Metro Exodus will be Epic Store Exclusive, Steam Preorders will still be honored
464 replies, posted
I don't know. I am just providing an example of a game that came to Steam much, much later and the price was not changed. I'm sure there's better examples but I couldn't think of any off the top of my head.
It says this in the report:
Koch Media GmbH and its subsidiaries will continue to operate as independent entities.
My guess is that either Deep Silver was only willing to sell themselves to THQ Nordic if they retained most if not all control of their own assets, or THQ Nordic was just nice enough to not completely absorb them up.
While we're talking about anti-competitive practices, that's a surprisingly anti-competitive move on Valve's part- I didn't know they have that policy. It basically means that no other platform can try to compete with Steam by taking a smaller cut and passing the difference on to customers.
I guess that explains why the only real competition to Steam as far as price is concerned are CD key sellers.
Question: Isn't Exodus actually going to be cheaper on the Epic Store because of the bigger revenue split?
Pretty sure that statement isn't true at all, especially since tons of games are sold on other stores like GMG or Humble or in physical stores for lower prices regularly. This is literally the first time I've seen this particular claim pop up even.
I just did a little bit of digging. It seems that the clause against resale for lower elsewhere is specifically in regards to Steam keys, and that a developer who is found to be selling keys for less than the Steam store price will be barred from generating new keys.
So, if a game is developed with Steamworks and is only actually available through Steam, then you can't undercut the Steam store. But if you have your own distribution platform you can price the game at whatever you want. That's more reasonable than it sounded.
Someone feel free to correct me if I've misinterpreted.
I am pretty sure I have seen Ubi's games being slightly cheaper on uPlay than on Steam though that might be they had a discount on and not the base price, but if that is okay I don't think it is that much of a restriction as to outright pulling the game off.
I think that only considers normal prices and excludes discounts. Or maybe I am totally wrong and I am misremembering it.
No freaking comment.
https://puu.sh/CEeyF/f31346d40d.png
Here's another retarded gaming journo's opinion
this feels more like Valve moaning about how this isn't fair to them more than it is to consumers, most of whom probably don’t care that much, many of whom may see this as a bit of karmic justice for Valve for monopolizing the market for so long.
Sometimes I wonder if Epic is paying them off too, like they do publishers.
You know what the worse part is, I believe it.
And if we say anything againist it, we will be labeled as alt-right and entitled, since well, gamergate, which was about ethics in games journalism when it started, got taken over by the then emerging alt-right. They will just say we people from /pol/ and r/The_Donald...
It's not one sided at least.
Rock Paper Shotgun and PCGamer both have articles shitting on Epic for doing this in the worst way they could.
Not for everyone. As I've stated before because of exchange rates due to Epic's crappy regional currency support the game is barely any cheaper, in Canada's case it's only 20 damn cents cheaper, and in others it's MORE expensive. Also, and call me cynical, but I highly doubt the $10 discount is due to the revenue split.
I am pretty sure if they're willing to pull the game from Steam for better revenue split, theres no way they won't pass out on the extra revenue from keeping it at the same price. The discount in this case is just an excuse and from the whatever large sum of money Epic paid.
It's almost as if the sites publishing these have employed multiple people at the same time, and don't share employees. Who are employed entirely to write articles as fast as humanly possible about controversial and news shit in the gaming industry. Who'd have thunk?
Digital distribution competition is something that should be more common. But the way Epic are going about it is all wrong. Exclusivity contracts really aren't the way forward for competing. If you developed the game and have your own platform, or choose to publish on a single platform? I can't see the problem there. But if a platform is going out of their way to poach things from other platforms with the promise of money/ lowered fees at the cost of exclusivity, that's just shitty.
I don't have a problem with Origin or uPlay existing as the games offered there are owned by the platform creators for the most part, they willingly removed their content from another service to have control over their own distribution. It's annoying needing more clients, but to be honest Origin isn't too bad, just incredibly limited library wise. Epic pulling a game from Steam to bump their own platform, a game they didn't have a hand in, is underhanded and abuses their position in the industry.
