Epic Games don't seem to be just doing exclusives now, they're also pulling in studios with Psyonix (Rocket League) announcing today they're joining Epic Games. Yes, really.
It hasn't been completely confirmed just yet though, as they're waiting on "customary closing conditions", the usual legal stuff all things like this need to go through basically.
In the announcement post on their official site they said "Today is a big day for us here at Psyonix because, just as the headline says, we’re officially joining the Epic Games family.". Going into further detail, they said in the short term nothing will change but they do expect to release on the Epic Store and this will allow them to "leverage our new relationship to grow the game in ways we couldn’t do on our own before".
As a massive fan of Rocket League, being my current favourite and most played game in the last year this news has come as a little bit of a shock. For a number of reasons, for one Epic Games don't really care much about Linux and the Epic Store has no current plans to come to Linux. Not just that, we should take into account the reports about how awful it actually sounds to work for Epic Games with one person saying "It’s killing people" which really does make you think. It also puts Epic's CEO Tim Sweeney's comments across Twitter and various interviews, about how they're trying to change the PC gaming industry and make it better, into a rather different light.
The good news is that since Rocket League is well established on Steam, there should be no chance of it suddenly vanishing as that would be truly ridiculous. It means they also have access to a lot more resources, so hopefully Rocket League will continue to do well.
Update: Well, this could be a problem. According to The Verge, it will be removed from Steam. The press release they received said "The PC version of Rocket League will come to the Epic Games store in late 2019. In the meantime, it will continue to be available for purchase on Steam; thereafter it will continue to be supported on Steam for all existing purchasers,"—it's not entirely clear if that actually means it will be removed, so I've reached out for full confirmation but the wording really doesn't sound good.
Update #2: When asked on Twitter, the official Rocket League account told us "Hey there! More information will be shared in the future. Please check out our post about this on the Rocket League website: link" which of course wasn't helpful at all. Epic Games did not reply to my email as of yet, but they did send statements to other publications like USgamer where they said "We are continuing to sell Rocket League on Steam, and have not announced plans to stop selling the game there." and also "Rocket League remains available for new purchasers on Steam, and long-term plans will be announced in the future.".
So they aren't announcing plans to remove it from Steam, despite what early reports said but they're also being clear that they do have a long-term plan of which they're not talking about. That's one way to both clarify it and keep it ambiguous in case they do remove it from Steam. However, by long-term plans they might mean some sort of free to play release, supported by an expanded Rocket Pass, it could mean anything.
Update #3: Psyonix also added this additional note to their own announcement which reads "Editor’s Note: We wanted to clarify something for you after today’s news: Rocket League is and remains available on Steam. Anyone who owns Rocket League through Steam can still play it and can look forward to continued support. Thanks!".
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
I'm sure this will have to at least give Valve a bit of a nudge to fix some of the discontentment with developers.
Won't happen. Why? Because Epic is not competing on having those issues fixed, in fact they don't even have a small fraction of all the services that Steam provide. No they compete solely on cash handouts.
Seems to me that the Metro Exodus and Satisfactory situation is way worse than this.
Mohandevir May 2, 2019
Update #3: Psyonix also added this additional note to their own announcement which reads "Editor’s Note: We wanted to clarify something for you after today’s news: Rocket League is and remains available on Steam. Anyone who owns Rocket League through Steam can still play it and can look forward to continued support. Thanks!"."
Makes it a lot more acceptable... For the moment (There was just update 1 when I wrote my first comment), but my mistrust of Epic games is not going away anytime soon.
To me, Sweeney is Steve Ballmer in disguise shrouded in hypocritical claims.
Last edited by Mohandevir on 2 May 2019 at 1:17 pm UTC
To me, Sweeney is Steve Ballmer in disguise shrouded in hypocritical claims.+1
appetrosyan May 2, 2019
On that note, why hasn't Valve done anything about this? I suppose that they don't want to give developers a price cut, they sure as hell didn't get rid of the damn asset flips, and I don't think that they're planning on doing a revolution with Half Life 3.
Their current bet - VR is really not the best idea: games don't cost a lot of money, but games in VR have a large entry barrier, so they would by definition not have a lot of things to work with.
Their current bet - VR is really not the best idea: games don't cost a lot of money, but games in VR have a large entry barrier, so they would by definition not have a lot of things to work with.VR is a high-end niche. It can't really solve their problems with Epic. But, it probably can make money--whether I like it or not (I don't) the increased inequality of income and wealth, the increased stratification of society, makes high-end niches bigger and more profitable. There are quite a lot of rich people with plenty of disposable income who can drop a bundle on high-end kit (and indeed may actively want to so they can show off). So it may well be worth them pursuing it, just in its own right, not so much as a synergy thing to deal with other issues.
Last edited by SuperKey on 2 May 2019 at 10:13 pm UTC
The funny thing is....WE the gamers, not specifically GamingoNlinUx gamers 'WE' gamers collectively could rectify this type of bllsht by not supporting the game when it moves to epic's store
I don't agree with this. After all, not buying the game at all is better for Epic Store than buying the game on Steam.
Our boycott should be against the Epic Store, not against Epic Games as whole. Because that way, it sends much clearer message, that you really have no interest in using that product of theirs.
The funny thing is....WE the gamers, not specifically GamingoNlinUx gamers 'WE' gamers collectively could rectify this type of bllsht by not supporting the game when it moves to epic's store
I don't agree with this. After all, not buying the game at all is better for Epic Store than buying the game on Steam.
Our boycott should be against the Epic Store, not against Epic Games as whole. Because that way, it sends much clearer message, that you really have no interest in using that product of theirs.
I can agree with this, I should of communicated my point better. My point is essentially the same as yours BOYCOTT - I don't care where it's at!
