Metro Exodus Is an Epic Store Exclusive

Whilst i would probably prefer it on stream, it is by no means a deal breaker for me. This is one of my must buy games for this year. I'm grabbing it no matter what.
 
haste. said:
How are you guys not realizing that steam had exculsivitiy for a decade. Entering a market is difficult and competition is good. Epic is attempting to create a competing storefront...
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Being the most popular platform doesn't equate to exclusivity. Valve didn't pay 3rd-party devs to restrict themselves to Steam and were free to publish anywhere they liked. Valve got the most attention because it is the most popular because it was first and because it has the most refined and comprehensive platform client and community features.

Epic's offer of a 12% service fee to publishers is a competitive move. But paying devs to not sell on other digital retailers is anti-competitive.

Steam being popular due to being the best platform service isn't rationale for other platforms doing exclusives to prevent companies like Valve from competing with them. Valve tried to have the best platform, while other companies just tried to have a stake of the market.


Gabe Newell in 2011:

https://www.gamesradar.com/gabe-newell-hoping-to-woo-ea-back-to-steam/

"We really want to show there’s a lot of value having EA titles on Steam. We want EA’s games on Steam and we have to show them that’s a smart thing to do ...I think at the end of the day we’re going to prove to Electronic Arts they have happier customers, a higher quality service, and will make more money if they have their titles on Steam. It’s our duty to demonstrate that to them. We don’t have a natural right to publish their games."
 
SomeoneElse said:
Storefront exclusives are just as stupid as console exclusives.....They lose so much opportunity in sales. I don't get why developers continue to do this. Unless they are offered kickbacks for the exclusive sales it doesn't make sense to me.
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Except it doesn't work that way on PC. You don't lose sales if you're just looking to sell on PC, you lose sales if you don't put it on Xbox or Playstation. Steam or Epic it doesn't matter which store you put your game on for PC. The problem is that Steam is arguably more popular, but right now Fortnite is so popular that it scares Netflix. Epic made the equivalent of Half Life 2 in popularity and is now taking the opportunity to make a competitor to Steam. Valve stopped making games and thought it could ride the gravy train forever, but now is a good time for them to count to 3.
 
I just sent an email to Epic regarding my concerns with cloud saves, activation limitsand a few other things. I have 2-3 rigs I play on. Two(the 2 in my profile) in different rooms and a laptop for travel so its important to me that I can have seamless experiences between them.

I can agree, and have even stated on a few occasions, that Steam has had some increasingly growing issues over the last couple of years. From reviews to the near brain surgery it takes to filter thru new releases its literally become the last place I go to learn anything new. I go there to buy games, period. On the other hand, the service does just work for me. Been using for about 5-10 years now and I can easily count the number of times it didn't on one hand w/o repeating. I love this. For me it just works. D/L speeds are usually the fastest my ISP can support. Not always true but mostly. I love that I can grab a 30-50GB game @400mbps in 20-30 minutes. If Epic can provide that quality of service then I'll happily join. If not, well that sucks since I really wanted this game.
 
lostin3d said:
I can agree, and have even stated on a few occasions, that Steam has had some increasingly growing issues over the last couple of years. From reviews to the near brain surgery it takes to filter thru new releases its literally become the last place I go to learn anything new.
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Maybe Valve should give Steam curated and non-curated sections, with people able to select which is the default presentation they see when they load Steam's website.
 
I am actually pretty disappointed with this announcement. I was hoping to play this game on Steam and I am not sure I want to buy it on one storefront and then wait a year for it to come on Steam. Too many store fronts and digital download clients just gets a little too much after awhile, especially since the majority of my games are on Steam.
 
Steam has its share of growing and unresolved problems, but I still have no interest in installing yet another game client on my computer. I may put up with origin for battlefield but you’ll need a lot more than fortnite to get me interested Epic. Create a quality sequel to UT 2003/2004 and we can talk :p

Edit: others mentioned it already and I agree, it’s weird developers are pushing games like Exodus to the fortnite crowd. It is a different (younger) demographic and one that is likely more interested in free to play games rather than full price AAA games.
 
