Quoting: MohandevirDeep Silver decides to go the exclusive way and then talk about users being close minded and not coming back to PC platform... Yeah right!

Didn't say I wouldn't buy it though. But I won't buy it on Epic Store. Period.

I waited more than 3 years to be able to play Witcher 3. I can wait at least a year for Metro: Exodus to come back on Steam and I may buy it if it works well with Proton (Gold or Platnium). I'd prefer a native build, but...

Unfortunately, on PC, game boycotts will only damage the industry. Just look at Deep Silver's answer. Instead of understanding that exclusives are a bad concept, they throw back the pressure on the customer's shoulders.

That's exactly what I was referring to when I said that Epic was exposing us to the destruction of PC gaming. Didn't know they would prove me right that fast...

There is news again!
https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2019/02/04/metro-games-to-continue-on-pc-despite-any-epic-store-boycott/ [External Link]

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Flatpak Steam on any distribution also turns up as "Linux 4.x".

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Quoting: ziabice..but Proton last update is from more than one month ago

Just wait, weekend is nearing...

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Quoting: TobyGornow

Quoting: Nevertheless

Quoting: TobyGornow

Quoting: Nevertheless

Quoting: TobyGornow

Quoting: kuhpunkt

Quoting: TobyGornowMaybe the Orange box was the wrong example ( still an exclusive, You could install Half life 1 without Steam ), take Yakuza 0 instead : you cannot buy it physically, in any way, even if you could you'll be kindly invited to connect on Steam. You can buy it on Humble or elsewhere, sure... and activate it on Steam. In any case, you'll end up on Steam. That's why I said it's time that Valve gets a taste of his own medicine, there is a lot of exclusive on Steam that are not Valve's IP.

That's the publisher's fault for not releasing it anywhere else. That's completely different from what Epic is doing. Other devs release their games on multiple stores.

Same thing dude, Yakuza is tied to Steam as much as Exodus is tied (temporarily) to Epic store, that's simple exclusivity for me, Valve made us and dev captive for too long, today your a big publisher you have to put your catalog on Steam otherwise you'll sell peanuts.
And in Epic case, they just made a cash proposition to Deep silver that was accepted, it's just fair business against a competition using the same tools and again no emotions in business. I repeat it : Deep Silver should suffer a massive boycott of their games but it won't happen, people are sheep waiting to be shaved and then put down. Epic is not at fault here, they are just competing against an enemy in an almost monopolistic position and they need big guns in order to do it. Valve is not a Care Bear, they deserve some hard competition.

Compare it to the only supermarket in town. It has a good relationship with other, smaller stores in the neighborhood, and it even develops stuff usable by them too. Still it might be the only store who sells bananas in the whole area you live in. When someone else opens up a supermarket next to it and claims the whole banana market for itself (say for the next year, prunes is forever), you really think that's the same?

Man, thanks for dumbing it down for me... My Turn : Metro exodus bought on Amazon (or Wherever) and forced to be activated on Epic Store = Exclusivity / Yakuza 0 bought on Gog or Humble (or Wherever) forced to be activated on Steam = Exclusivity.
And because you like to play on words : They are not claiming the whole Banana market just a new variety they PAID for. And again, YOU are right those methods are digusting but common practices in retail or others market, Valve is no stranger to those.

Edit : The friendly local supermarket you described fu***ng killed physical distribution of Pc gaming, nice relationship if you ask me.

No dumbing down (sorry if that sounded like it) .. just trying to make myself clear.
The way I see it:
Valve invented online stores the way steam is. More and more developers and publishers marketed their games on Steam, because more and more gamers wanted to purchase their games on Steam. Some more online stores came up, mostly to publish their own games, but some offer third party games. Valve never gave anyone money to offer their games on Steam only. A lot of developers and publishers still choose to offer on Steam only, thats true, but this is not Valves doing. They are open to competition. They even develop tools, APIs and standards in an explicitly open fashion.
People say Valve needs competition, and it's true, but what Epic does is something different, because there is no competition for exclusive deals. They seek multiple micro monopolies, while talking about fairness and openness. If they can only be sustainable when beeing unfair, then Steam has to become more unfair to be able to compete. I don't want that!

