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.
Valve is not on stock market, Epic is. Valve is owned by someone who knows video games and gamers and has a view to offer, Epic is managed by people who only view profits. I've seen what it does on some games what is happening with Epic. They will sabotage themselves in 3-4 years by being too greedy or because investors want more.
We'll just have to wait. What I see and understand is someone burning tons of money because they know that they basicaly have one and only one income and once it's done, the big money drops as fast as it went up and investors won't be pleased by that. They NEED to "invest" so much money to just get started in the hope it will succeed.
Even if we lose games on the short terms ( about 2 years i'd say ), I'm confident in the "long run" ( 4-5 years ) Epic won't be able to sustain that kind of deal.
I'm not interested in Epic since they can't manage to produce something like UT2k4 again.
sprite_1ww 1 May 2019
It would but it wouldn't be the first or the biggest. And do you know where Epic draw the line? I don't.Could you reach out to Epic and Psyonix for a confirmation of continued Linux support?
I highly doubt they'd pull support for Linux. That would cause an absolute shitstorm. If anything, future Psyonix projects would be the ones affected. If for example they decided to make a Rocket League 2 for whatever reason.
Actually I posted that before seeing the update that they are pulling it off of Steam. Forget what I said, it's the end times. It sucks because Rocket League is my most played game ever too.
I do own Rocket league but it's almost like they are targeting every game that is on my wish list. Games are increasingly failing to keep me engaged yet every game that I have really been looking forward to has been kidnapped by EPIC.
I am seriously considering just giving up on gaming completely as it appears that gamers are just not willing to stand up to these BS practices that are taking place. I feel this next step will ultimately kill PC gaming as we know it so we may as well get used to numerous platforms that are locked down with exclusive titles resulting in longer term strategy to provide streaming only services.
For now I will be closely watching to see what effect (if any) Proton and Google Stadia may have on the wider market to see if this may have any influence on EPIC going forward.
I hope I am wrong but I feel the future does not look bright.
I fucking hope you'll come back with good news Liam , because for real losing Rocket League would be more than just a slap in the face for Linux gamers especially with how troublesome porting to Linux was already in the first place for them .So you're saying we have skin in the game . . .
I mean come on we almost all bought it and I know more than a few Linux gamers who did purchase some skins in the store ...
They are pulling RocketLeague from the Steam store (presumably not only the Windows version, but all). So Linux gamers can still play the game after it got pulled, but new Linux gamers will not be able to purchase the game in any store, do I get this right?
Okay, so let me get this straight:That's usually what would happen, when a game leaves Steam for whatever reason.
They are pulling RocketLeague from the Steam store (presumably not only the Windows version, but all). So Linux gamers can still play the game after it got pulled, but new Linux gamers will not be able to purchase the game in any store, do I get this right?
Kimyrielle 1 May 2019
Last edited by Shmerl on 1 May 2019 at 9:39 pm UTC
Kimyrielle 1 May 2019
Okay, so let me get this straight:That's usually what would happen, when a game leaves Steam for whatever reason.
They are pulling RocketLeague from the Steam store (presumably not only the Windows version, but all). So Linux gamers can still play the game after it got pulled, but new Linux gamers will not be able to purchase the game in any store, do I get this right?
Except that such a game is basically guaranteed never to get updated again, so it would be worthless in a few months when they make changes to multiplayer etc. People would still essentially lose the game.
legluondunet 1 May 2019
Why I have Uplay installed on Linux? Because the game I bought (Far Cry 3 on Steam) needs Uplay to launch. Why I have Battle.Net installed on my Linux install? Because Warcraft III and WOW are not available on Steam.
Last edited by legluondunet on 1 May 2019 at 10:14 pm UTC
This exclusives nonsense is harmful to consumers and the last thing we need is to turn PCs into consoles with exclusive stores.
But after recent events, this isn't just a matter of them buying a successful studio and selling it on the most profitable store, it is yet another way they found of using their money in a way that takes games away from the Steam store.
Competition is so good, Epic could invest so much money into making a better platform or making games for their store but it is so much easier to spend it to make Steam worse. If you make all stores suck, your sucky store can compete much more easily!
Avehicle7887 1 May 2019
gradyvuckovic 1 May 2019
Lets all thank them for bringing COMPETITION to gaming RIGHT?!
So there goes a Linux native game. An actual game with an actual native Linux title, will be bought and locked up in a store that doesn't support Linux. It will no longer be available for purchase and play on Linux because of Epic.
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