News Metro Exodus Leaves Steam For The Epic Games Store

[Big_Al]

Honestly I genuinely believe some of it comes from a place where a lot of these people don't really actually care about PC gaming, most publications and gaming press are very console focused, that's absolutely fine and I'm not dismissing that perspective, but it leads to ignorance for what a lot of PC gamers actually appreciate in regards to the platform. Instead we get youtubers making videos about some of the garbage games that are on the platform, exasperating things and liking to get their little communities huffing and puffing. Steam has its problems, no platform is problem free, but to act like they've done nothing or provide nothing for the consumer is something I'll never understand. Valve spent years building up customer trust through various means, in a time when many folks thought PC gaming was in a decline. Remember when Epic said that they were going to console as a lot of their games would be just pirated on the platform ? Instead of trying to solve that problem or as Gabe called it a 'service issue' they just want, 'nah fuck yees' and fucked off. There's also a lot of folks that just want 'console warz' and just want to shit on PC gaming whilst they then fork out £30 - £40 for the privilege of playing online. I also think social media has especially lead to folks circle jerking each other off but then I will fully admit I'm an old miserable bastard who hates twitter etc. Noone seems to want to actually sit down and have a proper discussion about what the stores do right and what they do wrong, instead everyones backs are up and it results in arguments and petty sniping.

In regards to store exclusives I have no issue when it comes to games funded by the store owners themselves. Like EA with Origins, Ubisoft with UPlay (well to an extent since they get published on Steam as well), Blizzard/Activision with Battle.net and even Bethesda with RAGE 2 and the Bethesda store. I may not be a huge fan of it but I can at least understand it. In regards to Epic Store I would honestly have no problems if it was announced from the off instead of constantly pulling the rugs from under peoples noses so close to release. That's at least twice they've done this and it always comes across as greedy and desperate, almost like Tim Sweeney is in his office going 'oh SHIT! THAT'S POPULAR! QUICK MONEYHAT IT!' All they need to do is keep improving the store and help fund other developers games come to market and make their store more attractive that way but that's not as easy is it. Fuck sake I'm considering buying RAGE 2 for the Bethesda launcher and that's a big bag of shite but it doesn't leave as bad a taste in my mouth compared to the shite Epics been pulling.

 

[crimsonheadGCN]

I was thinking about buying it on Steam yesterday when this was announced, but held off. No reason to reward them for a bad choice plus I have tons of media to go through so I wouldn't have played this game for a while.

Also, I generally like reading Kotaku, but that tweet was dumb as fuck.

 

[Paul]

I was thinking about buying it on Steam yesterday when this was announced, but held off. No reason to reward them for a bad choice plus I have tons of media to go through so I wouldn't have played this game for a while.

Also, I generally like reading Kotaku, but that tweet was dumb as fuck.

I bought it on steam, but only because I know I can refund it easily. I am still undecided whether to keep it or not. I really do not want to reward such shitty behaviour.

 

[Derrick01]

Even RPS' John Walker, who wrote an article allegedly criticizing Epic for their current strategy with exclusives, before getting to the point had to preface the entire thing with two or three paragraphs of throwing crap at Steam.
I doubt I'm the only one who's getting this impression, but I won't deny I have a hard time justifying where it could come from, if in good faith.

Yeah I was told it was a good article so I read it and I'm pretty sure he didn't say 1 good thing about steam at all. In fact I'm almost positive I saw him flat out say steam is awful at one point. It was half shit slinging at steam and half criticizing epic for moneyhats.

Not to single out Walker because he's definitely not the only one doing this but I want to sit these people in the media down and try and figure out what world they come from where Steam isn't far and away the best option. This is not excusing the problems steam does have or areas they could do better in but when you say "steam is awful" and all other kinds of hostile rhetoric...what does that make every other client that doesn't have 1/10th of the features (for customers OR devs)?

I bought it on steam, but only because I know I can refund it easily. I am still undecided whether to keep it or not. I really do not want to reward such shitty behaviour.

This is where I'm at right now. I wanted the game and I got it in time but I genuinely feel gross buying it. I usually don't have some kind of crisis of conscience when it comes to buying games but for whatever reason this one is really bugging me.

 

[Alextended]

EDIT: Also, Kotaku is a joke outlet, and don't you forget it:


You see people accuse gamers of protecting the interests of their favorite corporations over caring about their fellow human being (loot boxes, company profits, etc). But let's not forget that video game "journalists" are no friends to the average person either.