Must buy game for me, so I put my money on Steam today. I am not installing another garbage app for managing games. I almost went for a discounted Xbox One version (Best Buy GCU).

The devs... err publisher (devs prob lose either way) win either way on this one I guess b/c they got the Epic money and likely a ton of Steam preorders at full price.

Jim Kim said:
The majority won't care about another gaming client.
Remember the faux outrage when HL2 came out and was tied to Steam.
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At least that was a Valve game and not a paid exclusive. Apples and oranges..
 
I'll just wait for it to come back to Steam and then hit the bargain bin, if I still remember it by then. Using exclusivity, especially timed storefront exclusivity, on the same platform, in a primarily SP game, seems rather foolish. Unless, of course, they are being paid to do it. I am not installing Epics launcher, so, here we are.
 
Delicieuxz said:
But paying devs to not sell on other digital retailers is anti-competitive.
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Where is your evidence for this?

The reality of the situation: Deep Silver looked at Epic & Valve and realized Epic offered them a better deal. They can sell the game for $50 and still make more money than selling it for $60 on Steam. That is assuming Valve offered Deep Silver their traditional 30% rate, and being a smaller publisher I assume that is the case. This is about as competitive as it gets. Developers having an actual choice in their distribution platform of choice and being offered a better deal by a competitor. I'm sure if they put it up on Steam and adjusted the price people would complain that it cost more than $60. That and having to support patch distribution on two platforms is likely the reason for discontinuing it on Steam for a year. It will come back, likely as a "Gold Edition" with all the DLC, patches and everything applied for the users that aren't platform agnostic.

Whining about Valve being noncompetitive isn't going to change anything. They can put all the paid emoticons they want, but that doesn't bring games to Steam. Unless Valve gets serious expect more games to jump ship.
 
Flogger23m said:
Where is your evidence for this?
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Evidence? Like, what's my evidence that water is wet?

Paying to prevent competition, AKA paying for exclusives, is anti-competitive. That's literally what it is, what it aims to be, and why it's done. It's to prevent there from being competition of service by paying to ensure that no other services compete for sales of a particular title. Whether you are in favour of it, or against it, or don't care, it is definitively anti-competitive.

It's about removing the factor of having to compete in service, popularity, quality, features, by paying so that the service that paid for the exclusive is the only choice. Where there's only one option, there is no competition. Exclusives are about taking away other options so that the single remaining option doesn't have to compete with anyone. Paying devs to not sell on other digital retailers is anti-competitive.
 
Is anyone else surprised that Valve hasn't just dropped their fee in attempt to put an end the Epic store?
 
Flogger23m said:
The reality of the situation: Deep Silver looked at Epic & Valve and realized Epic offered them a better deal. They can sell the game for $50 and still make more money than selling it for $60 on Steam. That is assuming Valve offered Deep Silver their traditional 30% rate, and being a smaller publisher I assume that is the case.
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Volume is what you're not considering, my man. Margin is one component, but for a digital product that has no overhead to create infinite copies, VOLUME is what matters most. Steam's userbase of *paying* gamers (not just kids that installed Fortnite free and will never buy a game) is probably 1,000 - 10,000 for every 1 paying Epic gamer.

The delta between Steam and Epic store fees is 18% (30% vs 12%). So for the first 5,000 copies they sell on Epic instead of Steam, they'll keep 18% more. But they've lost the opportunity to sell 495,000 additional copies on Steam - and instead of keeping 70% of 495,000 x $60, they'll keep 0% of $0.

Perspective:

They'll keep $264,000 on Epic
They would have kept $21,000,000 on Steam

Which number is higher? Over twenty million dollars left on the table by limiting themselves to Epic. I hope their bribe check of Fortnite money is epic enough to cover their development costs, because if not they're in for a rude awakening. If their plan is to crawl back to Steam in six months, they'll never make up the lost sales because they'll have lost the launch window hype/momentum, among lots of other factors.
 
