?
Remember when Valve was powerful?
I’m not privvy to what’s going on behind the scenes, but what I do know in general is that ‘complaining about fairness’ is a pretty good indicator that you’re not bargaining from a position of strength.
Yeah..
I guess it comes down to the fact that Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony have created hardware with their own storefronts. Whereas Valve has simply created a software store on a hardware platform where anyone can do the same.
Big publishers are stuck with MS, Nintendo and Sony when it comes to console. Either that or they sell to retailers and have to put up with second hand sales. But on PC, they can just make their own stores.
A cashed up Epic giving mid-tier publishers a better deal is just the latest thing eating away at Valve.
My biggest problem with Valve is that, even will all that damn money coming in, they haven’t been able to create a single game worth playing (imho) since 2011.
they dont care about creating games, and to behonest i dont blame them because HL3 is so fucking hyped up that there is a 99.9999999999999999992% chance that it would be another Duke Nukem Forever
I mean, it’s a pretty simple calculus for publishers. They’re not going to change the cost of the game so it’s going to be $60 USD at launch regardless.
Do they want to give Epic 12% of that sale and pocket the 88% remaining, or do they want to give 30% to Valve and pocket 70% of the sale?
Though for the really big releases, Valve has a rolling scale (25%/75% after $10 million in sales, 20%/80% after $50 million) that’s still a lot of money they’re missing out on.
The big publishers already ditched Steam partially or completely. Ubisoft is slowly moving their games to Uplay but hedging their bets a little still, EA has had their releases on Origin for ages, Actiblizzion moved their tentpole releases to Battle.net, Microsoft’s PC releases are primarily on their own storefront, Bethesda’s moving their stuff to their own storefront now… This is all so they can avoid having to pay a huge cut to Valve so that Valve can sit on their hands and do sweet fuck all to justify that cost. Valve at least had the distribution and DRM solutions, but nowadays every fucking AAA publisher puts goddamn Denuvo or VMProtect or the like on their releases anyway, and content distribution has gotten a whole ton easier thanks to CDN offerings like AWS and Azure. Valve doesn’t have a good value-proposition any more and they are terrified about this IMO.
Remember when valve bruteforced market shares through 3rd party exclusive games… Oh wait they never did that…not even EA did that
You can have all your games in one place on a console…just sayin’.
Until Epic allows user reviews on its storefront.
ill-treat every exclusivity as an attempt to avoid user reviews.
Whats questionable though is Nathan Grayson’s comments on this on his twitter in which he calls the steam userbase hyper toxic “Pro-consumer”.
I kind-of agree with him, which is crazy. I hardly ever agree with Nathan.
I do think the “pro-consumer” rhetoric is out of hand. It’s a 2 minute free install to grab the Epic Store launcher. People aren’t being asked to buy a new PC.
It really just boils down to the common user wanting all of their games to be organised in one neat library. Which would obviously be lovely.
I mean, just think of how much you have spent on Steam compared to GOG or Origin. Which one would you then prefer to buy from in the future based on that?
But it isn’t anti-consumer for a publisher to move to a platform offering them a better deal.
“But it isn’t anti-consumer for a publisher to move to a platform offering them a better deal.”
It is when they make it exclusive to that new platform after having it previously available for purchase on another.
It is when that platform happens to not allow user reviews.
Nathan Grayson says a lot of off the wall bullshit routinely i wouldn’t pay much attention to him.
In other news, 2019 will be a big year for me when it comes to pc gaming piracy….oops, did I say that aloud?
Pirating Metro Exodus is a pretty shit move tbh.
It’s one of the few great single player games out there which isn’t riddled with microtransactions and lootboxes.
Not to nitpick, but it being ‘one of the few great single player games’ definitely remains to be seen…
What with it not even being out yet.
Some people here are making a mountain out of a mole hill. For decades now certain games have been exclusive to certain platforms… platforms that cost actual money to have access to (im looking at you, consoles).
In this situation, the platform the game is exclusive to is simply a free piece of software. No one has to shell out a single cent more to have this game than they would have if it were still on steam. There is absolutely no change in who is able to play this game – anyone that had access to it on steam, has access to the epic games launcher.
Yes – there are legitimate reasons for this to piss some people off – wanting to keep all your games in 1 place, preferring that a product be open and available to buy where the user chooses etc. But people claiming this is “anti consumer” and I even saw someone up above claim its stepping on “antitrust” territory are just over reacting or have had their head in the sand for 40 years.
