Another one bites the dust... Why do companies make such stupid decisions like this? They apparently don't want our money. At least they give refunds to all backers that wanted a Steam or GOG key.
They don't need our money since Epic's paying them. It's as simple as that. From a business point of view, short term, Epic's deals are great for both Epic as well as the companies. I wouldn't bet on it long term, though.
Great... I was looking forward to getting this on GOG (since, you know, you own the games you buy on that store, and it has Galaxy as a completely optional launcher). Oh well, I'm simply left with more money. I wish them all only the blockiest of LEGO bricks in their path, and no shoes to protect them.
Epic/Tencent is basically forcibly expanding it's fortnight launchers catalog of games at the detriment of itself and the developers it involves because of how it is going about doing it resulting in disgust towards all involved... Although I feel as though this is going to affect the game developers Epic/Tencent gobbles up with it's exclusivity deal more so then itself long term.
Sure, the people upset about this are probably already not the biggest fans of the epic launcher in the first place. And yes, I too think, if somebody will get the check for those actions, it won't be Epic themselves. And that's why I do hope that it backfires... one can say and discuss about exclusivity deals enough by themselves, but taking a game off of a platform / changing the way it's delivered although people have been already preordering (Metro) or backing (this here), that's just not necessary. Even if it does not hit Epic themselves, I have little to no regrets in letting the publishers / devs know how I feel about their games being on EGS exclusively. Imagine you buy a car (or any other item), and the dealer tells you to pick it up at a certain time at the dealership in your town. You pay him money, a contract is agreed on, managing what the dealer has to give you (car / item), when he's supposed to give it to you (the time of delivery / pickup), and where (the dealership where you can pick it up). All of this is agreed upon by both sides before you pay (or give a deposit), so the contract includes all of this. And then, they call you, telling you that you will have to drive to the next town, or even more so, a bigger city some time and quite a few kilometers / miles away, because in the meantime they've signed an exclusivity deal with the other dealership. You have to go there to pick it up, they won't bring it to you, and if you want to, they refund your money and keep the car (item), but you get nothing. I'd tell them to f off, the very least any human being could muster is being upset. And that's about the same here... they changed delivery to their liking, giving them a financial advantage at the possible cost of their customers. edit: here's the reddit, people don't seem to be too happy (at least not those voicing their opinions) https://www.reddit.com/r/PhoenixPoint/
This is proof that they no longer really need any money from customers, and it's kinda scary... https://www.reddit.com/r/PhoenixPoint/comments/b0kk4k/everything_wrong_with_the_current_situation/
Yah, but it's not a sustainable business model from a financial point of view and partnering with Epic not only generates more hatred towards Epic but similarly, it irreperably taints your product launch into the bargain. Sadly, if there is one thing you can count on with a large segment of humanity, it's greed. Personally, I wouldn't buy a thing from this clown, lying his ass off about how the EGS is going to allow him to 'update and expand Phoenix Point for years to come', as if you can't do that on any storefront out there And a year of free DLC, no thanks, I don't generally like DLC, and the fact that you are willing to give a years worth away for free says one of two things, it's not very good, and/or you are seriously desperate. Developers, release your game on whatever platform you please but stop with the f*cking exclusivity bollocks, it only hurts your product in the final analysis. I had never even heard of this game before this post and now I will go back to my blissful ignorance of it for all eternity.
I agree with this being only a temporary way of getting exclusivity for Epic. Once the Fortnite money starts to dry up (maybe Apex Legends could help...), I doubt that it will be profitable for them.
I wouldn't say it's scary. I'd say it's an honest answer from one of the people working for that game. The answer being: Screw those people who want refunds, we get paid anyway, and anything beyond that is not of interest.
@fantaskarsef He says 'screw me', I say 'SCREW HIM'. Even after what this kind of anti consumer stupidity did to BFV, these self involved morons continue to double down.
There's also another thing. If the game does poorly, Epic simply may not dangle a sack of coins for another of their games.
BF5 lives good off of mindless buyers and console players who maybe never knew why BF5 is a controversial game to some. But that's not the case here with a PC exclusive title... they might actually feel missing sales. Good call, I did not think about this. But I always had the impression, it's all just marketing money right now, in a few years down the road, either for good or ill, EGS won't be throwing around so much money, nor will we talk about it. Either Epic succeeded with their strategy, or they did not, but they won't invest millions every year in exclusive deals if it doesn't pay off for Epic. And Epic couldn't care less about the single games / devs / publishers, it's just big numbers that make them even notice if something's off. I still wish we could get EGS / steam sales number comparisons, although they probably will never release them.
That makes me wonder. Aside from Metro: Exodus, and Division 2 (although that's not an exclusive, and still requires Uplay to... play), most of the rest are indie games. How much money can Epic make off them? Most of those are niche to begin with, so I can't see this strategy being profitable for long...
