But UBI will still sell Division 2 on uPlay isn't it ? So it's not exactly the same move. But yeah, crazy amount indeed.
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Metro Exodus for PC a timed exclusive for the Epic store (Steam preorders honoured, physical copy with Epic key). [READ staff post]
- Thread starter Theorry
- Start date
But UBI will still sell Division 2 on uPlay isn't it ? So it's not exactly the same move. But yeah, crazy amount indeed.
My bigger beef with that tweet isn't even the tactical correlation between toxicity/pro-consumer to drive clicks/outrage, it's the completely unnecessary swipe at a pretty understandable Valve comment
That's pretty much what everyone should at least be able to understand about this deal, whether Valve says it or not. They're simply speaking the truth here. Timed exclusivity, for all the experience we have from consoles, always meant no, you cannot pre-order Tomb Raider on PS4 the second it's announced as a timed exclusive for Xbox One. You can pre-order it 2 months or so before its actual PS4 release date. You're told from the start something is going timed exclusive and that's your expectations set (putting aside MS trying to be marketing dicks and cloud judgement over whether TR was full exclusive or timed ~ We got the answer very quickly).
No one was buying Tomb Raider for PS4 for release in 2015 up until 2 weeks before release, with the plebs then being told if you now don't pre-order it right this second you'll now have to wait until 2016.
And yes I know having to use another launcher on PC doesn't cost you like having to go buy an Xbox One. Fair comment, but the PC operating environment has never been about paid online, or paid platforms for entry. The price of entry is your own hardware budget on an open platform. While it's not like for like, there is a valid reason this bait and switch can be infuriating if you were on the cusp of being able to play a game on a platform it was expected to be launched on. Not everyone pre-orders games, not everyone should have to or be threatened that they have to pre-order a game. Many people just want to buy something on launch day, or a few days after, or maybe at the next pay-day a week or two after launch.
It's a bit of irony we have journalists not putting on a more nuanced hat to approach this mess, but instead going after clickbait outrage which if you ask me is often a form of toxicity itself. Playing your audience or the wide audience with headlines or hot takes to drive traffic. It goes without saying the vast majority will agree with you people sending @ replies to devs saying they hope they end up homeless or something IS toxic. But you cannot just imply that's how everyone responds and dress that up as "the common persons pro-consumer attitude". Or, anyone who uses Steam behaves like this. Most people won't even speak to devs, there's not much point. Just leave them alone on public social media, maybe tweet a picture or two or copy of their game or something if you want. Or maybe I drew you some artwork, what do you think? I'm not saying giving feedback (including negative) directly is wrong, but more they probably all read opinions on their company and game on reddit, on social media and on forums anyway. As whole companies even do. It's not hard to look up https://www.reddit.com/r/metro_exodus/ or https://www.reddit.com/r/pcgaming/ Devs will do it on work time and in free-time.
Everyone wants to know what everyone thinks of them, especially in artistic or product related fields. So anyone, journalists included, attempting to imply negative or unhappy remarks simply existing online/in reviews or wherever is inherently a toxic attitude, is horseshit. One of the only avenues a consumer has, after the most important which is their wallet, is their voice. Feedback can change things at times, and while it's always about the balance of being constructive versus needing to pop diazepam and take a step back, have some nuance folks. You aren't being a knight in shining armour to parade around on your horse implying the plebs better not get mildly rowdy towards the corporations.
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Why people bashing Steam cut? This 30% cut is standard for the industry, same cut as Xbox, PSN, Google Play, iTunes.
I don't see devs complaining that Google Play charges too much, so they switch to Amazon Underground marketplace. They release on both because they know where audience are.
Also steam has lot of features for that 30% cut - VAC, new trust factor API for multiplayer, now Steam will offer their Network infrastructure in use by CSGO and Dota 2 for anyone to use.
On top of everything else mentioned in the thread.
On topic about game - I won't buy it unless it's on steam.
Whole situation reminds me of Ouya moneyhats for Indi titles on Android.