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coynatha said:
Is anyone else surprised that Valve hasn't just dropped their fee in attempt to put an end the Epic store?
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That's not how business works. They have no reason to adjust their fee when their userbase of customers that actually buy games is 1000x-5000x that of Epic. Remember that publishers elect to publish their games on Steam because they'll do the most sales volume there. It's a completely opt-in, voluntary marketplace. Valve isn't creating contracts "you have to sell your games here and nowhere else". Publishers are more than happy to give Steam 30% of every sale, because the volume there is insane.

The fee is a function of Steam's market size, end of story.
 
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Flogger23m said:
Maybe read the article next time. If you bought it on Steam you get it on Steam. If you want to buy on Steam, but it within the next few hours or wait a year when it will come back on sale on Steam. Of course they're not going to take the money and then pull the product from the digital storefront it was sold on. That is illegal in practically every country across every industry.
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Article was fully read. Who said someone is running with their money? Reading compression?

What they did is unprofessional and I question what kind of people run that company. I'm not supporting it and wouldn't do business with someone who executes business this poorly. They actually made Valve/Steam look good here.


You can support this or think it is not a big deal. Thats fine, buy one xtra copy to make up for the one I will not be buying anymore. Buy 3 of them.
 
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Capital Fuck that.

I won't be buying it now! I refuse to support Epic.
 
DPI said:
The reality is this post fails basic math, no offense. Margin is one component - and Epic is trying to focus the narrative on it being the only component, but for a digital product that has no overhead to create more copies, VOLUME is what matters most. Steam's userbase of *paying* gamers (not just kids that installed Fortnite free and will never buy a game) is probably 1,000 - 10,000 for every 1 paying Epic gamer.

The delta between Steam and Epic store fees is 18% (30% vs 12%). So for the first 5,000 copies they sell on Epic instead of Steam, they'll keep 18% more. But they've lost the opportunity to sell 495,000 additional copies on Steam.

Guess the opportunity cost for copies 5001 - 500,000 they didn't sell on Steam? Instead of keeping 70%, they keep >0%<. Perspective:

They'll keep $264,000 on Epic
They'd keep $21,000,000 on Steam

Which number is higher? Over twenty million dollars left on the table by limiting themselves to Epic. I seriously hope that bribe check of Fortnite money was big enough to pay for the entirety of their development costs, because if not they're in for a rude awakening.
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Your Steam numbers are higher because you pulled them out of your ass. No offense. You're making up false statistics on the spot. Again no offense, but no one can take you seriously when you literally make up numbers out of thin air. You're claiming that they'll loose out on 495,000 sales based on absolutely no real world metric.

Reality of the situation is, the majority of customers who planned to purchase Metro are still going to purchase it. Just like they did with Battlefield 3 (Origin), Call of Duty Black Ops 4 (Blizzard's launcher) GTAV (Rockstar Launcher exclusive unless purchased directly on Steam). User base is fairly meaningless. People go where the in demand software is. That is how you get a user base. The paying user base today might be smaller, but once Metro comes out it will increase by a substantial amount because that is something people want to buy. As history has shown, this will work out in 4A Game's favor. This is similar to the people who cry over Denuvo. Yes, they'll loose a few paying customers over it. But practically everyone else who wanted to buy the game will buy it anyways despite the whining on the forums.

Valve is quickly being relegated to tier 2 games and garbage Japanese hentai games. Metro Exodus, The Division 2, Rage 2. That is three AAA games already and 2019 has just started. I'm sure when number four and five come along announcing they're skipping Steam for alternative platforms you'll still be parroting the same lines.

bagdad-bob.jpg
 
So...

If you have Fortnight on PC, you already have an Epic account right?

Well, shit. That's a shit ton of gamers right there.

Steam is screwed and is now going to have to compete. The monopoly is over...

Well played Epic. Well played.
 
Flogger23m said:
Your Steam numbers are higher because you pulled them out of your ass. No offense. You're making up false statistics on the spot. Again no offense, but no one can take you seriously when you literally make up numbers out of thin air. You're claiming that they'll loose out on 495,000 sales based on absolutely no real world metric.
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Exactly how much bigger Steam's userbase is than Epic's wasn't the point -- whether its 10x, 100x or 10000x bigger than Epic, Steam is still bigger. Fact. And therefore the point stands: a publisher limiting themselves to Epic is stepping over dollars to pick up pennies due to the difference in volume. They will be keeping >0%< instead of >70%< for all the additional copies they could have otherwise sold on Steam.