Their best horse in the stable still is Fortnite. It practically lives off of "youngsters" who pay for every bit of sillyness they can buy extra. It's like selling candy to kids with debit cards... faster than actually printing money. Metro might be a big seller, that's true. Only in the first year... I don't see people all so bothersome as to grab it a year later, by the time we will probably have the next Assassin's Creed, the next COD, BF, the next battle royale game, the next Far Cry... you name it. Lots of FPS competition around. So I wouldn't bet on them selling massively on Steam, and then the reason will be "because people like EGS more!" which again is the stupidity of only reading numbers without wondering where they come from... typical manager thinking. The Division 2 actually needs uplay to play it, even though you bought it on EGS? Wow... the same fail they did with steam (only once I happened to make the mistake of buying an ubicrap game on steam). So... why should I buy it on EGS then, if it's available, at the same time, and price, via the launcher I have to install anyway? So I can do EGS a personal favour? Give me a break Besides that, we shall see what other games Epic just "buys" for their store, the story behind it probably only is to give the EGS a start with flying banners, before the attention and discussion about it will die down anyway. They can't spend the kind of money they did on Metro on every other AAA game afterwards. As for Phoenix Point, to be fair with, looks like a great game, but indeed it's niche... probably not even comparable to what e.g. Metro earns EGS in sales. It's also a niche in terms of what the average gamer would like about it or not even bother with the game... if they miss out on this one, they might have trouble finding the right partners for their next game. And if they do stick with EGS again, they probably need a second game to be a big hit, or they're history in 3 to 5 years anyway. Good name and rep (they maybe had) aside, it's a hard business, and we've seen loved devs die even though their "niche" games sold (Westwood anybody?)
And let me just make one more point, this has nothing to do with Steam. Steam has long had problems, but many tried to make this about a 'defense of Steam' in the Metro Exodus thread, disingenuously ignoring the fact (even though it was constantly repeated), that it had nothing to do with Steam. My problem with this starts and stops with exclusivity, I really don't care if a developer sells on the EGS, but I do not want to be forced to use it because Epic is paying off developers in order to make the EGS my only choice. It is not the right way to encourage people's patronage, present me with a solid, comparable alternative and I'm definitely going to give it a look but what is on offer now from Epic is not competitive at all and the only reason anyone is selling there is because it is financially beneficial for them to do so at the expense of their potential customers, this is not good business and that is what is at issue. While I do not agree that we should all flock to Epic (in fact I disagree with a good 50% of what Sterling says in this video), I do agree that Steam's complacency and lackadaisical attitude towards QC has made it easier for companies like Epic to do what they are doing.
I've seen the video, and honestly most of the arguments he makes here are downright silly. The fact that he insinuates that a company won't publish stuff on Steam because "AIDS simulator" was a thing there is ridiculous. No company / publisher cares about that, otherwise they are lying - it's only about the amount of money being made. The same thing goes for the idea that the good games are "buried" under the indie asset flips. As far as my experience goes, Steam never advertised this crap to me, because I've never looked for it, so the algorithm has no reason to recommend these "games" to me. Then again, he is one of those who gets genuinely offended on behalf of other groups of people. To be fair, if he and other like him didn't create a fuss, 99% of people would have ever heard of "Rape night" (or whatever), including me. Steam may have become complacent, but to ignore all the good stuff it introduced over the years is stupid.
They try to recoup all costs before the game is even out and don't care about customer opinions lol. That's how it is. They screwed over people who had faith in them and kickstarted them, says all you need to know about these jokers. I don't care about them either and won't ever be forced into making a purchase on a service I have no desire to use. I did that to steam until late 2011, I can easily do it to EGS Free dlc, dlc's been around for long enough to guess what free dlc could entail. I don't care about steam criticism though, for years indies have moaned and bitched about being hard to get listed on steam and now with self publishing, they cry and bitch about discoverability. I've never actually even seen these offensive games in my steam queue. Same goes for the revenue share - it's so good they have to take a pay off for exclusivity. If another well heeled competitor shows up tomorrow, even Epic's 12% will be seen as excessive and undeserved. They'll never be happy, I don't care for their opinions. Metro's another joke - the launch window has come and gone when most of their sales are supposed to occur, not a word about it. At this point if they even say anything, I would still be suspicious because there's nothing to back up any numbers and Epic's own vested interest. Heck, I won't bother with it even when it comes to steam. The whole controversy turned me off so bad I didn't bother to download the scene release.
@emperorsfist Yah, I'm in total agreement, but I like to present as many points of view as possible. Some of his arguments are just plain stupid, not to mention nonsensical.
Very good point... what happened to Metro's sales numbers? Can't wait for them to admit they sold less copies of the game after they announced they'd switch than preorders before that. On the other hand, we probably will never know, since at this point, I'd not trust any company to give real numbers in that regard, especially not if they'd have to admit they f'ed up. Very good premise. People do tend to forget that even though arguments are totally logical to oneself, they might be without value to somebody else. Always better to form your own opinion, way to many people are taking whatever their favorite youtuber for the hard, undisputable truth.
When games do well, they're very quick to publicize it. When they don't, they keep quiet or obfuscate it like how activision was doing. At least the comments on that video are what I had hoped them to be I unsubbed him, I don't have time to waste on people like him. It's easy to take a swing at companies like Activision, EA, bethesda, and Ubisoft but not moments like these. I wish totalbiscuit were around. He'd have stomped a new one into these chimpanzees.
