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More Microsoft titles coming to Steam!

 

This time they announced Gears 5 and those Age of Empires I-III remasters. I imagine it's mostly that they couldn't justify leaving so much money on the table by being exclusive to the dumpster fire WinStore but a part of me kinda hopes they're also doing this to spite Epic as a grudge for back when Tim Sweeney was crying about them building a walled garden lol. Gears 5 going to Steam and not the Epic Store (at least for now) is certainly some delicious irony.

 

I have to say, they might not have any exclusives I'm crazy about but it's good to see MS going all-in on Steam, at least for now. I'm certainly more willing to give them a chance this way. Although I hope they'll at least release Gears 4 first because that seems like the most logical (and realistic) jumping on point without porting the entire original trilogy.

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Epic refuses to sell an indie Kickstarter game because it won't go exclusive. Someone please explain to me how this makes any sense whatsoever. Buying up all the exclusives is a total dick move, but at least from a business perspective I can see why it would seem logical to do it. Refusing to sell a multiplatform game unless it goes exclusive just seems like dumbass sour grapes to me, though. Now you're just ensuring that everyone has it except you. I don't expect a game about skateboarding birds to set the world on fire or anything, but a policy like this just puts them at risk of missing out on a sleeper hit. On another note, good on the SkateBIRD devs for not going back on their Kickstarter promise to deliver steam keys. I hope their game does well when it eventually comes out.

 

Edited by Mister Jack
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It's pretty obvious at this point that this was never about securing exclusives and always about keeping games off of Steam. I mean, Ubisoft games are still sold on uPlay. Like, on the one hand I get it. Steam has a huge market share and throwing Fortnite bucks around for exclusivity deals is the easiest way to cut into that. On the other, they keep claiming that it's about fighting Steam's 30% cut because it's toodamnhigh.jpg but also their benevolent 12% cut is apparently making it very difficult to add even the most basic fucking features to their store and "forces" them to pass payment processing fees onto the customers.

 

Honestly, I don't think you can read anything into this particular case. They've bought exclusivity on KS games that promised Steam keys before, most famously Shenmue 3 but more recently MechWarrior 5 and at least another one that I can't remember right now. And you can't interpret this as them not wanting to do it again to avoid flak either because they've said before that they wouldn't repeat a situation like Metro (buying a game that was already pre-purchasable on Steam) only to turn around and do it again like literally a few weeks later. Honestly, at this point I'm more inclined to assume this was them not being interested in the game and giving the dev a bullshit excuse. For all their talk of helping smaller indie devs, it's blatantly obvious that they're only interested in indies that are already wildly successful like Team Meat or Supergiant.

 

TL;DR: Epic Games are full of fucking shit and their word means nothing.

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On one hand it's up to them where they choose to sell their game and where they get funding from, and some of the hate has been extreme, but on the other hand literally could have announced in any other way and go "hey we're going to be on Epic store and this gives us some financial flexibility". Doesn't help they continued to fan the flames themselves, shitting n patreons and anyone outside of Epics coverage and then also get Sweeney further fanning the flames with the "this is awesome" thing.
 

Epic seem to be under the illusion of "bad publicity is good publicity" thing and continues to stoke up division between gamers and developers (and developers and publishers) and thinks that constantly going "Steam is bad" is their get out of jail free card.

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The Ooblets devs are exactly like the sort of people who burn all their bridges once they won a lotto. Cute game and all but with hearts that shit, I don't want no part of it.

 

Epic is gonna Epic. I wonder how far their "Fuck you" money can take them since in many ways they are burning bridges too but they are a big business and that sort of thing works differently on that level. Okay, sure, the casual player/gamers probably don't care about all this nonsense which may lead to Epic gaining a stronghold in this market. In many ways, they seem to want to quickly be the Apple App Store... but I'm unsure if it will all pan out.

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Yeah, as much as I dislike EGS exclusivity deals, the harassment the Ooblets devs got for it is obviously way out of line. At the end of the day, it's a valid business decision on their part and I can wait out the exclusivity period (although in this case I'm not really interested in the game, I just mean in general). That being said, you would have to be a complete fucking moron not to see that the harassment could've been EASILY predicted AND avoided. That blog post is some next-level condescending shit. Like, how fucking stupid do you have to be to go "People don't like these deals so I'm gonna get ahead of this and just antagonize the shit out of them right out of the gate!"

 

Best part is that now because of this, Epic have managed to reframe the narrative and paint themselves as the good guys. I'm already seeing critics of the EGS being compared to gamergaters, which is just lovely. I wouldn't be surprised if articles making this false equivalency started popping up in the near future. Because yeah, I'm such a fucking asshole for not wanting to use a garbage launcher. I should just suck it up because it's good that devs are getting money!! My experience as a customer doesn't matter because VIDEO GAMES!!!

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I really don't understand why video games are the only industry where the companies can just openly shit on the people they're trying to sell products to and get applauded for it by the media. Obviously death threats are extremely inappropriate, but even people who brought up polite complaints on the game's discord server were getting treated with disdain. Imagine if tech companies or car companies or, god forbid, pharmaceutical companies were so openly hostile to the public. People would never let that shit slide, and yet somehow it's practically encouraged in the games industry. 

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Yeah, it's really baffling how even game journos seem to buy into it. And to be fair, there's definitely some ridiculous persecuted gamer shit going on that's laughable. Like, anyone that thinks EA is evil because DLC or microtransactions or whatever is a fucking moron. Ditto that pointless "worst company in America" thing because holy FUCK if you think a glorified toy company even qualifies for this you REALLY need to go out into the real world and get a reality check. But some devs genuinely come across like they think they're entitled to my money or that they should be above even the most basic consumer protection laws, which is just... u wot m8.

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Your biggest fans will also be your biggest critics. And rather than finding something constructive, it's possible you'll be flooded with regurgitated criticism that's either baseless or misinformed. Alternatively, they'll call you out on your failings, which stings because you know it sucks. But studios are essentially businesses in an industry that demands results and sacrifices. I've had friends leave the industry because of how grueling it can be and to have a bunch of angry voices online doesn't help them out.

 

With social media and the ease of access to individuals in the industry and studios, it creates this toxic cesspool of a relationship. It's like a zookeeper caring for dangerous animals: You mess up or piss them off and you'll suffer. This isn't to completely defend a studio or any one developer. There are more than enough examples of poor behavior and straight up arrogance throughout the years. No one should be under the assumption that any one company is their personal friend or treated like family. They've got staff and mouths to feed, so by default they're going to prioritize themselves. Heck, we're talking about an industry here that lays off employees if a project from another team is either canceled or doesn't meet financial expectations.

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6 minutes ago, CorgiShinobi said:

But studios are essentially businesses in an industry that demands results and sacrifices. I've had friends leave the industry because of how grueling it can be and to have a bunch of angry voices online doesn't help them out.

 

This is a good point. The game industry has no union so the people working in it already get treated like trash.

Edited by Mister Jack
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