I don't see devs complaining that Google Play charges too much, so they switch to Amazon Underground marketplace. They release on both because they know where audience are.
Also steam has lot of features for that 30% cut - VAC, new trust factor API for multiplayer, now Steam will offer their Network infrastructure in use by CSGO and Dota 2 for anyone to use.
On top of everything else mentioned in the thread.
On topic about game - I won't buy it unless it's on steam.
Whole situation reminds me of Ouya moneyhats for Indi titles on Android.
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So well said, thank you. Can't stand this attitude Grayson is displaying.
I agree, attacking Valve for that statement, to me, is insane. They were literally selling the game and had it up advertising its release. Just twos weeks and it would of been out and people who were waiting for reviews to drop to buy it are now screwed out if their PC storefront of choice is anything other than Epic.
On the bottom you should see a thing that says "Staff Posts" click it and you will see a thing that says threadmark. Read it, generally an update of an on going story or something the mods want people to do or not do.
Because Valve is evil.
Being serious, I don't know. This bullshit about the 30% has been appearing on ERA way before Epic released their store.
Because it's easy. 30 is a nice, big number. Valve has been painted as the villain by many. No one wants to admit that Steam's free key generation brings thatnumberdownsignificantly. Especially for retail products. I don't know what happened to the spacebar, but I'm too lazy to fix it.
click the staff posts button at the top or bottom of the page
So happy to see Valve took Metro Exodus's Steam page down. No point in giving it visibility when we're a year away. Plus Epic users can no longer use Steam's discussion boards to solve performance issues/talk about the game.
The store/community page/forums all still exist, you just won't see the game in lists when searching the store. They won't actually take down those pages because people who already purchased it through Steam will lose features (achievements, screenshot community, etc.)
While competition in regards to the overheads for devs can be good, there's no guarantee Epic will always stick to 12%. There's a reason industry standards tend to form and it's not always purely greed. Even at 12% Epic knows it isn't sustainable without some caveats
If I were a dev or pub jumping on the bandwagon of 12% might seem like a dice to roll, but don't get comfortable is all I'm suggesting.
For many games as well it seems like epic is suggesting you must give them some sort of exclusivity to get the "best deals". Rather than simply trying to win all devs over on their platform with a lower % than Valve.
Short term solutions backed by Fortnite money for epic. In some regards they have nothing to lose, but you as a 3rd party should think long and hard about what deals you make. Or more importantly how you make them and convey them to your potential buying base.
I'm sure most fans want you to be successful and have the chance at sequels and new IPs. But you can't blame an ordinary consumer for finding it a little bit of white noise whether you make 100 million versus 90 million. There comes a point where rightly or wrongly the consumer simply thinks, you're making a lot of money, your CEO is giving themselves a large bonus and millions of us have bought your game. Why are you suggesting we aren't doing enough? Why are games journalists saying we're entitled manchildren for being a bit unhappy at seeing all this profiteering but it being suggested we need to spend more on MTs after the sale of purchase to keep a studio afloat? Etc, etc.
But sure, capitalism, the shareholders always want more and the "lowly devs" will get shit canned and/or treated poorly in the pursuit of making that 100m instead of 90m. That's corporate culture though more than it is the fault of the consumer for deciding to spend their money elsewhere.
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Oh yeah, I figured the pages existed for those who own the game on Steam.
I mean this doesn't matter. If it successfully forces everyone else to drop their 30% it'll be incredibly hard for Epic to put that genie back in the bottle. That's precisely why developers are jumping ship. If they force steam and others to lower their cut, developers have completely won. If epic increases the cut again they'll jump to whoever's lowest. It would require everyone that did lower the cut to increase it which could happen but if epic was disruptive enough to force others to lower it. Then the threat of jumping ship is a potent weapon in negotiation.
