While this might not be specific to Linux gaming, it's still something interesting I've wanted to talk about. Metro Exodus from 4A Games and Deep Silver has jumped ship from Steam to the Epic Store.
I waited for the situation to become clear before saying anything on this, as it got a little…ugly.
Last night, the team behind Metro Exodus announced the change saying that "the digital PC version of Metro Exodus will now be available to purchase solely through EpicGames.com". In their official announcement, nothing about it being a timed exclusive was mentioned and so a lot of people were left quite unhappy.
This led Valve, to actually put out a statement on the Steam store page, which reads:
Notice: Sales of Metro Exodus have been discontinued on Steam due to a publisher decision to make the game exclusive to another PC store.
The developer and publisher have assured us that all prior sales of the game on Steam will be fulfilled on Steam, and Steam owners will be able to access the game and any future updates or DLC through Steam.
We think the decision to remove the game is unfair to Steam customers, especially after a long pre-sale period. We apologize 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.
Soon after this, the Metro team put up an announcement on Steam where it does actually mention that Metro Exodus will come back to Steam "after 14th February 2020". To do this so close to release, feels really off.
I've seen a lot of arguments both for and against the Epic Store across the net, with wildly varying opinions on each side of the argument. For gamers, competition between stores can be a really good and helpful thing and we all know Steam could do with a little competition. Valve have dragged their heels on so many things over the years, I firmly hope this is a good kick up their backside to do better.
However, the way Epic is going about it leaves a really bad taste in my mouth. I don't think forcing and annoying people into using another launcher is a good way to go, at all. Rather than compete on customer service, value for money, features and so on Epic are forcing people to look at them. For developers, the short-term gain might be good but do they really, honestly, expect the free to play Fortnite audience which is Epic's bread and butter to translate into sales for AAA games? I've become a lot more sceptical of this recently and I think it's largely the reason Epic is throwing money around to try and force a change.
As Epic Games continue throwing money at developers and publishers, I expect things to get even uglier as the year goes on. For us, it's not a good thing, as time and time again Epic Games have shown how little they care about Linux (we're not even on the damn roadmap) and that's sad as we will be the ones losing out.
For Valve, the more they lose like this the quicker they will need to react. I'm going to end up sounding like a broken record here, but they need to seriously get back into their own IP. Half-Life, Left 4 Dead, Portal and so on. Especially after Artifact basically failed them, although they again said they're "Still in it for the long haul" in the most recent update to it.
Not just that, reducing their cut from developers may be inevitable too, it would certainly show they understand the market is changing considering how many developers feel Steam's 30% cut isn't worth it. The most recent "GDC State of the Industry report" showed that only six percent of developers thought Valve were doing enough for it. I don't think Valve need to match Epic on the cut either given how popular Steam already is, even a 5% reduction could be massive for smaller developers.
Linux gamers might think differently on that point though, since Valve help to fund various open source projects and that would likely reduce their ability or enthusiasm to do so. We're not a big enough audience for them to put more of their eggs in our basket—yet.
No matter what happens, I can't imagine Valve just rolling over and allowing Epic to set up shop on their lawn. I'm very curious to see what they have up their sleeves. A competitive Steam is good for everyone!
At least by the time Metro Exodus comes back to Steam, we will see if they made any sort of decision on Linux support (as they currently won't say—likely a no). If not, that's a long time for Steam Play to mature for those who use it.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Mohandevir Feb 4, 2019
Quoting: MalQuoting: MohandevirUnfortunately, on PC, game boycotts will only damage the industry. Just look at Deep Silver's answer. Instead of understanding that exclusives are a bad concept, they throw back the pressure on the customer's shoulders.
That's a common misconception. As long as a market is profitable someone will invest in it because there will be return of investment. PC gaming is in no way in peril (not until Gabe goes mad and follows Sweeney on the exclusive deals route at least)
Metro is in no way a small IP or an unknown one. If it had released on Steam it would have generated tons of revenues. These are not words from a revenue desperate indie that is starving and risking default. Deep Silver simply choose to be greedy and put Epic money above their customers. What the hell they expected out of from this? That they could shit on people heads and people would applaud them?
These outings "if you don't buy then we don't come on PC" are just vents coming out of bad managers. Which mentally sane person in this industry thinks that your can raise sales by blackmailing your potential customer? Those are the words of frustrated management that knows it took a healthy IP and ruined it for short term greed but doesn't want to admit its errors so it blames others (the consumers). It's nothing new, that's a common trait among powerful people (and I'm not playing anti elite populist here, it just happens that I have a passion for history from middle age to modern era in general, it's how human societies go... these are the kind of people that usually get in power :) )
So really. They don't want to sell nest Metro on PC because the shit they made? Who fucking cares. These are the golden ages of PC gaming. If they don't sell on PC then it's them deliberately choosing to lose money. And if THQ shareholders don't push to fire the guy who wrote that bullshit and start to mend the relationship with their customers but instead choose to go full kamikatze... bye bye! We won't miss them. Some another publisher will make sure that any gap they leave will be filled with new awesome IPs.
In all this story really we consumers are the strong side. We may lose a game or two true, but we simply cannot lose the war, unless as I said before Gabe goes nuts and Valve and Epic agree to make a monopoly cartel. Who I'm really sorry for are the devs that genuinely worked with passion on Metro games and now see their legacy ruined by people who has 0 interest in gaming but only think on make quick money. These are the sole helpless victims in all this affair. More so since it looks like Deep Silver decide to play dirty by using them as meat shields in their total war vs the whole PC gaming world. :(
Edit:
Ok looking at the last minute link of Nevertheless it seems that Deep Silver did not in fact played this dirty and is not using 4A games devs as meat shields. Nice to see that. Now I don't think they can just trash their exclusivity contract with Epic without paying a gazillion penalty so they won't just U-turn on this one. Let's hope they learnt something from this and don't further damage their own business. If publishers stop signing exclusive deals with Epic out of consumer rage backlash, Epic will be forced to switch to abandon its monopolistic aims and switch to a healthy competitive strategy. To the satisfaction of everyone (except Epic itself I guess).
You are totally right. PC gaming is not in peril. It will take a lot more than that to threaten PC gaming. Still, this kind of instinctive reaction is a disturbing tought, should it become a major trend (exclusives and bad sales)...
Last edited by Mohandevir on 4 February 2019 at 6:42 pm UTC
Quoting: lejimsterI used to be a big Epic fan all the way back to Epic Pinball and Jazz Jackrabbit through to UT2004. Then they quickly lost me as they branched out.
I don't have a problem with them providing their own store, but they don't care about Linux, say what you want about Valve... But they have gone above and beyond to support Linux and made it an actual alternative to Windows.
I won't be buying anything off Epics store unless they become Linux friendly.
I just cant see it happening the updates to the unreal engine trickle onto the linux build and support is nowhere near as good as it is on windows. Epic back catalogue as you said is impressive Jazz the pinball games and unreal but Gears was good but they did a good job getting a good price from ms because the story had nowhere to go after gears 3. They sold Bulletstorm and Shadow complex was okay but there main game is really not for me if it werent for the engine i wouldnt care about them at all
Patreon
PayPal
See more from me