So according to Kotaku 99.99% of PC gamers (if not 100%) are toxic fuckers ready to start a jihad over a factual Steam notice? And the factual notice is instigating an assault, as if they're not assaulting the vast majority of PC gamers with calling them such? I mean, if that's how they feel why care, it's going to be the same pieces of shit using Epic and Steam and battling each other so why care to comment on anything involving the same PC platform and same users? I guess he didn't understand what the fuck he was saying or how many millions of diverse people all over the world he's lumping together as one toxic hivemind but then he should just not say anything instead of that pretentious misplaced white knighting Epic Store shit, as if it's a bullied person when the majority of the media have been praising it to hell and back over its one positive point, the lower fee, as if nothing else should matter, as if Steam which brought digital distribution to this widely adopted and accepted point has been a cesspool any sane person wanted out of but had nowhere to go until Epic's savior?

I wish Steam took away press accounts over such bullshit, see how they like it when they have to pay for every game to cover it like us, maybe they'd then see, value and judge things very differently. Steam has even done so much for their field, with press accounts letting them play 99.99% of games without having to beg any publisher for a bone. I guess they prefer the begging and that sort of mutual relationship to remain in place over easy handing of effective tools for them to do their actual job and Epic's currently in that sort of thing like a first party platform holder so they hope they have much to gain from them as well.

 

[Ex-User (307)]

Honestly I genuinely believe some of it comes from a place where a lot of these people don't really actually care about PC gaming, most publications and gaming press are very console focused, that's absolutely fine and I'm not dismissing that perspective, but it leads to ignorance for what a lot of PC gamers actually appreciate in regards to the platform.

We know this is true. Look at the three cases of Subnautica, RimWorld and Hollow Knight in 2017-18.

Subnautica came out of EA last year in January to almost no fanfare from the press.

RimWorld came out of EA around October, was one of the most successful and loved EA titles, and got four reviews when it came out.

Hollow Knight was a huge hit on PC (at least a million+ seller I believe), but it might as well have not existed to the press until it came out on the Switch.

The mainstream press has little to no idea what’s happening on PC, what’s popular, what issues people are having and what people care about the most.

 

[Alextended]

We know this is true. Look at the three cases of Subnautica, RimWorld and Hollow Knight.

Subnautica came out of EA last year in January to almost no fanfare from the press.

RimWorld came out of EA around October, was one of the most successful and loved EA titles, and got four reviews when it came out.

Hollow Knight was a huge hit on PC (at least a million+ seller I believe), but it might as well have not existed to the press until it came out on the Switch.

The mainstream press has little to no idea what’s happening on PC, what’s popular, what issues people are having and what people care about the most.

Which is crazy cos it just takes an e-mail to Valve to get a press account and get access to the whole library without having to beg any publisher or individually working to grow a mutually beneficial relationship with each of them. I guess they do prefer working on such relationships instead and only writing about shiny stuff they're fed off silver platters, especially if they get to keep the silver platters afterwards. Getting the games and working to cover them isn't good enough! Seriously, consider how powerful a tool this easy to get press account is for people who actually want to cover the industry and how lazy or short sighted they are not to do that when they have it all available at their fingertips. Oh no, it's apparently too much work to mentally block all the shovelware as you scroll down, what a crime against games journalism to allow every indie to get access to the market without also working on a mutual relationship with a messiah like Epic first! It's much better that they ignore all the good games and instead devote their time to make valuable so called humorous shovelware of the week videos.

 

[IBJamon]

Are press accounts really that easy to get? I would suspect they are not. If they were, I imagine most of our publisher partners would have just told us to ping Valve rather than handing out review codes as they do.

 

[Krakn3dfx]

I bought it on steam, but only because I know I can refund it easily. I am still undecided whether to keep it or not. I really do not want to reward such shitty behaviour.

I bought it on Steam yesterday as soon as I found out they were pulling it. Apparently a ton of other people did since it shot to #1 on their Top Selling chart.

I get not wanting to reward Deep Silver/Koch Media/THQ Nordic, but I also do want to support 4A Games, who made 2 of my top 20 games of all time. It was either grab it on Steam while I could or go console, and I didn't want to go that route.

Every game that Epic pulls this kind of thing with makes me more confident that my decision to not financially engage with EGS is the right one.

 

[Ex-User (307)]

Are press accounts really that easy to get? I would suspect they are not. If they were, I imagine most of our publisher partners would have just told us to ping Valve rather than handing out review codes as they do.

