The Outer Worlds becomes Epic exclusive - Because of fucking course it did

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Tyler brings up a point I didn't think about. The devs at 4A games debatably did something illegal by effectively creating a "bait and switch" with Steam by promising the game would be on Steam and advertising/promoting it that way and then pulling it off the store at the last minute. Which potentially violates consumer anti-trust laws. I'm not sure the specifics and I'm not a lawyer or well versed on advertising/consumer law. But it's at the very least highly unethical.
 
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Watcher said:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=IX-LXI7UbB4Tyler brings up a point I didn't think about. The devs at 4A games debatably did something illegal by effectively creating a "bait and switch" with Steam by promising the game would be on Steam and advertising/promoting it that way and then pulling it off the store at the last minute. Which potentially violates consumer anti-trust laws. I'm not sure the specifics and I'm not a lawyer or well versed on advertising/consumer law. But it's at the very least highly unethical.
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Same with Phoenix Point. They promised keys for GOG and Steam, then went back on what they promised. If Steam REALLY wanted to be dicks about it they could pull a Peter Thiel, secretly fund class action suits against any companies that did this shit and make other publishers and devs too scared to do the same thing. Frankly I don't see why they don't.
Hell, with Steam's money they could go the exclusivity route themselves. But they don't, possibly because they know what a long term PR nightmare that is and how unbelieveably douchey to boot.
 
ExceptionallyExceptional said:
Frankly I don't see why they don't.
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EXTREMELY bad P/R. That's why. Bear in mind that Steam has negative press for being a monopoly in the PC gaming space. This would just be seen as Steam trying to legislate their monopoly.
ExceptionallyExceptional said:
Hell, with Steam's money they could go the exclusivity route themselves. But they don't, possibly because they know what a long term PR nightmare that is and how unbelieveably douchey to boot.
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They will most likely end up doing this if Epic's store starts taking more games than Valve ends up getting. Like I guarantee if Epic successfully convinces Bethesda to make The Elder Scrolls 6 a Epic store exclusive they will start doing it. That could easily tip the scales in Epic's direction. Valve has the money to outbid Epic but this is a losing strategy as the best course of action is to do what they historically did to competition and make really good video games that people want. And they aren't doing that.

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Watcher said:
EXTREMELY bad P/R. That's why. Bear in mind that Steam has negative press for being a monopoly in the PC gaming space. This would just be seen as Steam trying to legislate their monopoly.
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So long as they didn't actively get caught, it probably wouldn't hurt them too much.
Hell, even if they did get caught they can claim to be doing it on behalf of consumers who feel betrayed by companies pulling their games from Steam when they promised that those games would be released there initially, which might actually make them look like the good guys to some people.

Watcher said:
They will most likely end up doing this if Epic's store starts taking more games than Valve ends up getting. Like I guarantee if Epic successfully convinces Bethesda to make The Elder Scrolls 6 a Epic store exclusive they will start doing it. That could easily tip the scales in Epic's direction. Valve has the money to outbid Epic but this is a losing strategy as the best course of action is to do what they historically did to competition and make really good video games that people want. And they aren't doing that.
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Highly doubt they're going to do that, though. Bethesda's got their own shitty launcher now, why would they need Epic? I mean, they didn't put FO76 on Steam, but that may simply be because they knew exactly what would happen in terms of user reviews.

Either way, I do not like this method of competition. I want my games on my terms, not those of a specific distribution platform.
Shit, it's why I love GOG so much. I can load all my game installers onto a flash drive and take them anywhere, install them on any computer, even share them with friends. Remember the days when you could loan a friend your copy of a game? GOG seems to remember.

But then, I'm planing on pirating anything that goes exclusive to Epic out of sheer spite anyways, so there is that.
 
ExceptionallyExceptional said:
Highly doubt they're going to do that, though. Bethesda's got their own shitty launcher now, why would they need Epic?
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Tencent money. I'm just speculating here but this would easily be a massive prize for Epic to have. Absolutely no boycott would ever happen. Bethesda games sell truckloads at launch. The way I'd speculate they'd do a dual release on their own launcher and Epic, and not Steam.
 
Watcher said:
Tencent money. I'm just speculating here but this would easily be a massive prize for Epic to have. Absolutely no boycott would ever happen. Bethesda games sell truckloads at launch. The way I'd speculate they'd do a dual release on their own launcher and Epic, and not Steam.
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I think Bethesda may have reservations about getting involved in something that could easily lead to more bad PR for them after FO76. TESVI being exclusive to the epic store would cause a MAJOR upset, though they've already released their own games on their own platform before so it might not cause as big a splash as it otherwise could.
 
Watcher said:
bsolutely no boycott would ever happen. Bethesda games sell truckloads at launch.
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Yeah, but I'm not so sure. After Fallout76 people seem to realize all the shady shit Bethesda was doing for all these years. I'm just surprised, it took this big of a fuck up to see through.
As for this practice, I think it may stop people from preordering some games, which is bad for business, but good for said people.
 