It does matter when we're talking about how certain people frame any feedback as the consumer being unreasonable. The games industry is a hobby. We aren't arguing over the intricacies of socialized healthcare and what to set tax rates at to fund it. If journalists and others actually want to understand the minds of how consumers work they need to actually listen and acknowledge.
My point being, what I said above. Consumers often see yearly financial reports of games companies killing it. Making profit. Now 4A obviously isn't necessarily AAA, but Metro as an IP has done reasonably well across multiple platforms and accrued a loyal fan base and good critical acclaim. It's obviously profitable or we wouldn't be getting this sequel. A decision has been made high up to take a moneyhat and maybe chase that 12%. It definitely wasn't a move out of necessity. It's down to that 90m vs 100m. Getting the consumer to feel empathetic about that is tricky when they feel decisions are solely about getting a bit more money rather than being friendly for them.
But here's the thing. Sometimes more sales at a higher rate of development cost is better than a lower number of sales at a lower rate. The gamble being made by third parties who don't have their own proprietary launchers to play around with is the expectation that PC gamers mostly expect 3rd party titles to actually be on all PC platforms. So releasing on GOG, steam and so on.
Devs are testing out taking Epics 12% on the back of what is essentially a bribe to artificially stay launcher exclusive. Instead of what I said where devs could simply use the epic launcher at 12% and be free to do what they want elsewhere. We all know why epic don't want that, 95% of people at this time will still choose steam. Prices are cheaper with key generation too. So epic want to try and force their market share via frustrating a consumer into having an artificial choice. You're on a PC, so you CAN play Metro in 2 weeks, end of, but your choice of software to play it is only the Epic launcher for the first year.
Plus you're not necessarily right that this approach from Epic changes the market. Epic have come at this with barebones software, so while a consumer loves a deal and price is king, there's a point where features and quality of life will have a consumer pay a little more. So while the argument is epic are cheaper for dev and consumer, there's other factors. Epics software isn't anywhere near the quality of steam. Not to mention with how key resellers worked the argument that Epic is cheaper for the consumer is very flawed. It might be cheaper direct purchase, but most PC gamers will have been inputting keys into steam rather than just buying through steam.
Nothing about me is opposed to challenging valve on 30%, but it's how it's done, what methods are used and if you want to talk about risks for devs what they do themselves which might end up backfiring. Again, it simply cannot all be framed as consumers being unfair if Metro sales do end up severely disappointing on PC.
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Publishers are jumping ship for whatever Epic is paying them, the better cut is just a bonus. Until games start going exclusive just for the better cut nobody will feel compelled to change. We'll have to wait and see if the Epic store is a success before that happens.
There is no 'bait and switch '. they had adverts for their game, with links to buy the game. Anyone who followed up with those ads and preordered the game will be getting it on Steam as advertised and promised. Heck, they even had a 7 or so hour grace period where any holdouts could still preorder on Steam.
They've pulled their product from the storefront, as is their right, for their own reasons.
Right now, if you want to buy Metro on PC, you can buy it on EGS. The messaging is clear and there's no ambiguity about that.
There was no real "grace period". The grace period was only there because Valve posted a announcement on the Metro: Exodus store page that the game will be pulled.
Come back to me when people go Epic exclusive without Epic paying them.
No one, not Valve, Epic or any of the publishers beleive that this is about the store cut.
This is Epic moneyhatting paychecks
If this was about principle, their would be a at least single example that is not money hatted.
And all those games would be on the Discord store, which have a even smaller cut.
Not everyone pre-orders a game. If your advertisement says it's coming to Steam and this is the release date, then that expectation is set.
Never made an argument that they can't do what they did, I just went to lengths to explain how a consumer might feel, especially someone who doesn't pre-order games months if not weeks in advance.
Some people wait for reviews and day 1/week 1 feedback so they do not buy Fallout 76. If we ever want to talk about entitlement, how about we start first with any companies expecting people if not outright trying to force people to pre-order? Whilst also having launch day review embargoes.
