Unfortunately I think Borderlands 3 will sell "well" since the franchise is very big on PC. It will be a fraction of what it would have sold on Steam, but since BL2 impressive numbers also come from a very long tail they can probably still make some of those great "launch period" comparisons just as they did with Metro.
And speaking of Metro, the exact wording of the
press release was:
Epic also revealed that Deep Silver’s Metro: Exodus sold more than 2.5 times as many copies in its first few weeks on the Epic Games store in comparison to the previous franchise release ( Metro: Last Light ) on Steam over the same period of time.
So it shouldn't include Steam pre-orders, but I guess they could include the EGS "guaranteed sales" in there... but of course Sweeney would never be this dishonest... right?
As usual, when they have good numbers, they will shout about them instead of hiding behind nebulous statements. For the big publishers is a good way to justify the backlash and the small indies will do anything Epic demands to try to ensure the next moneyhat.
Oh... and yes, I will admit to having a smile on my face after seeing the "journalist" getting a ban for a "it's just another launcher" post