Tuesday, January 29th 2019

Steam and THQ Nordic Issue Statements on Metro Exodus Exclusivity on Epic Games Store

We reported yesterday how Metro Exodus unceremoniously left Steam for a year-long exclusivity deal on the Epic Game store, one of many steps that Epic and Tencent are taking to challenge the Goliath of PC gaming storefronts itself. Valve was quick in putting out a rare statement yesterday, which has been updated since to reflect the status of the game on Steam, and it can be seen below verbatim, with THQ Nordic's take on this matter past the break.
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.
THQ Nordic, likely sensing the tide against them, put out a statement on Twitter shifting all responsibility to Koch Media GmbH, saying the latter entity owns the Metro IP, even though THQ Nordic acquired Koch Media in February last year. Take the statement below for what you will, but it does nothing to assuage those wanting the game accessible on Steam anytime soon:
The decision to publish Metro Exodus as a timed Epic Store exclusive was made entirely on Koch Media's side as Metro is their intellectual property. They are a sister company of THQ Nordic (Vienna), which is the reason why we can and will not comment on this matter. We do not want to categorically exclude the possibility of timed exclusives for any of our games in the future, but speaking in the here and now, we definitely want to have the players choose the platform of their liking and make our portfolio available to as many outlets as possible.
Source: THQ Nordic on Twitter
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46 Comments on Steam and THQ Nordic Issue Statements on Metro Exodus Exclusivity on Epic Games Store

#26
FordGT90Concept
"I go fast!1!11!1!"
It will either have a Steam key or a Epic Games Store key. I just checked and the Epic Games Store application supports it:
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#27
moproblems99
Vayra86You can simply put a sentence in between QUOTE markers, removing the member name from it ;)
Yeah, I forgot to remove his name.
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#28
B-Real
neatfeatguyWait, wait, wait, wait, wait.......

There's an epic game store? How long as that being around?



To each their own. I thought the Metro games were okay. They weren't overly simply and you just walked through them with ease, they just felt too linear and a bit too scripted for my liking. It doesn't hurt my feelings where the company decides to sell the next addition to the saga, I wasn't looking to pick up a copy and if I do, it wouldn't be anytime soon. However, there will be people that won't buy it because of where it's being offered for the first year. By the time it does hit other digital stores, folks that didn't buy it probably won't be swooping in to pick up a copy because they'll be busy playing other games.
And why people wouldn't buy it if it's only available on another client for a limited time? Because they would need to install 100-200 MB on their drive which maybe has $1200 or $800 RTX GPUs? :)
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#30
neatfeatguy
neatfeatguyWait, wait, wait, wait, wait.......

There's an epic game store? How long as that being around?
erixxOh crybabies, who cares. Metro is a fantastic saga and will do great on Epic.
B-RealAnd why people wouldn't buy it if it's only available on another client for a limited time? Because they would need to install 100-200 MB on their drive which maybe has $1200 or $800 RTX GPUs? :)
Same reason you get people that won't buy AMD and only buy Nvidia. Or won't by Intel and only by AMD.
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#31
chinmi
Well, that is still another games I'm going to skip purchasing.
It's not because I have to install another launcher, but because steam always have regional pricing for people like me that stay in 3rd world countries.
On epic store launcher it's gonna be us$50. regardless on where your countries is. Before on steam if I preorder it's around $25, the reason I don't pre-order is because.... I just don't do pre-order games without reading the release review first.
Using USA standard pricing it's so expensive for us. (For comparison, minimum wage in USA is about $10/hour or so right ? well in my country it's more or less $250/MONTH !)

Guess I'm gonna buy it on steam next year... the price should comes down a lot after a year or so..... or maybe they release the goty version with all dlc included too next year
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#32
rtwjunkie
PC Gaming Enthusiast
neatfeatguythey just felt too linear and a bit too scripted for my liking. It doesn't hurt my feelings where the company de
AsRockfind it way to linear too keep interest.
You both are apparently not reading any of the pre release articles or watched any of the dev commentaries or trailers? This game is non-linear open world, and has a plethora of customizing of weapons, both of which the first two didn’t have.
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#33
epiqpnwage
the54thvoidHey Steam, get Valve to make Half Life 3 and Left 4 Dead 3. If you hadn't sat on your arse for so long, you'd still have some of your own 'epic' IP to sell.
Move on. Don't you have a life? Obsessing over a game or a sequel that may or probably will never come is sad.
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#34
chimonow
That must be a tough decision to make. Release the game on an mostly unknown storefront and reap 88% of the profits or release it on Steam, and get 70%.
If I were THQ right now, I'd be praying the Epic Games Storefront picks up in popularity.
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#35
FordGT90Concept
"I go fast!1!11!1!"
There's nothing stopping them from releasing it on Steam later.
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#36
chimonow
FordGT90ConceptThere's nothing stopping them from releasing it on Steam later.
It's a an epic games store exclusive for 1 year, then it will most likely be released on steam.
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#37
rtwjunkie
PC Gaming Enthusiast
chimonowIt's a an epic games store exclusive for 1 year, then it will most likely be released on steam.
And if they follow suit with the first two, GOG probably soon after that.
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#38
neatfeatguy
rtwjunkieYou both are apparently not reading any of the pre release articles or watched any of the dev commentaries or trailers? This game is non-linear open world, and has a plethora of customizing of weapons, both of which the first two didn’t have.
No, I don't care about watching game videos. I'm not into watching other people play, regardless if the game is out or not. I don't listen to boring commentaries nor watch trailers. Consider me old fashioned, but if a game offers a demo, then I'll try it out and I can better derive an opinion about the game from that method. Otherwise, I might read up on an article or two of a game that interests me to see if it's something I should follow and look into getting.

