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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.
Tags: Editorial, Misc, Steam
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182 comments
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afettouhi Jan 29, 2019
Quoting: 14That screenshot made me wish Deadspace II would come to Linux. :'(

Dead Space 1 and 2 work really well in Proton.

Right now people should be careful in trusting Epic. All their attention is going into Fortnite even the Unreal Engine isn't getting the support it should especially on Linux it seems. I understand that getting a bigger revenue cut is very attractive and important smaller dev shops. But looking at this from a Linux perspective, Valve has done tremendous amount of work for gaming on Linux. I can't name any other developer/publisher that ported almost all of their games to Linux as Valve did. Plus all the behind the scene stuff they do and support.

I was really hoping that we would a Linux version of Metro Exodus at some point but with this move that more or less out of the question.
pete910 Jan 29, 2019
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Fitting name then I guess

Especially if others follow suite.
Ehvis Jan 29, 2019
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Quoting: BeamboomTotally unrelated but:
Seeing screenshots like that, and then looking over at screenshots of our indie games... And... Yeah, well...

You can always distinguish a AAA game screenshot from an indie one by the fact that you can never find that AAA game screenshot in the actual game.
Mohandevir Jan 29, 2019
Quoting: Ehvis
Quoting: BeamboomTotally unrelated but:
Seeing screenshots like that, and then looking over at screenshots of our indie games... And... Yeah, well...

You can always distinguish a AAA game screenshot from an indie one by the fact that you can never find that AAA game screenshot in the actual game.

"Because marketing is the thing!" :)

This said, we all know that it doesn't make it a better game.
EagleDelta Jan 29, 2019
QuoteFor 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.

Here's the thing. With PC, if a store has a game exclusively, it doesn't foster any sort of competition. Instead you have a ton of stores with a list of games you can only get there. So instead of Steam, I would need Epic, Itch, Origin, and GOG in addition to play all the games I'd want to play.

True competition is like Target vs Walmart where they carry (mostly) the same products and the store experience, prices, etc are what drive the competition between each other..... NOT something that only one store has over the other.
eldaking Jan 29, 2019
I agree that it is very unfair to consumers. Changing something crucial right before the release, after taking pre-orders, is not cool. You can't just change your mind after advertising and selling your product. And of course... exclusives are bad.

All the while, Epic is trying to "compete" in the least competitive way possible - by removing consumer choice and using its resources to push publishers/developers into exclusive deals where they can't sell their products anywhere else. Frankly, there is no way Epic's success results in a "competitive" market. It might push Steam into reacting, but it is going to be even more hostile to smaller stores and will still result in more anti-competitive practices. Instead of investing into creating a superior product, Epic is trying to create additional barriers to its competitors (which right now is mostly the absolute market leader, but in the future might not be).

I am also not sure if Steam's "competition" will be entirely positive. Let's hope Valve doesn't change its mind about having exclusives of its own, or doesn't decide to cut down from investing in other areas to lower prices.
iiari Jan 29, 2019
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Quoting: 14That screenshot made me wish Deadspace II would come to Linux. :'(
Ranked "Gold" on ProtonDB. Thanks Valve!
iiari Jan 29, 2019
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Quoting: eldakingAll the while, Epic is trying to "compete" in the least competitive way possible - by removing consumer choice and using its resources to push publishers/developers into exclusive deals where they can't sell their products anywhere else.
No one, including Epic, has ever claimed these moves were better for the customer. No, this looks like the worst kind of "competition," where the business plan is to "dump" product at a probable loss to undersell the market leader into extinction and then do whatever you want with the monopoly you end up building...


Last edited by iiari on 29 January 2019 at 3:31 pm UTC
Mohandevir Jan 29, 2019
Quoting: iiari
Quoting: eldakingAll the while, Epic is trying to "compete" in the least competitive way possible - by removing consumer choice and using its resources to push publishers/developers into exclusive deals where they can't sell their products anywhere else.
No one, including Epic, has ever claimed these moves were better for the customer. No, this looks like the worst kind of "competition," where the business plan is to "dump" product at a probable loss to undersell the market leader into extinction and then do whatever you want with the monopoly you end up building...

That's exactly the kind of attitude that pulled me away from Microsoft. :)
Kimyrielle Jan 29, 2019
It's not a new business pattern. Corporations don't want to compete (that's for the labor force), so they are trying to monopolize entire industries (not sure why the name Facebook came to my mind now), or when they can't, at least their own market. Like Disney pulling their stuff from Netflix to set up their own little streaming monopoly for their productions you won't get anywhere else. Or grocery chains buying other stores just to close them down, so people don't have a choice where to shop anymore. I could go on all day long. Baseline is that all sufficiently large business is evil. Which is why we'd need regulations against such practices, but they keep telling gullible people that regulations are bad, so what can I say?


Last edited by Kimyrielle on 29 January 2019 at 3:38 pm UTC
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