I would guess that getting one for a bigger name site must be doable, but for littler sites, probably not.

 

[Alextended]

Are press accounts really that easy to get? I would suspect they are not. If they were, I imagine most of our publisher partners would have just told us to ping Valve rather than handing out review codes as they do.

Try and see? Why haven't you already? I got one when working on my own mod focused news website back in around ~2005 iirc. Maybe it's gotten stricter nowadays but I'm sure you have more things to show than an amateur website. Maybe review codes give you earlier access of course so it doesn't nulify the need for publisher relationships altogether like I already said, the press account gives you the same experience as a user buying it, for free. I did get in Day of Defeat: Source pre-release press reviews as well back then and interviewed people from Valve and Ritual Entertainment before their fall.

 

[Ex-User (307)]

People are pricks.

 

[IBJamon]

Try and see? Why haven't you already? I got one when working on my own mod focused news website back in around ~2005 iirc. Maybe it's gotten stricter nowadays but I'm sure you have more things to show than an amateur website. Maybe review codes give you earlier access of course so it doesn't nulify the need for publisher relationships altogether like I already said, the press account gives you the same experience as a user buying it, for free. I did get in Day of Defeat: Source pre-release press reviews as well back then and interviewed people from Valve and Ritual Entertainment before their fall.

I'll give it a shot, but I'm not holding my breath. Thanks for the suggestion though!

 

[lashman]

I'll give it a shot, but I'm not holding my breath. Thanks for the suggestion though!

good luck! hopefully you can get in!

 

[Alextended]

I'll give it a shot, but I'm not holding my breath. Thanks for the suggestion though!

This is what my site looked like (a tad better without the broken images, the bottom was rounded like the top and the sides continued the darker color to match that era's green Steam GUI) when they gave me the account for reference, lol. Thanks for giving me the excuse to go down memory lane

My OCD must be showing with all those posts trying to maintain the same uniform style

 

[Gengis Khan]

This is where I'm at right now. I wanted the game and I got it in time but I genuinely feel gross buying it. I usually don't have some kind of crisis of conscience when it comes to buying games but for whatever reason this one is really bugging me.

Did the same thing and I'm feeling in the same way.
On one hand this gave me the option to make my wallet speak for me, showing my middle finger at Epic for what they are attempting here.
On the other hand, I also feel like I'm indirectly endorsing, if not even rewarding, Deep Silver's behavior, which is genuinely annoying me every time I think about it.

Right now I'm keeping the purchase, but I've already considered more than once to ask for a refund I may very well end up doing exactly that in the next two weeks. Then I may wait out a year, if not even past that.

 

[Arulan]

I was intending to play Metro: Exodus on release, and briefly thought about purchasing it yesterday before it disappeared from Steam. But despite not giving Epic Games any of my money in this case, this isn't the message I wanted to send to the publisher/developer.

This is simply not tolerable. I'm not going to start pre-ordering Steam games for fear they'll move to the Epic Game Store. Fuck that. If they see any money from me it'll come from a Humble Bundle, or 70% of a steep discount a couple years from now.

And frankly, after browsing PC threads on other sites and Reddit, that's a lot more generous than most people. Piracy will be back on the rise.

 

[Ex-User (119)]

Yup thing with pc gaming is we have access to many avenues and people aren't afraid to circumvent bullshit.

 

[morningbus]

This is still just the opening salvo. Prepare for maximum fuckery.

They're going to take Shenmue 3 and it's going to be a shitshow.

 

[Xclash]

Both Metro 2033 and Metro Last Light Redux are getting review bombed right now. Can't wait to see how bad it will be for Metro Exodus.

This is still just the opening salvo. Prepare for maximum fuckery.

They're going to take Shenmue 3 and it's going to be a shitshow.

This is why we should embrace anime, waifus never leave.

 

[Gevin]

Both Metro 2033 and Metro Last Light Redux are getting review bombed right now. Can't wait to see how bad it will be for Metro Exodus.

That's pretty shitty tbh, and it's a thing that kinda gives validity to all the complaints about toxicity on the Steam store.

 

[Alextended]

That's pretty shitty tbh, and it's a thing that kinda gives validity to all the complaints about toxicity on the Steam store.