The first two games weren't that impressive aside from the graphics side of things. I didn't care much for them. This new one might be good, might be bad....perhaps mediocre....

STALKER added in weapon customization for Clear Sky - didn't make the game much better. I still enjoyed it, but just because you can customize weapons doesn't mean it's good.
I got to customize weapons in Tomb Raider (2013) - didn't make the game any better (in fact, the game was kinda shitty - Lara came off as a cross of the Terminator, John Wick and Rambo. Can't be killed, falls from great heights over and over again. She shoots and melees people like John Wick and handles a bow like Rambo from First Blood: Part 2)

I don't think the atmosphere was much different than the felling you got from STALKER: CoP, in Metro games - kinda creepy, but not as well done as CoP.

I don't feel the new game adds anything new to what is already out there. Maybe someday, a year or three after it releases I might pick up a copy when it's cheap, but based off the first two games, I'm don't feel the need to get it right now, regardless of what digital site sells it. If you want to enjoy the game, go for it. Doesn't hurt my feelings.
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#39
TheinsanegamerN
Vayra86You don't? I do. There is simply more wiggle room for developers on existing titles, and for new ones, they get to deal with a much lower cut on their budget, which leaves more money for actual development and/or marketing. And even if they don't, I'd much rather see my money paid to the actual creator of a product than to some worthless middle man. I don't benefit one second from Steam, it only feeds off everyone using it. Oh yeah, we get some extra functionality to go with it... stuff that developers and other third parties can do much better (Discord for friends & voice, Nexusmods for the workshop, and that's pretty much it).

With publisher -independent I mean platforms NOT like Uplay/Origin/Bnet.
If you want publishers to have that money so badly, you can just write them another $60 check, just saying.

As a consumer, a game being forced on just the Epic store with no user reviews does not help me, at all. Channeling a product through a single store denies the consumer the choice of where to buy, and is decisively anti consumer, but pro corporation.

A proper pro-consumer choice is to launch the game on all available platforms, and let the consumer decide where to buy it from. If Epic wants to sell the game for $50 compared to $60 on Steam, thats fine, that gives consumers choice of where to buy a game and which platform to support. If a user finds Epic's nebulous user agreements regarding privacy and security and Epic's lack of feedback system to be disagreeable, they are free to buy on steam which doesnt have those problems.

The game being available ONLY on Epic's store doesnt give the user any more choice, and decisively takes AWAY from the consumer, being limited to a platform with WORSE problems then what steam has.

You can argue you dont benefit one bit from steam, I argue that's BS. Do you download games, do you buy games off of Steam sales? Do you play games that only use the unobtrusive Steamworks as opposed to SecuRom or Always online DRM? Then you benefit from Steam, from having a platform with established rules and a wide install base.
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#40
Tsukiyomi91
I'd say that THQ did the biggest mistake just because Fortnite was "famous" on Epic's own storefront doesn't mean anything. On top of how lax the security Epic is doing, I doubt I want to trade cheaper price for more security risk. All in the name for milking as much profit revenue as possible, satisfy the investors with "positive data" & then leave the game to rot. Sounds familiar right?
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#41
Easo
Tell me again, how a subsidiary can do this? Sure, fine, they are independently operated, but still... One would, I think, very logically assume that they do talk between themselves and should have foreseen the very obvious reaction to it and thought it out better.
Like, common, we are not in kindergarten.
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#42
rtwjunkie
PC Gaming Enthusiast
neatfeatguySTALKER added in weapon customization for Clear Sky - didn't make the game much better.
Good point. I was merely pointing out some game features that were a 180 turn from the previous ones, especially that it is not on rails like the first two.

Whether good or bad remains to be seen, but it is appearing as if it certainly offers quite a bit more than 2033 or LL. I certainly am thankful that after over 20 (+} years of gaming I can still just enjoy games, even not great ones, instead of picking everything apart.
TheinsanegamerNChanneling a product through a single store denies the consumer the choice of where to buy, and is decisively anti consumer, but pro corporation
No, not really. It’s not something required for survival, like food. It’s a piece of entertainment, and nothing is preventing you from still buying it. There is not “forcing.”
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#43
erixx
Some 10 years ago, not every game was on Steam/Origin/Ubi. Many games had their own portal-shop, and online gaming thingy... Both niche games and bestselling games.
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#44
Vayra86
erixxSome 10 years ago, not every game was on Steam/Origin/Ubi. Many games had their own portal-shop, and online gaming thingy... Both niche games and bestselling games.
They even had their own launchers!

FOR EVERY GAME
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#45
rtwjunkie
PC Gaming Enthusiast
Vayra86They even had their own launchers!

FOR EVERY GAME
You know, two companies still do that: Kalypso and Rockstar. Even if the game is on another platform like Steam they still want to run their own client/launcher.
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#46
chrcoluk
To be honest guys I have no issue with a competitor been on the market, my issue is with the policy of bribing publishers for exclusivity, exclusivity is an anti competitive practice, its not good for the consumer. I have no issue with their free games policy which is nice, but the making games only available on their store is something that eats me. As long as they continue this policy I will not even consider using their launcher, even if they snap up games I particularly want to play. I know I am not alone in this feeling, the console's with their exclusives are finally dieing out with this practice and its so disappointing to see this appear in the PC space like this.

Not to mention the epic launcher is very poor compared to steam, there is a lot of lack of features, and also it grates me that even tho tere is a bigger share to the publisher, that games are actually no cheaper, so consumers dont even see a benefit anyway, the discount on this game is for USA consumers only and many europeans even have a higher price than it was on steam, so it seems epic are also deciding to treat Americans better than the rest of the world as well. Something else I wont support.

If you have to force people to use your launcher via exclusives then it means your launcher isnt enticing by itself.
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