Give us your money before you can see any reviews, based on vertical slices this industry has a massive track record of lying about. So yeah, many might feel this is a bait and switch move, because one minute they're thinking I can buy this at release on Steam, then the next minute its pre-order it right now or you won't get it on Steam for a year.
The health of the overall PC market is an *externality* to any publisher. Publishers are run by a board of directors with a mandate to maximize short term profit, hence last minute exclusivity deals like this. And the PC market will be guided as if by an invisible hand... to ruin.
I definitely not agree with the game being exclusive to Epic Store and especially find it very shitty that it was janked from Steam 2 weeks prior to release, this is one of my most anticipated games and I have 2033 and LL on Steam already and would have liked to have Exodus there as well but I just purchased Exodus for $20 bucks on the Epic Store and that was pretty nice to be honest.
Consumer choice is the right path here, having discounts and different features on store fronts but these exclusivity deals just leave a sour taste on the PC community.
Consumer choice is the right path here, having discounts and different features on store fronts but these exclusivity deals just leave a sour taste on the PC community.
As unlikely as it is to even happen, I don't even see how I should even celebrate the fact it could lead to a drop in the cut in all store steam included. Seems to me it would end up being an indirect increase in price of the games as a result of the death of the resellers who were living from that margin.
Why would you go exclusive without being paid when epic are paying people? That doesn't make much sense.
Short term profit at the risk of long term reputational damage and devaluing IP....
Sounds about right.
Yeah if resellers like cdkeys and gmg disappear that will mean I'd buy much less games and less often.
If we're to apply the EGS cut to all e-stores then all official re-sellers are dead. Only the few big guys would stand.
So it's not about the principles of a smaller store cut?
It's about being paid a fat paycheck?
Multiple people, developers and publishers then have lied to the public about why they bought into exclusvitiey. Many of the claimed it was to foster a new claim with a different store cut.
Funny how none of those developers acknowledge being paid extra.
At least some other devs were honest enough to admit that this was for the Epic Paycheck.
These are people jobs and livelihoods here it's still a massive risk even if it works out. Put yourself in there shoes for a second. Epic is still a small store. There's no gotcha's here just people trying to earn more money for their work.
So developers were lying to or misleading consumers in their various answers.
Because it's more developer friendly? Because of the smaller cut? Because of no "bad game" on the platform allowing you to be seen?
I thought that was the point of the store?
Again with the assumption of bad faith has it ever even slightly crossed you to think about it from their perspective? It's one thing not to like it but do you honestly think it's absurd that people want to make more money from their work? Seriously?
Yet there are not many known instances of indie devs going exclusively to the EGS. It's mostly their publishing overlords cutting deals with Epic.
Uh, we have developers that tried to claim being paid to exclusively sell on the Epic Store was benefit consumers directly and that's part of why they did what they did.
And then wouldn't answer what benefit that was.
Correct. Presumably because indies know that they'll sell more copies on Steam...
Yeah because there's absolutely 0 reason to go there without a big paycheck, even with that 12% cut.
There's nothing wrong with them trying to make more money but when they take a move that is actively anti customer than I view them negatively than i did before and it will affect my preception of them in the future.
And does that at all contradict what I said? I mean those people also love the smell of their own farte and believe long term in the future they'd be correct doesn't change the obvious actual reason they're doing it.
Ubi still took off their game from the biggest PC store. and yes it's on UPlay as well. I assume most people will buy it from Uplay anyway.
It seems like this is a decision that has been made at the highest corporate publisher level, not the developers trying to look out for themselves. Publishers with their usual paranoia and risk-averse nature to finances looking for the safe way to make a quick buck, whilst making an absolute mess of reading their actual fanbase.
You know, something publishers are often fucking great at in this industry. But nevermind, if this backfires just shitcan the developer or downsize.
I bet you right now many individual developers in the company are biting their lip when they see the destruction of their IP goodwill across gaming websites. Because you know, usually most developers love their fans and love making them happy.
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Not anymore. They closed the Steam storepage. Im sure some scalpers bought gifts though...