Don't apologize, friendly discussion can be shaky.
I've got a problem with your unfair bit, why is it unfair ? For the customer, already agreed. For Valve ? Not sure. It's business, differentiation through product, nothing filthy or vicious in this, nothing unfair, they are imposing their rules as much as Valve imposed their for years.

True they developed tools and stuff but only in their interest at the end and it's easy to be open and friendly when you have almost no competition.Let's see about that in 2 years.

True, publisher are choosing whether or not they sell on Steam, but do they really have the choice not to if they want to sell big numbers and cover their expenses ? Don't think so. Steam became the mandatory platform and without asking and paying, thanks to their monopoly, got exclusive titles, how insidious.

What should Valve have done to be free of monopolism in your eyes? Found their own adversary and gift it to someone?
But you're right in one thing: The word unfair does not hit it. Nothing that Epic does is illegal. Exclusive deals are just customer unfriendly, especially in the long run. I think that kind of practice puts pressure on the market and only leads to more of the same kind.
And therefore yes, we'll see how Valve will react to this. I just hope they'll not feel driven to do the same!

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Quoting: sbolokanovI have the craziest idea!

Let's do Metro Exodus Pirate Fest!

I prefer Metro Exodus pass up fest, until it is on Steam next year, without Denuvo and running platinum on Steam Play or even native.

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Quoting: TobyGornow

Quoting: Nevertheless

Quoting: TobyGornow

Quoting: kuhpunkt

Quoting: TobyGornowMaybe the Orange box was the wrong example ( still an exclusive, You could install Half life 1 without Steam ), take Yakuza 0 instead : you cannot buy it physically, in any way, even if you could you'll be kindly invited to connect on Steam. You can buy it on Humble or elsewhere, sure... and activate it on Steam. In any case, you'll end up on Steam. That's why I said it's time that Valve gets a taste of his own medicine, there is a lot of exclusive on Steam that are not Valve's IP.

That's the publisher's fault for not releasing it anywhere else. That's completely different from what Epic is doing. Other devs release their games on multiple stores.

Same thing dude, Yakuza is tied to Steam as much as Exodus is tied (temporarily) to Epic store, that's simple exclusivity for me, Valve made us and dev captive for too long, today your a big publisher you have to put your catalog on Steam otherwise you'll sell peanuts.
And in Epic case, they just made a cash proposition to Deep silver that was accepted, it's just fair business against a competition using the same tools and again no emotions in business. I repeat it : Deep Silver should suffer a massive boycott of their games but it won't happen, people are sheep waiting to be shaved and then put down. Epic is not at fault here, they are just competing against an enemy in an almost monopolistic position and they need big guns in order to do it. Valve is not a Care Bear, they deserve some hard competition.

Compare it to the only supermarket in town. It has a good relationship with other, smaller stores in the neighborhood, and it even develops stuff usable by them too. Still it might be the only store who sells bananas in the whole area you live in. When someone else opens up a supermarket next to it and claims the whole banana market for itself (say for the next year, prunes is forever), you really think that's the same?

Man, thanks for dumbing it down for me... My Turn : Metro exodus bought on Amazon (or Wherever) and forced to be activated on Epic Store = Exclusivity / Yakuza 0 bought on Gog or Humble (or Wherever) forced to be activated on Steam = Exclusivity.
And because you like to play on words : They are not claiming the whole Banana market just a new variety they PAID for. And again, YOU are right those methods are digusting but common practices in retail or others market, Valve is no stranger to those.

Edit : The friendly local supermarket you described fu***ng killed physical distribution of Pc gaming, nice relationship if you ask me.

No dumbing down (sorry if that sounded like it) .. just trying to make myself clear.
The way I see it:
Valve invented online stores the way steam is. More and more developers and publishers marketed their games on Steam, because more and more gamers wanted to purchase their games on Steam. Some more online stores came up, mostly to publish their own games, but some offer third party games. Valve never gave anyone money to offer their games on Steam only. A lot of developers and publishers still choose to offer on Steam only, thats true, but this is not Valves doing. They are open to competition. They even develop tools, APIs and standards in an explicitly open fashion.
People say Valve needs competition, and it's true, but what Epic does is something different, because there is no competition for exclusive deals. They seek multiple micro monopolies, while talking about fairness and openness. If they can only be sustainable when beeing unfair, then Steam has to become more unfair to be able to compete. I don't want that!