Flogger23m said:
Reality of the situation is, the majority of customers who planned to purchase Metro are still going to purchase it. Just like they did with Battlefield 3 (Origin), Call of Duty Black Ops 4 (Blizzard's launcher) GTAV (Rockstar Launcher exclusive unless purchased directly on Steam).
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Now who's making things up? How do you know the "majority" will buy it anyway? Based on what? There seems to be a pretty strong backlash to this growing. It's not the same as a publisher relocating their firstparty game to their own launcher. People are getting pissed because EPIC IS PAYING PUBLISHERS TO KEEP GAMES OFF STEAM. It shouldn't be so hard to understand the difference.

Flogger23m said:
User base is fairly meaningless.
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Facepalm.
 
DPI said:
Now who's making things up? How do you know the "majority" will buy it anyway? Based on what?
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History. Half Life 2 & Steam. Battlefield 3 and Origin. Black Ops 4 and Blizzard's client.

DPI said:
And therefore the point stands: a publisher limiting themselves to Epic is stepping over dollars to pick up pennies due to the difference in volume.
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It is relevant to a point. But you're vastly over exaggerating. Again, look at the examples above. If the software is popular most people will install whatever client it requires. This isn't even limited to gaming. You're part of a very vocal minority.

DPI said:
There seems to be a pretty strong backlash to this growing. It's not the same as a publisher relocating their firstparty game to their own launcher.
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Backlash is pretty small. Its just typical forum whining. What difference does it make if the launcher is owned by the publisher? If you're opposed to installing another client it won't matter. And that is where the supposed backlash is coming from.

DPI said:
People are getting pissed because EPIC IS PAYING PUBLISHERS TO KEEP GAMES OFF STEAM.
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Proof please. It sounds like you're pulling that out of your ass to. Point to one credible source which shows us that Epic paid Deep Silver money to pull the game from sale on Steam. The harsh reality for Valve fanboys is Deep Silver saw a better deal and acted on it, even it only weeks before release. Expect it to become more common.

Feel free to drop some proof for the above claim because I'd certainly be interested in it.
 
At the end of the day here it is: Exclusives do nothing to help the consumer.

So here we are, dealing with fucking 5 different launchers on 1 PC, all gathering user data (if you read your EULA you'll see it there), and the only reason we bother with it is because we want to play the game on X client.

If you want people to use your client, make a damn good client or platform people want to use! GOG does it right, they offer DRM free games across the board and it definitely works for me. My wife and I both are playing Witcher 3 without having to buy the same stupid game twice just to play at the same time. If it were possible, I'd buy all games I could through GOG rather than steam. Epic does not offer this to the consumer, their launcher is alright, but has nothing in the form of functionality that steam does. I'd rather have the option to choose which platform/client to purchase my games from. If you don't like "console exclusives" then you shouldn't support this. It seems nice and fine now, but clients like EA, Microsoft, etc are starting to offer "game passes....how long before you'll need 5 different 20 dollar a month purchases to get access to all the games you want? That may be far off, but it's coming.

Also, keep in mind the guy making these decisions at epic is the same asshole that ran Telltale games into the ground.
 
I have to agree that this isn't good for the end user. Personally I haven't bothered to even look at fortnight let alone install epics client. I can't say I would have been a day 1 let alone month 1 buyer of Metro Exodus, but I was interested. Now I frankly wont bother till/if it is in a humble bundle of equiv. I like all my games in 1 place, and as is any game that has come free (far cry etc) with my graphics cards and require Origin just aren't played.

It would be interesting to see how much Epic is paying to do this, but I have to assume they have guaranteed that Deep Silver wont be a looser. (Just there is no guarantee that they couldn't have made more money by releasing the content on all Clients at the same time.)
 
Delicieuxz said:
Being the most popular platform doesn't equate to exclusivity. Valve didn't pay 3rd-party devs to restrict themselves to Steam and were free to publish anywhere they liked. Valve got the most attention because it is the most popular because it was first and because it has the most refined and comprehensive platform client and community features.