Last edited by SuperKey on 3 May 2019 at 1:45 am UTC
They are in a war. There is EPIC and soon there ist Stadia. Also MS is buying Gamedevs - so they surely soon will start something like Windows-Store exclusives. And I can Imagine that EPIC will do a cooperation with discord (TEncent...) to get Voice and friendship Lists into EPIC very soon.
I can't see Valve doing something. In my feeling they get more and more irrelevant. The cool new stuff goes to EPIC and I am sure even Stadia will get exclusives.
I really like Valve for beeing open (not only in Terms of Linux support). But if they don't start to fight, they will get in serious trouble.
Perhaps they should try to buy CDPR before google, MS or EPIC is doing it. Or another studio that makes great games. Must not be Steam exclusive then - but Perhaps "non epic exclusiv" :-)
Or buy the Unity company to have control over a widely used engine (I think source-engine is out dated)
Come on Valve - get out of your comfort zone! (It shrinks..)
Last edited by einherjar on 3 May 2019 at 7:54 am UTC
I really don't understand, why Valve doesn't fight back?It might be that they initially felt like Epic wouldn't last and didn't warrant any action on their part, and by now they might be reconsidering.
Or maybe they have been working on something, but in Valve Time... Until that's revealed, they still have the best platform by far anyway from the gamers' perspective; they just need to stop losing publishers.
I really don't understand, why Valve doesn't fight back?
They are in a war. There is EPIC and soon there ist Stadia. Also MS is buying Gamedevs - so they surely soon will start something like Windows-Store exclusives. And I can Imagine that EPIC will do a cooperation with discord (TEncent...) to get Voice and friendship Lists into EPIC very soon.
I can't see Valve doing something. In my feeling they get more and more irrelevant. The cool new stuff goes to EPIC and I am sure even Stadia will get exclusives.
I really like Valve for beeing open (not only in Terms of Linux support). But if they don't start to fight, they will get in serious trouble.
Perhaps they should try to buy CDPR before google, MS or EPIC is doing it. Or another studio that makes great games. Must not be Steam exclusive then - but Perhaps "non epic exclusiv" :-)
Or buy the Unity company to have control over a widely used engine (I think source-engine is out dated)
Come on Valve - get out of your comfort zone! (It shrinks..)
While I don't think it will happen, buying Unity doesn't seem like a bad idea, it would also allow them to do something like what Epic does by saying that if you use Unity your cut is included in the 30% already and it would allow them to make Linux support on that engine first class.
They would need to keep management of Unity separate from Valve's management though, since otherwise they might grow complacent.
Last edited by Aeder on 3 May 2019 at 5:57 pm UTC
They should invest in Godot instead.
As much as I like Godot, at present it's only amazing for 2D games, the 3D support is good but not great. Once they land the Vulkan renderer that might change.
Also a lot of people work with Unity/UE because even if your own game isn't a great hit or still hasn't released, having experience with those allows you to do contract work.
And there's also the issue of a lot of Unity games out there that don't have Linux versions. If Valve made it easier for them to update to the latest Unity and export a Linux version with no hassle, it would be great for us.
Last edited by Aeder on 3 May 2019 at 6:56 pm UTC
As much as I like Godot, at present it's only amazing for 2D games, the 3D support is good but not great. Once they land the Vulkan renderer that might change.
That's why I said invest. No need to buy stuff, help existing FOSS project progress faster like they did with Mesa and Wine. That would be a lot better than boosting Unity usage.
Last edited by Shmerl on 3 May 2019 at 7:03 pm UTC
I really don't understand, why Valve doesn't fight back?
They are in a war. There is EPIC and soon there ist Stadia. Also MS is buying Gamedevs - so they surely soon will start something like Windows-Store exclusives. And I can Imagine that EPIC will do a cooperation with discord (TEncent...) to get Voice and friendship Lists into EPIC very soon.
I can't see Valve doing something. In my feeling they get more and more irrelevant. The cool new stuff goes to EPIC and I am sure even Stadia will get exclusives.
I really like Valve for beeing open (not only in Terms of Linux support). But if they don't start to fight, they will get in serious trouble.
Perhaps they should try to buy CDPR before google, MS or EPIC is doing it. Or another studio that makes great games. Must not be Steam exclusive then - but Perhaps "non epic exclusiv" :-)
Or buy the Unity company to have control over a widely used engine (I think source-engine is out dated)
Come on Valve - get out of your comfort zone! (It shrinks..)
you mean like getting BETHESDA, which means RAGE 2, WOLFENSTEIN, FALLOUT76, DOOM ETERNAL? i think 3 of them will work with proton
or risk of rain 2. i dont have this game, but it is very popular
mordhau, sekiro, dmc5
its not like sream doesnt get any new titles
This ultimately speaks to a larger problem with gaming. If Rocket League were DRM-free and allowed people to create their own servers, it wouldn't matter if it left Steam. People could create and host their own leagues. If the game stops selling on Steam and complete functionality (connection to the network) is not maintained, it raises the question: Did we ever actually fully own the game in the first place?I don't think that has ever been in question. Steam sells licenses to access specific parts of its service. You don't own the software.
I dunno. I play mostly single-player games, and I generally find that if I can't/don't feel like accessing Steam, they still play fine. As soon as you get into games that are designed to need outside services to do anything, you may find you can't do anything without the outside services Steam provides, but I'm not sure that can be described as Steam stopping you from owning the software.This ultimately speaks to a larger problem with gaming. If Rocket League were DRM-free and allowed people to create their own servers, it wouldn't matter if it left Steam. People could create and host their own leagues. If the game stops selling on Steam and complete functionality (connection to the network) is not maintained, it raises the question: Did we ever actually fully own the game in the first place?I don't think that has ever been in question. Steam sells licenses to access specific parts of its service. You don't own the software.
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