JuanButNotForgotten said:
Yeah, but I'm not so sure. After Fallout76 people seem to realize all the shady shit Bethesda was doing for all these years. I'm just surprised, it took this big of a fuck up to see through.
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TES 6 regardless of any controversy will sell truckloads regardless of what launcher it's on. Fallout 76 is an exception since it was effectively a multiplayer spinoff. TES 6 is a highly anticipated game that is expected to make Skyrim levels of hype when it gets properly announced.
JuanButNotForgotten said:
As for this practice, I think it may stop people from preordering some games, which is bad for business, but good for said people.
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This will NEVER happen.

It does not matter what controversy happens people keep preordering games regardless and companies want it. Even after No Man's Sky, Mass Effect Andromeda, Anthem, Mass Effect 3 etc. All high profile failures. None of them put a dent into the preorder bubble that's gone on for quite some time. It's largely due to hype culture and the sheer amount that's put into marketing. And also how most of these massive preordered games are franchise titles that were guaranteed to sell well regardless.
 
Watcher said:
Fallout 76 is an exception since it was effectively a multiplayer spinoff.
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That's not what I meant. For years Bethesda used the same engine, released games in half-working state, dumbed down RPGs to shooters, but everybody was pretending like nothing happens. But after Fallout 76, suddenly, more and more people talk about Bethesda doing this shit for years. I don't say, that they will boycott it, I'm just saying, that exclusivity announce will get more hate, that it could.
Watcher said:
Mass Effect Andromeda, Anthem, Mass Effect 3
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That's a bad example. Every game after the other badly underperformed.
 
JuanButNotForgotten said:
That's a bad example. Every game after the other badly underperformed.
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It doesn't matter how many high profile failures there are people still preorder games en-mass. When the Outer Worlds comes out expect a mass of preorders for it regardless of launcher. Preorders are a universal constant in today's market because consumers are impulsive. This is why Farmville made billions of dollars by just forcing you to wait a few minutes and letting you pay to skip the wait.

This is also why most games ship broken because publishers are fully aware it doesn't matter since they'll make a profit just off preorders most of the time and they can always fix it later.
 
Visitor said:
I genuinely don't understand this point of view, it's a strategy they're employing as a new competitor to break into a market with one extremely dominant player, you have to employ special tactics to be able to do that. There's nothing wrong with what they're doing. If it's a bad strategy then it won't pay off for them and they'll lose out long-term. If it's a good strategy and it gets them a permanent foothold in digital video game distribution then I predict they will stop doing it after they have that secure position in the market. Microsoft and Sony largely don't do the exclusive thing anymore, timed exclusives, yes, but aside from Bloodborne I can't think of any big exclusive games for current-gen systems. It's just an entry strategy and it seems to be working from where I'm standing.
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So, essentially of doing shit like GoG did and them going "Hey, we sell oldschool games and games without DRM", these fucknuts went with the strategy off "Durrr...Let's start an exclusive console war BS on PC! That's a smart move right! Instead of offering something better, let's force people to use our shitty store front!" and ofcourse they later get dicksnots like you defending their shit and you really assume they'll stop pulling this crap even after they have a foothold? Just how goddamn naive are you, they won't stop and why should they if this bullshit worked before despite people hating their guts for it. An seriously, there store is a fucking joke they just now implemented a motherfucking search bar, wow! That's some fucking progress guys! An before you open your cake socket about "Well steam bla bla bla bla bla", yes steam started like this. But ya know what? We're also pass that fucking point and any store front has these features already implemented, be they needed or not, from the start of their launch. For Cthulhu's sake, these fucknuts when they launched didn't even have a fucking money return policy, hell they still don't even have a universal controller support.

But, the saddest part is people can rage on steam, youtube, twitter, forums like this. It won't change anything, there's still gonna be re.tards like you who'll suck Epic's dick and keep defending them and there will be people who'll put up with Epic's horseshit because they don't own consoles and they wanna play the games they were looking forward too.
 
VaporwareFaggot said:
I don't understand how Epic Games thinks inflating their sales by forcing people to buy from them is a good idea long term.
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It's because they know the only reason people will use their launcher is if they frontload it with exclusives. What they're hoping for is eventually people will just switch entirely to the Epic store and buy all of the non-exclusives there too.
 
You know what, if studios are literally making enough money to stay afloat off of those exclusive deals, then I'll simply pirate them with zero guilt involved, it's like insurance scam but with less of a likelihood that anyone will be going to prison.
 
I mean, the developer can choose whoever publish their game, if they think steam take too much of a cut and wanted to move elsewhere then all the power to them.

But advertising their games on steam platform to customers that's using steam and pull a bait and switch at the last moment is pretty scummy imo.
 
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