Until it eventually does come to steam. Please don't listen to these fuckers. They will say whatever they can for profit. It wouldn't be the first time these people have lied about this exact thing only for the game to come to steam a year later.
Epic actually financed Remedy's development of the game, as opposed to swooping in at the last minute to offer a timed-exclusivity deal. In that case I was fine buying the game on their platform if it meant the game got to exist at all. After all I do not expect Valve to sell their games on another platform than their own.
Don't get me wrong: I'd rather the game was sold on Steam, or even better, DRM-less on GOG. I did wait for a number of those timed exclusives to find their way on Steam or other stores (Borderlands 3, Kena, Journey, Control, Hades, etc). It's a shame that so many people will not get to experience AW2 because of its delivery platform, because it's a damn unique game.
As much as I hate Epic, I actually bought AW2 based on that logic but ended up refunding it because, and I can not stress this enough, FUCK ALWAYS ONLINE REQUIREMENTS ON PURELY OFFLINE GAMES. I refuse to pay for an offline game that locks me out when my internet isn't working...doubly so when the pirated version works perfectly fine without internet.
P.S. I also refuse to pay for single player games with arbitrary online "features" made to force a DRM check, or games published by cunts that do layoffs and shutter studios while posting record profits but that's a different conversation.
Epic profittability is on Fortnite; there will be lot of skin based on Alan Wake franchise and, also, Fortnite ads everytime you launch AW2 form their launcher etc.
...as for Alan Wake franchise itself, well it goes in the epic games store marketing black hole
Cool. I guess I won't be buying it then and will simply sail the seas when I finally feel like playing it after all the games I bought on steam and gog.
Yup, any “never” decision under modern capitalism should be treated at “within this quarter.” All that matters is quarterly growth, and all company decisions will change every quarter
I was about to say it isn't the same before googling and realising that they are the publisher for Alan Wake 2.
I guess there might still be the nuance of develop vs publish, does Valve publish any games that it didn't develop/weren't mods of their titles? (Genuinely don't know)
Either way, I'm still buttmad about the rocket league situation
In other words: Sweeney still can't get people to use his inferior service. I can't wait to see him cry about Valve's alleged anti-competitive behaviour yet again.
Wish I could just wire money straight to Remedy. Best I could do was buy Control again on GOG and consider my seafaring soul free of sin.
How does it hurt you? Look, I get that people dislike using multiple launchers, but it's not like you have to buy a console to play the god damn game. The melodrama is crazy, all you have to do to play it besides buying the game is download epic's launcher. If you're in Linux, it's a bit more of a pain, but hardly.
By using their service and giving them money, you're validating their shitty practices and propagating this garbage across multiple platforms when other companies see it's profitable.
If you want gaming to get better, stop giving bad companies your money and attention.
Damn shame the decision Remedy made to get the funding from Epic looks like it has backfired (since as I understand it AW2 still hasn't turned a profit). I truly hope this doesn't affect their upcoming games as Alan Wake 2 is one of the best gaming experiences I've ever had and I want for nothing more than Remedy to keep doing what they're doing.
It's unfortunate, but if you're developing a game and are in dire need of cash, Epic is your best bet.
Way before the whole store debacle, Epic also had a lot of grants and stuff, but those didn't require you to give up publishing rights IIRC. Honestly, the EGS greed aside, they've been excellent for the gaming industry.
Yeah, a big reason why Remedy took Epic's money was that barely anyone wants to invest in an honest to god sell it once traditional single player game these days. Almost every investor with enough money to finance something like AW2 wanted mtx bullshit and/or live service and epic was one of maybe a handful that had both the ability and willingness to fund the damn thing so credit where credit is due.
For that reason, I don't mind buying it on Epic. The always online requirement though, that's a deal breaker.
The good news is that the live service bubble burst so hard and spectacularly that we may see a return to actual good games getting funding after investors are done licking their wounds.
This kind of thing happened with "American Nightmare" and "Quantum Break". While I'm not aware of any formal policy that Remedy has, I suspect this happens because they're a smaller shop trying to leverage whatever they can.
It's a good game and it wouldn't have been made if it werent for epic games fronting the cost. Step beyond the silly platform tribalism and just enjoy the game that was made with love and vision while supporting the devs and the choices they made. Or dont, w/e, I'm personally glad I got it there since the devs got a bigger cut than they'd get on steam anyway.
[...] the devs got a bigger cut than they'd get on steam
Inconsequential, considering the game is still not profitable, even after a year. The devs lost money on this game. If it came to Steam, they'd be swimming in cash right now. The cut they get from the store doesn't matter if the game releases on a single store that most people refuse to use.