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Quoting: TobyGornow

Quoting: kuhpunkt

Quoting: TobyGornowMaybe the Orange box was the wrong example ( still an exclusive, You could install Half life 1 without Steam ), take Yakuza 0 instead : you cannot buy it physically, in any way, even if you could you'll be kindly invited to connect on Steam. You can buy it on Humble or elsewhere, sure... and activate it on Steam. In any case, you'll end up on Steam. That's why I said it's time that Valve gets a taste of his own medicine, there is a lot of exclusive on Steam that are not Valve's IP.

That's the publisher's fault for not releasing it anywhere else. That's completely different from what Epic is doing. Other devs release their games on multiple stores.

Same thing dude, Yakuza is tied to Steam as much as Exodus is tied (temporarily) to Epic store, that's simple exclusivity for me, Valve made us and dev captive for too long, today your a big publisher you have to put your catalog on Steam otherwise you'll sell peanuts.
And in Epic case, they just made a cash proposition to Deep silver that was accepted, it's just fair business against a competition using the same tools and again no emotions in business. I repeat it : Deep Silver should suffer a massive boycott of their games but it won't happen, people are sheep waiting to be shaved and then put down. Epic is not at fault here, they are just competing against an enemy in an almost monopolistic position and they need big guns in order to do it. Valve is not a Care Bear, they deserve some hard competition.

Compare it to the only supermarket in town. It has a good relationship with other, smaller stores in the neighborhood, and it even develops stuff usable by them too. Still it might be the only store who sells bananas in the whole area you live in. When someone else opens up a supermarket next to it and claims the whole banana market for itself (say for the next year, prunes is forever), you really think that's the same?

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Quoting: liamdawe

Quoting: NeverthelessEpic analysed Steam well. Maybe that's why Valve removed Steamspy's foundation lately.

Valve adjusted stuff that messed with it back in April last year and nothing recently I am aware of, which was mostly a side-effect of Valve's new privacy features. SteamSpy relying on public profile info wasn't great to begin with.

Yes it's quite possible that the removal of Steamspy's data basis was coincidental with privacy interests. One thing I still find interesting:
Valve sits on a really big pile of datamining opportunity, which they seem to use for the optimization of their own operations and sales only. They even left some user account information out in the open, which was farmed and used by SteamSpy to publish it in a readable form. Valve left a lot of financial opportunity unused, because they were not interested in selling user data, and the one who collected the publicly open data is the same person who developed the Epic store, which brags with a revenue of just 12% and tells us in their privacy policy they might sell user information ("To develop, deliver, and improve our products, services, and other offerings, some of which may be offered in partnership with other parties").
Of course I don't know who is hen or egg, Epic or Steamspy. It just stands out.

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Quoting: johndoe

Quoting: NeverthelessEpic analysed Steam well. Maybe that's why Valve removed Steamspy's foundation lately.
Epic managed to make Valve look naive and greedy, they speak of openness and fairness, but their methods are quite the opposite.

I cannot remember reading that Valve removed SteamSpy - i think they still want to improve it.
But yes - I think also that taking 30% is way TOO MUCH.

They did not remove it, they restricted open information about Steam accounts, which was the foundation of SteamSpy. And of course they could have done that purely out of privacy reasons..
I must admit, I don't really know if 30% ist too much. I only know 30% is more than 12%, and Valves services are different than Epics services. I can also read the differences between:

Valves Privacy Policy Agreement
https://store.steampowered.com/privacy_agreement/english/ [External Link]

and Epic Games Privacy Policy
https://www.epicgames.com/site/en-US/privacypolicy [External Link]
"How We Use and Share Information
...
To develop, deliver, and improve our products, services, and other offerings, some of which may be offered in partnership with other parties;
To manage and customize advertisements or promotional offers;
... "

This is interesting and might answer some questions why 12% are enough to Epic. Of course it might not. That it's in their privacy policy does not mean they really do it, and if they do, to what extent. But Epics busyness has to be sustainable and right now they're throwing money at developers.

All I really want to say is, life is very often a bit more complicated than the comparison of two numbers.

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Epic analysed Steam well. Maybe that's why Valve removed Steamspy's foundation lately.
Epic managed to make Valve look naive and greedy, they speak of openness and fairness, but their methods are quite the opposite.

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