They still have a wonderful average. This is like the days of whichever COD "boycott" that didn't affect its sales. And Steam does warn of this potential behavior when you visit their page anyway since they show an abnormally high amount of recent reviews which you can choose to exclude with a single click when you go down to the reviews section (and when just checking the average rating it also separates the recent ratio from the overall ratio very clearly too). And people are even honest about why they're review bombing and it having nothing to do with the game's quality if you go read any of the reviews, lmao. There's no way someone can be misled and put off buying these games thinking they're bad over it and it's got nothing to do with Steam users being toxic because again Steam users are the vast vast majority of every PC gamer ever. Might as well say Amazon users (so, the whole down world?) are toxic because of that, lol? So yeah acknowledging review bombing can happen doesn't mean to also acknowledge it has any actual negative effect overall or that it represents any kind of majority of users as if it happens more on Steam than elsewhere in the whole world in any industry. Besides even if it was a problem ever evolving Steam features try to combat it, Epic excluding user ratings altogether and claiming they only have good games on their website as if that means you can buy anything blindly (which isn't true even now, never mind when they have a ton more games in a couple years) doesn't make it a better choice. Every major service offers user ratings, even some of the big review websites have a user rating next to their own rating, even Metacritic has a user rating, Amazon, all the price aggregator websites for any kind of product have user reviews, big non gaming websites like IMDB, the works. Even small retailer websites have it these days (not that I'd trust them to not delete the bad reviews of products they want to sell, ha). It's a great feature to have regardless of any comparatively small amount of mostly failed attempts to rig it. Anyway, again, with the average mostly unaffected it only demonstrates the majority of Steam users aren't petty and toxic. Plus people have to actually own the game, it's not like other places where you can review products without proof of purchase (even gog does that because they simply understand many of their users have the games already before re-purchasing them there, especially when it comes to the classic oldies) so it would be funny if they got an upsurge in sales from trolls trying to review bomb it and they couldn't care less about the unaffected average and care more for the money instead!

 

[lashman]

This is still just the opening salvo. Prepare for maximum fuckery.

They're going to take Shenmue 3 and it's going to be a shitshow.

yeah, they're just getting warmed up ... unfortunately

only gonna get worse from now on

 

[Alexandros]

Not to single out Walker because he's definitely not the only one doing this but I want to sit these people in the media down and try and figure out what world they come from where Steam isn't far and away the best option. This is not excusing the problems steam does have or areas they could do better in but when you say "steam is awful" and all other kinds of hostile rhetoric...what does that make every other client that doesn't have 1/10th of the features (for customers OR devs)?

Yeah, it's pretty baffling.

 

[Maxi]

That Kotaku tweet reads nothing like the article... Also that guy has been on the internet for a while right? The gaming community will moan/rage about anything it doesn't need messaging to get riled up.

This anti consumer stuff is justified as well, the community will probably end up going to far or the wrong way about it but hopefully the message comes across that exclusivity on PC is becoming an issue.

I don't mind the games going over to Epic but coming exclusive when the platform adds nothing for the end user seems pretty mad!

 

[lashman]

when the platform adds nothing for the end

that's exactly why they're doing it .... they can't be bothered to make a proper store and launcher, so they'll just throw money at devs and publishers to force people to use their stuff whether they want to do it or not

 

[Maxi]

Exactly which is odd seeing people defending that practice!

Are there any games on Steam that are exclusive that aren't from Valve or strictly tied to the API. I don't think any developers or publishers are stuck to using Steam it is just they choose to do so because of the massive store front, being the leading store and Steam API features.

 

[Ascheroth]

Exactly which is odd seeing people defending that practice!

Are there any games on Steam that are exclusive that aren't from Valve or strictly tied to the API. I don't think any developers or publishers are stuck to using Steam it is just they choose to do so because of the massive store front, being the leading store and Steam API features.

And because other storefronts wouldn't sell them to begin with. A lot of games that are "exclusive" to Steam are smaller ones from what I'm seeing.

 

[lashman]

Exactly which is odd seeing people defending that practice!

Are there any games on Steam that are exclusive that aren't from Valve or strictly tied to the API. I don't think any developers or publishers are stuck to using Steam it is just they choose to do so because of the massive store front, being the leading store and Steam API features.

not a single one .... volvo even used to sell Portal 2 and HL2 on Origin for a while

all the "exclusive" games are only exclusive because the devloper/publisher decided to make it this way ... volvo never paid anyone to make anything exclusive ... quite the opposite in fact - during their dev talks they ALWAYS tell everyone to release their games on as many platforms and stores as possible

 

[lashman]

Edit: nvm, it was fake

 

[Alexandros]

i guess you could say Glukhovsky isn't happy about the exclusivity either .......

