1. Publishers routinely fail to support developers even through project number one so I don't see how you think Epic signing a publisher deal would guarantee anything to anyone.
But then at least Epic gets bad PR for letting the developers down. With this all they do is throw money and absolve themselves of consequences.
2. Maybe if the community chooses to not be a toxic shit pit the developer can release their really good games elsewhere and people won't act like goddamn children because a developer made a sound business choice?
I'll paraquote here, but
I understand that they made a business decision, but given that it's a decision that directly and negatively impacts me, I have elected to oppose it.
Lootboxes are a "sound business decision". Pay-to-win microtransactions are a "sound business decision". AI-driven targeted analytics adjusting every given person's experience to squeeze every last cent out of them are a "sound business decision".
Generally speaking, in this industry just considering every gamer to be a sentient wallet hooked up to a mouse and keyboard, constitutes the core of a "sound business decision". Pardon me, but I refuse to be taken advantage of just so someone else can make more money. You can say that businesses are not our friends all you like, but there are different ways of doing business, and some - like Valve - have found ways to do business that
don't antagonize their customers. Somehow.
Your example is basically a form of internet mob extortion. "well you took that exclusive deal that made a ton of financial sense but now we're going to treat you like a pariah even if we like your games".
I actually got the idea from MAD. Where the threat of unavoidable retaliation forces all sides to play nice.
Thats absurd. Especially when the storefront their being kept off of fosters a one of the worst cesspits of PC gamers on the planet, including being the ranting ground for someone who recently went on a shooting spree and selling a game that included slave Tetris for a few years.
Oh really, just lambasting Steam now. Do you know that every social media platform is secretly a cesspit? Every platform has had one maniac or another use it for getting attention, every platform has the usual neo-Nazi underground somewhere that nobody roots out because they're somehow acceptable nowadays, and are you against adult games being sold on principle? Because I don't see a problem with properly tagged, age-gated, and hidden-by-default content that some people make, and other people buy.
Do you bring this argument up against Patreon, home of more depraved H-games than I ever cared to count?
Rings about as true as the entire "Tencent owns Epic so CHINA!" bullshit. Steam recently delisted a game because of a slight jab at the ruler of China. That game is probably never going back up. Yet Epic are China's puppet storefront to get all that prime PC gamer playtime dirt they'll use to conquer the world?
Well, Steam actually sells their games in China. How would the Americans like it if a major game ridiculed their presi-...on second thought, bad example at the moment. But, you get the gist. Especially with a country like China, you want extra care taken if you want your games to keep being sold there. It's the same thing as political correctness, avoiding nation-specific slurs and the like.
This gets to the core of what this thread is about. People holding a grudge/feeling personally offended because someone did something that gave them less than their ideal way to buy and play video games. Never mind how beneficial it might be for the developer, what other factors may be at play, or the larger societal ills present on the storefront now being defended by the zeitgeist.
See the toxicity in this mindset?
Have you missed the time Epic Games quit on PC gaming due to rampant piracy and left Valve to pick up the pieces? Have you missed how Steam brought together PC gaming as a platform, providing many of the features that are standard on gaming consoles, for free, to everyone? Have you missed Steam constantly improving and adjusting to the requirements of both its paying userbase and developer clientelle, year after year?
Valve did not attain a loyal Steam userbase by doing nothing. They got it by growing and adapting over the years, always putting service and convenience first. They are not perfect, but they do not proclaim their sainthood from the tall spires of social media like a certain other company set to dethrone them. They provide good services at a reasonable price and great convenience, to gamers and developers alike. Just because someone else found a way to make things cheaper for developers by using Valve's work and snubbing half of the world's gamers, does not mean the gamers, as consumers, should be happy about it.
And if that company then gets up on stage and parades their deeds along with the developers they've roped into it, proclaiming themselves to be the light of hope in the world oppressed by Valve, I will feel no shame when reaching for the box of overripe tomatoes.