I'm kind of worried that we're going to see more of this as publishers desperately look for ways to undercut Steam. Valve has basically the whole pipeline locked down- they provide Steamworks to developers to encourage them to develop for their platform, they've got an enormous catalog of games already on Steam, and they have gamers basically at their beck and call. Origin provides a better service than Steam in a number of ways and it still can't make a dent in Valve's market share. Now Epic and Discord are promising their own platforms, taking a much smaller cut than Valve does, but how are they going to entice consumers to download yet another application, something gamers are loathe to do?
It's starting to remind me of the console wars. I didn't buy an Xbox because it was intrinsically a better experience than the PS2, I bought it because it had Mechassault and Halo. Everyone's hoping that exclusivity will give them the killer app to dethrone Steam.
Still $60US on Epic's Aussie storefront.
I'm genuinely wondering if this could be brought to the attention of the ACCC.
https://www.accc.gov.au/business/anti-competitive-behaviour/exclusive-dealing
Exclusive dealing is against the law only when it substantially lessens competition.
It's one game in a store that has a miniscule market share compared to steam.
multiple games, actually
some of these (Super Meat Boy Forever, Satisfactory, Metro Exodus) had Steam pages up with release dates listed for 2019 before the Epic store stuff happened, and then suddenly the dates on their pages either got shifted to 2020, or in Metro's case get removed from sale, or in the case of Satisfactory, it had its Steam page removed entirely.
i'm sure a couple of other Epic exclusives had this happen too, but this was all i was aware of.
Still tiny in the grand scheme of things. The point of these laws is to prevent monopolies. Exclusive deals are really only illegal if the party in question is already the dominant player in the market. If Valve/Steam started doing something similar they'd probably be under much more scrutiny.
Not just for monopolies but if they hurt the market at all. What Epic is doing does substantially lessen competition, it out right prevents it in fact which is where they're outside the law.
A handful of games in a 50+ billion market is not substantial.
It doesn't matter about the others. There is zero market competition for Metro: Exodus. Who's offering the better deal on Metro: Exodus? Steam or Epic? Ohh right, you only get whatever deal Epic decides to give you and no one else can challenge that.
That's one product in the market of video games.
Exclusive dealing will only break the law when the conduct has the effect of substantially lessening the competition in the relevant market.
The relevant market is video games. Hell, in the eyes of the law the definition might be even broader, but let's say it's just "video games" as benefit of the doubt. There is no such thing as the "Metro: Exodus market"
An assessment of whether full line forcing results in a substantial lessening of competition would involve consideration of:
whether there has been a real effect on the competition in the overall market for a particular product and its substitutes
The overall market is video games. The substitutes are other video games.
whether the refusal to supply would substantially restrict the availability of that type of product to consumers
That TYPE of product. Not a certain specific product.
whether consumers are severely restricted in their ability to buy a product or its substitutes because the business has imposed territorial restrictions as a condition of supply.
If Epic decided that they would stop selling games in europe for example, would it restrict europeans from buying VIDEO GAMES in a significant way? No.
This is far from the first time a publisher has decided to release a game on just one distribution platform, and I don't think I've heard of Australia's consumer protection laws going after videogames for platform exclusivity. Besides, it doesn't look like anyone actually read @CertainDOOM 's link. Exclusive dealing would be if Epic required that you buy hardware from a specific manufacturer to play it on (third line forcing), or included that you can't buy games from Steam in their ToS (exclusive dealing). Only selling a product through one particular distributor isn't against the law.
Unless anyone here has examples to the contrary, I think you might be reaching a bit.
I'm not saying it's 100% enforceable here but it's pretty borderline and possibly bears investigation. Ultimately we'd probably need to see the actual contracts.
Person that links stuff without reading here, I am not an economics guy so maybe I am super wrong, but what I understand is, even if this case is minuscule, is still an anti-competitive practice. Obviously 5 exclusive games are not gonna change the world, but doesn't make what Epic is doing less shitty.
Also, I mention that "I know is not exactly the same situation" when I link the Wikipedia article, sorry if this was wrong in this context, but I cannot find something about this particular problem of software/videogames exclusives.
Oh I'm completely with you there, I think it's a shitty practice that should not be supported. But it is not illegal, which is my entire point here.
Sorry, you need to Log In to post a reply to this thread.