Yup. It's good to see backlash from multiple sides.

 

[lashman]

Yup. It's good to see backlash from multiple sides.

yeah

and i don't think 4A are all that jazzed up about it either

 

[RionaaM]

I was thinking about buying it on Steam yesterday when this was announced, but held off. No reason to reward them for a bad choice plus I have tons of media to go through so I wouldn't have played this game for a while.

Also, I generally like reading Kotaku, but that tweet was dumb as fuck.

Yeah, I thought about buying it just to own it on Steam, even though I haven't played the previous games. But after thinking for a while, I decided to put it on ignore instead. Won't support these shady practices.

That's pretty shitty tbh, and it's a thing that kinda gives validity to all the complaints about toxicity on the Steam store.

Nah, I approve of this. Customers are showing their discontent, and it's the best way to do it, along with not buying the game.

 

[Ascheroth]

yeah

and i don't think 4A are all that jazzed up about it either

It's quite a bizarre move. The author of the books doesn't like it, the devs don't like it, not even their parent company like it!
I hope Nordic flexes their muscles and tells Koch Media to stop that shit.

 

[lashman]

It's quite a bizarre move. The author of the books doesn't like it, the devs don't like it, not even their parent company like it!
I hope Nordic flexes their muscles and tells Koch Media to stop that shit.

we can only hope

although, honestly, i'm pretty sure they're now waiting to see what happens ... if it makes money etc. ... if it does - they'll do the same with their games ...

that's corporations for you

 

[Gengis Khan]

yeah

and i don't think 4A are all that jazzed up about it either

This is a sentiment I've seen expressed on several comments everywhere, but is there any source to this claim?
I haven't seen anything from 4A (or from members of the studio, at least) on the topic.

 

[lashman]

This is a sentiment I've seen expressed on several comments everywhere, but is there any source to this claim?
I haven't seen anything from 4A (or from members of the studio, at least) on the topic.

nope, nothing official (not yet, at least)

 

[Lashley]

Hahahaha get fucked

I won't be supporting practices like this, and yes, I'd call out Valve if they moneyhatted devs too

 

[lashman]

and yes, I'd call out Valve if they moneyhatted devs too

i'm pretty sure most people would ... and definitely everyone in here

i'd be EXTREMELY disappointed and angry if they decided to do that .... that's like the absolute worst thing they can do right now ... so i really hope they're not even considering it

 

[Lashley]

i'm pretty sure most people would ... and definitely everyone in here

i'd be EXTREMELY disappointed and angry if they decided to do that .... that's like the absolute worst thing they can do right now ... so i really hope they're not even considering it

Cant see Valve doing it

Also its nice to have a normal PC related convo on here, ERA can get fucked

 

[lashman]

Cant see Valve doing it

yeah, me neither

i just hope we're right about this

 

[Nahkapukki]

This is going to be a first big title doing this so it's definitely going to be interesting to see how this pans out in the long run. Is the incentive that EGS (bag of money to certain people) enough to make up for the lost sales or not?

Post automatically merged: Jan 30, 2019

Say what you say moneyhatting is basic bribery.

 

[lashman]

This is going to be a first big title doing this so it's definitely going to be interesting to see how this pans out in the long run. Is the incentive that EGS (bag of money to certain people) enough to make up for the lost sales or not?

Post automatically merged: Jan 30, 2019

Say what you say moneyhatting is basic bribery.

yes ... and yes

we'll see how it goes

 

[Ascheroth]

i'd be EXTREMELY disappointed and angry if they decided to do that .... that's like the absolute worst thing they can do right now ... so i really hope they're not even considering it

Yeah, I really hope they won't go that way. Timed client 3rd exclusivity on PC is utter bullshit no matter who does it.

 

[lashman]

Yeah, I really hope they won't go that way. Timed client 3rd exclusivity on PC is utter bullshit no matter who does it.

agreed ... 100%

 

[Routa]

Well, Steam still provides nice advertising.

Deep Silver:

 

[curi0usBystander]

Well, Steam still provides nice advertising.

Deep Silver:

Wait ... wait... wait

They posted this TODAY ?

 

[Milena]

Well, Steam still provides nice advertising.

Deep Silver:

Amazing. This is on a whole other level.

 

[lashman]

well it's not like the can post that in the EGS community hub for the game

 

[Digoman]

well it's not like the can post that in the EGS community hub for the game

It is almost as if those pesky community related features of Steam are useful after all. But that can't be because Valve is evviiiillll