Epic's offer of a 12% service fee to publishers is a competitive move. But paying devs to not sell on other digital retailers is anti-competitive.

Steam being popular due to being the best platform service isn't rationale for other platforms doing exclusives to prevent companies like Valve from competing with them. Valve tried to have the best platform, while other companies just tried to have a stake of the market.


Gabe Newell in 2011:

https://www.gamesradar.com/gabe-newell-hoping-to-woo-ea-back-to-steam/

"We really want to show there’s a lot of value having EA titles on Steam. We want EA’s games on Steam and we have to show them that’s a smart thing to do ...I think at the end of the day we’re going to prove to Electronic Arts they have happier customers, a higher quality service, and will make more money if they have their titles on Steam. It’s our duty to demonstrate that to them. We don’t have a natural right to publish their games."
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Why do you think he wants ea games on steam? If it's for accessibility then give 100% profit to ea but that is not the reason. Valve wants a cut of the pie. Open your eyes.
 
Looks like a good move by Epic. To fight Steam they need a compelling client with good consumer benefits. Filling the platform with free games and exclusives is a great way of doing it. Also Epic is going to start doing referrals soon which will help content creators get people into games. Developers and publishers aren’t stupid, I wouldnt be surprised if the Epic Games Store was catching up with Steam on active daily users, just through Fortnite.

Steam is just sitting around doing nothing to compete, which is actually why I’m fine moving away from it. Also I don’t really play old games, so I’m not worried about having a few hundred Steam games waste away on a client I’m not using.
 
There is always some bullshit to force people into adopting yet another fucking service. I'll probably pass on it for one game.
 
Krenum said:
WTF,


2020?! Fuck off....
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I don't respect the Metro devs marketing their game on steam for year(s?), pre-selling it at 60 dollars, riding Steam's exposure and front page, then at the last minute going to a different, objectively worse store. The EULA and privacy issues alone are a disaster.

I won't give Epic or Metro Exodus a dime.
 
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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.

Thank God I refunded it two weeks ago it's 10.00 cheaper on Epic as well. The problem with Metro Exodus is it doesn't have their own launcher so I don't think sales will be any better.
 
exlink said:
I think some people here massively overestimate how much the average PC gamer cares about installing another free launcher on their computer. The developer won't lose many sales, and whatever they will lose will likely be made up by the increased cut they will get from every copy sold on the EGS opposed to Steam.

This isn't like console exclusives where you are physically locked from playing a game due to hardware you have to purchase. All you have to do is simply install another free launcher to play this game on your existing PC. This is hardly a barrier.
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Really? Tell me again how window store exclusivity didn't affect game sales, and this is a store that came directly with the OS.

No, I'm pretty sure that variety of digital stores matters greatly and exclusivity will impact sales potential.
 
Revdarian said:
Really? Tell me again how window store exclusivity didn't affect game sales, and this is a store that came directly with the OS.

No, I'm pretty sure that variety of digital stores matters greatly and exclusivity will impact sales potential.
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Windows Store exclusive = death sentence
Epic store exclusive = death sentence

FortNite kiddies don't buy games.
 
Game is going to be one of the most pirated games ever watch. Exclusives work on consoles but not for PC uesers.
 
Geforcepat said:
No this is worse than console exclusives. we 're talking about steam and running on the same windows 10. not a nintendo and their unique box vs sony's box. pc gamers are running the same system's virtually.
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Yeah! Now that this is a store exclusive, you have to buy a second x86 machine just to run the game, you can't run it at higher resolutions, can't run at higher framerates, can't force shaders and extra AA methods, can't use a mouse and keyboard, can't mod the game- oh wait, maybe it's not worse than a console exclusive.
 
Lets not pretend that this is about Epic, or it's store. It all about the money. Epic want a 12% cut of the sales pie, and Steam, the greedy bastards, want 30%. If Valve want the business back, then they need to lower the fees for the "service" they offer, Steam is nothing that AWS couldn't easily do, for far less money.

You can't argue with the figures. Steam need to make some serious changes, or this thing will continue.
 
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