Metro Exodus Packaging Appears, Steam Logo Simply Hidden Under A Sticker

[Vayra86]

How is this competition when we have no choice of where to buy our games? Exclusiveness is NOT how competition works. Epic bullied their way to a monopoly to sell Metro Exodus.

If every game would release on EVERY storefront, now that would be competition. This is not it.

You seem to have no clue of what real competition is.

Actually, that one seems to be you. Exclusiveness is part of competition on the market for gaming. There is no market for 'individual games' - those are the products used to compete with between publishers. And the stores are just the resellers, the middle-men that fork these products over to customers.

Compare it to Apple. They have a closed ecosystem and a small range of authorized resellers that have to abide by a set of rules, even. But on the market for phones, they are still competing like any other company that makes phones. Its not unhealthy and its not prohibited, it is even one of the highest margin commercial businesses in the world. Perfectly legal, and perfectly healthy. If consumers don't want Apple, they can buy another phone. Same with Metro, if consumers don't want to buy Metro, buy another game. Now what you and others are REALLY doing is this: you're saying you don't like the reseller that is selling Metro, and proceed to choose not to buy the game. The only limitation here is that of your own imagination. There is not even exclusivity. Anyone can access Epic Store in the exact same way. There is only a publisher, that chooses just like Apple to limit its sales to specific stores.

 

[Basard]

The game's price did not budge as compared to usual steam prices. Here goes everyone's dream.

Maybe they will pass on the savings to us all all in the form of free DLCs or expansions...........

 

[Crackong]

People still don't understand.
The problem isn't "Exclusive" or "Steam monopoly".
It is their extremely poor execution of pulling off the steam page without sufficient time for customers (and potential customers) to buy (or you could call it "pre-order") the game on steam.
People don't like being forced to use something they are not familiar with.

Those wanna argue "It is just another launcher, no big deal".
Remember, "On steam" is considered as a part of the product and a part of advertisement.
Imagine what would happened if Metro Exodus only available via physical DVDs.
Customers (and potential customers) received all those advertisement from day one had to put "On steam" in mind while making their buying decision.

This "Exclusive" move ripped off people's buying decisions and forces them to buy a different product (Yes, "Game + Steam" and "Game + Epic" should be considered different products).

Not to mention the drama afterwards by 4A devs.

In this case consumers receive no benefits.
Consumers received false advertisement for all those days.
Consumers are forced to buy a different product.
Consumers are forced to install an inferior launcher, which has multiple security issues, some of them even violate EU laws.
Consumers are forced to install fortnite.

This is so anti-consumer.

Why would somebody defend them?

 

[newtekie1]

I hope EPIC becomes at least as good if not better than Steam...

If it did that, that would be great, but it has a long ass way to go to even get close to being as good as Steam.

That’s BS... this is honestly the stupidest argument regarding gaming platforms. Like it will take me a second to choose a game between different platforms, it’s not going to rock my world you know? And only because of some first first world country non-problems there should be a single platform?? Do you know how competition works and that competition is the best thing especially for an industry like gaming? You want Steam
to command the whole industry?

I really don't want 20 different game launchers sitting down running in my system tray constantly. And you can say, well then just close them, but then when I actually go to play a game, chances are I have to update that game because the launcher wasn't open for a few days. And then you have stupid devs that make multi-GB updates that I have to sit and wait for.

I'm all for competing games launchers, don't be me wrong. However, I'm very much against games having any type of exclusivity. Put the game out on every platform, let the consumer decide which platform they want to buy it on. And if, for example, Epic gives the developers/publishers a better deal and they want that to be their primary launcher, price the game accordingly on that platform. Make the game 10% cheaper on Epic. The lower price might entice more people to use it, and also make up for the lacking features of that platform.

 

[Ubersonic]

This is actually super scummy as it means they spent weeks in the run up to launch producing boxes with Steam's logo on while simultaneously producing discs with Epic's launcher on them and stickers for the box, in order to maximise the amount of time they could keep Valve in the dark and profit from their promotion of the game plus the pre-orders from people who wouldn't have bought if they knew the disc/code they were getting wasn't on Steam.

 

[moproblems99]

It is their extremely poor execution of pulling off the steam page without sufficient time for customers (and potential customers) to buy (or you could call it "pre-order") the game on steam.

Wasn't it up for preorder for almost a year? Then pulled about two weeks before?

 

[Crackong]

Wasn't it up for preorder for almost a year? Then pulled about two weeks before?

Yes the game enjoyed the pre-order advertisement on the steam page for almost a year, then they pulled it off without any warning 2 weeks before the game launch.

 

[moproblems99]

Yes the game enjoyed the pre-order advertisement on the steam page for almost a year, then they pulled it off without any warning 2 weeks before the game launch.

My only point was people had plenty of time to preorder. If someone didn't buy it over the course of a year, were they really going to buy it in the next two weeks?

 

[Crackong]

My only point was people had plenty of time to preorder. If someone didn't buy it over the course of a year, were they really going to buy it in the next two weeks?