As for just epic games in general doing a lot of exclusives at the moment – id say this is probably something they have to do. If they just rock up on the scene with no games that arent already available on steam – why would anyone bother? They need to do this to establish themselves, once people start thinking of the epic store equally or even before steam when they want to buy a game – they won’t necessarily stop with the exclusives, but they won’t be a 2nd or 3rd class citizen like the majority of the other store fronts out there.
Hey they are well within their legal rights to screw us over. But we are well within ours to complain about their predatory practices.
Epic could offer us a better service than steam but they want to bring console to the PC instead.
Again.
Another claiming that because other areas do it, Its suddenly okay.
Console exclusives are just as anti consumer.
Your head is up your own rectum. People are not overreacting. They are rightfully annoyed that they used to have a choice. Now its been taken away.
So what? This does not suddenly make what they are doing alright.
Epic sure is establishing themselves. But the opinion they are establishing is not a good one within the PC community.
When did more competition become anti consumer? I already need Uplay installed for some of my steam games. It’s a minor inconvenience at worst.
Steam takes a 30% cut and Epic takes 12%, where are you gonna sell your game? How much will you complain when Steam has it at a higher price to compensate?
We used to not have any choice. Now consumers and developers have the choice of where to buy/sell their stuff.
Where is the choice on what platform to buy the game on? I’ll wait.
The Epic Store because that’s what it’s being sold on. Are you equally upset that Garry’s Mod is only available on Steam? If Steam exclusivity is cool then why is Epic Store exclusivity bad? Are we furious that Kmart doesn’t sell games anymore? Do we boycott games that don’t run on Mac/Linux?
Not to mention cinemas getting movies as timed exclusives when I should just be able to buy the DVD. TV networks getting exclusive sports coverage rights requiring me to change channels. Netflix has so much region-locked content.
I feel like registering for an Epic account is the least of our problems.
Yet another game to be added to the pirate list. The epic store is horrible for a slew of reasons. No Cloud saves, No offline play, No social features, No Reviews no return policy and the games are overpriced. While i understand they are trying to make money and steam is trying to make money at least steam has features. Epic just after that cash
After recently deleting my Epic account, I will not be touching the Epic Game Store with a ten-foot pole ever again:
Terrible security. Ever since accounts were exposed last week, I was getting login attempts on my account almost ever other day despite changing my password. This has been experienced by other users as well. Have since deleted my account which wasn’t an easy task to begin with.
Terrible customer service. A friend’s account has been hacked into and Epic has refused to do anything about it. Been hearing other users having similar experience, as well as having their refunds being refused even having met the criteria.
Hit or miss but games can be more expensive on the Epic Game Store than on Steam, especially for us Aussies due to regional pricing.
Currently no user reviews! They have announced they will be adding this feature in but also allowing developers to turn off user reviews. Like what the!?
Limited social features and that includes having no game forums, no sharing of screenshots, no game achievements.
No cloud saves! Again, what the?!
Can’t play games offline.
They are partially owned by Tencent, a company that has been known to sell user data to the Chinese government.
As been pointed out by reddit and other numerous gaming forums like NeoGAF, their EULA is very shady.
My heart breaks. XD
Dare I say it? Could this spur Gabe into developing HALF LIFE 3 !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
How is it unfair?
For years, Valve disregarded consumers until they were sued repeatedly, and even after losing in high court, they reluctantly gave in and still occasionally even ignored court orders until they were sued again. They’ve had no real competition until now.
Valve became greedy and lazy.
Now there’s a real competitor offering a DRM free service, free games every 2 weeks and good exclusives, Valve are crying about it. If they don’t like it, then maybe it’s time they made some actual effort.
I’d prefer having all my games in one place but Valve have needed a seriously kick for a long time. Remember that people cried about Steam when it first came out because it’s DRM and you don’t even own the games.
@transientmind @soldant @chinesefood
I said this in an earlier comment:
Turns out that may not be true. One of 4A’s developers known as scynet posted on a Russian game forum about the issue. While they rightfully noted that some gamers were overreacting, he also said what I think is probably the worst possible response an official source could give: a threat.
Via Google Translate:
Well shit, I hope there’s something lost in translation there…
Hah. Fine. Fuck’em. It’s a good franchise but it’s not THAT good. XD