Yes.
PC gamers had enough of the pre-order BS like No Man Sky.
Majority of people just wait for the game, watch the reviews before buying it.

 

[spectatorx]

Physical version of the game released in Poland has the same but in this case they went even further: printed license agreement included in metro exodus box is for a game Dakar 18, not metro exodus and in box there is no license agreement printed for metro exodus.

Whole switch from steam to epic games store is so rushed and AFTERthought this is beyond reasoning.

 

[Tsukiyomi91]

cheesy way to say "sorry, we've change our storefront at the last minute so we print a million stickers to show the changes we made. Sorry to ruin your day".

 

[bug]

It would have been truly hilarious if this were a Steamworks title.

 

[Bansaku]

I did my part and am currently torrenting the game. I probably won't play it for more than an hour, in fact I wasn't even planning on playing it at all, but I have my principals and am simply taking the advice of the whiney dev.

 

[Vario]

I just don't understand why people even care. Its a single player game, none of your steam community would be playing it with you in MP. If you really want it bad on steam, there are still some steam keys floating around 3rd party key sites, though the price of those went through the roof. So much angst and rage against an otherwise pretty decent developer.

Then again I wait 2 years later until the same game is like $10, with all patches released and the drivers optimized. I'm in no hurry. Heck, 3rd party key site Epic game keys of this will probably be $5 in 2 years.

 

[bug]

I just don't understand why people even care. Its a single player game, none of your steam community would be playing it with you in MP. If you really want it bad on steam, there are still some steam keys floating around 3rd party key sites, though the price of those went through the roof. So much angst and rage against an otherwise pretty decent developer.

Then again I wait 2 years later until the same game is like $10, with all patches released and the drivers optimized. I'm in no hurry. Heck, 3rd party key site Epic game keys of this will probably be $5 in 2 years.

I, for one, am not big on installing several programs that all do the same thing (launch a game) just because they're from different companies. Just like I don't install lots of text editors, AVs or firewalls.
Plus, these things have a habit of launching at Windows startup. Not an issue for you and me, but the average user would just stand there waiting for Windows to load.

 

[ixi]

I blame Tencent... I always blame Tencent... for everything... and I'm mostly never wrong!

Why should we blame Tencent, can you please elaborate?

 

[KawaBanga]

I blame Tencent... I always blame Tencent... for everything... and I'm mostly never wrong!

This explains why in the game russophobia and politics.
Kazakhstan is under the greater influence of China than Russia, so the Russians in the game are invaders and man-eaters.
I did not even think that the game could be so fishy.

 

[AsRock]

Man I am sorry but that just is stupid. The funny thing is my immediate reaction was "Who cares, Steam isn't that great," but this is really turning full-on stupid. It's like one of those situations where you know you were "right" before everyone learned the majority of the info, but once the full info was out you had to admit the "other side" is more right.


EPIC game store requires "Always Online," they pulled this at the last second from Steam, and this game is also (as usual) buggy at launch. I can wait a year - even if I didn't for Last Light. Their mistake...

Yup, it's nothing new i have seen it many times over the years too, tbh it's to be expected seeing a sticker. Just people wanting some thing to bitch moan about which seems to be all people want to do.

What's new, this thread should of had no option for any one to post in and just been locked from the start.

 

[-1nf1n1ty-]

Hmm, is there any reason they couldn't have released it on both? I guess money was more of the deciding factor, Epic must have gave them quite a bit for exclusivity

 

[ComedicHistorian]

Hey guy who took this pic, can you check and see if all the game reviews, cloud-based saves, achievements and my wishlist are under there too?

 

[Keullo-e]

Some old school rebranding here

Like my old Asus P6T SE which just had a sticker over on its P6T marking on its PCB.. well, I flashed it to P6T.

Sadly you can't make this a Steam game. :/

 

[XiGMAKiD]

Those crazy bois and gals that crying about this game will miss reading that "1 year timed exclusive", although I agree that the sudden change of release plan was stupid

 

[ComedicHistorian]

Some old school rebranding here

Like my old Asus P6T SE which just had a sticker over on its P6T marking on its PCB.. well, I flashed it to P6T.

Sadly you can't make this a Steam game. :/

F*cking great point and I love the snarkiness

Hey guy who took this pic, can you check and see if all the game reviews, cloud-based saves, achievements and my wishlist are under there too?

(I'm assuming those things will all be there at some point but IMO they probably should have waited until then before they started luring games as big as Exodus away from Steam)

 

[Keullo-e]

F*cking great point and I love the snarkiness

I just hate having millions of launchers, already using Steam, Origin, Uplay, battle.net etc and I just don't want any more shit for games.

 

[ComedicHistorian]

I just hate having millions of launchers, already using Steam, Origin, Uplay, battle.net etc and I just don't want any more shit for games.

I agree. It would also be nice to be able to even SEE my entire library in one place liked I used to with the boxes.