If Epic Games would be an actual competitor to Steam instead of trying to lock their content behind a paywall and force users to use them over the competition, then people might consider using their service. But as long as they continue to use shitty practices, most people are going to avoid them and use their competition's service.
If Epic Games would be an actual competitor to Steam instead of trying to lock their content behind a paywall and force users to use them over the competition, then people might consider using their service.
Exactly, that's why it worked out so well for GOG.
If you want them to recoup the costs then buy the game instead of taking a pointless moral stance over supporting a monopoly.
Why do people love Steam's DRM on everything, online only gameplay? Why do people love Steams totalitarian control and extortion deals?
If people could built their own Steam client, it wouldn't be so bad. I use Heroic on Windows for both Epic and GOG and get new games through Heroic so there can't be telemetry or data gathering. Why won't Valve allow a libre/free software Steam client to play games and let go of what people choose to install on their computer. I'm nit asking for DRM-free games, I'm asking ti stop dictator how I am allowed to play games.
Because Steam's DRM is entirely unobtrusive, it doesn't require online-only gameplay and the customer experience is excellent.
When Epic tries to compete with Steam they don't look to make a better user experience, instead they bribe developers for exclusivity deals to force people on their platform if they want to play a game on release.
You are stating stricty your own opinion when you say "customer experience is excellent". Read the documents of the legal case against Valve, the documents show Valve to be an extortionist.
I left steam. Only interested in offline installers from GOG.. When WWIII hits and players are still reliant on Steam's Online DRM Leased versions of your games, like come on already!.. No Internet,no games.. I'm burning all these games onto M-Disc media.. I can sell games for bullets and food in the apocalypse!! Woo!
Valve made it super convinient for their customers and they also took steps to encourage content creation with SFM, Source Engine, sharing their own assets. They created working cloud saving and mod sharing solutions, greenlighting a bunch of indies based on votes and being on the side of the customer in disputes over refunds with 2hr rule becomingthe new norm. For years, they provided and improved their service, so it's rare to see anyone complaining about that.
Ah, and Epic killed UT4 in beta when they found their initial zombie game mode that became Fortnite gave them that much cash they could start their own marketplace with regular giveaways and exclusives going on for years. I'm fucking pissed at them for that even now. It is irrational and personal, but Valve didn't kill my favorite game series, it's the opposite, since they kept slowly releasing and constantly updating Dota, CS, create Alyx, keep TF2 alive, and I'm only sad Alien Swarm would never see new content. In game studios and game marketplaces, Valve are golden.
But coming back to your initial displeasment with them, the funny thing is a lot of Steam games don't need Steam to launch. Unless devs implement some hooks and DRMs themselves, you can just launch their EXE file. Nobody really checks that, but that's the truth, and I've seen some lists of games that don't do that. On top of that, 99% offline games can be launched without internet with Steam only, you can even backup and then install some game on your PC offline if your client knows you own it. And don't forget family sharing - although they promised to rework it, I, my partner and our friends used it a lot, and although you can't use a game from a shared library when you are offline, if the owner plays it offline you can play it too at the same time without messing with each others' gameplay. This lazy implementation of DRM with many workarounds and general respect to even the sleakiest, cheating customer is why I still buy games there.
Valve has not been on the side of the customer when I've tried to return games. I've had multiple instances now of them refusing returns. I've been using Steam from the beginning and only started trying to return games within the past few years, but out of the handful I've tried to return at least half have been rejected. The last game was only $5 and was literally broken and unplayable, I had 2 minutes of playtime total and they still rejected the return. I had been really happy with Valve and Steam until this started happening. It's weird because my partner returns games with no problem. Even the same game that we tried together and discovered it has feral children screaming into microphones and then returned it, mine got rejected.
Skipping over the game debate, wbere did this "my partnet" fad trend get started, instead of good married people talking about husband or wife, or single people talking about boyfriend or girlfriend? It's because linguistically it's not a natural or normal way of speaking, the phrasing sounds like it's from indocrination, saying "my partner", unless it.s part of a firm.
its the best platform I use to organize my games that only gets better and doesn't actively try to screw me with bullshit at every turn. once someone outdoes steam, I'll reward that company with my money.
There is a weird cult around steam, they literally can't do wrong, and even if they do, well it was deserved. Dunno how that happened but it really does hurt me when games on gog aren't updated for months for no reason but steam.
you're just going to interpret this is as proving you right and me as a cultist but the thing about no updates on gog is nothing to do with steam that's the publisher steam doesn't make them do that there's no reason it's the publisher/developers I don't think valve can do no wrong but I would say steams never done anything bad to me valve includes gambling in all their multiplayer games that are full of children they were one of the earliest companies to make loot boxes their business model though arguably even worse as they gave all the tools for an external economy for those skins and gave the crates out abundantly to encourage you to buy the keys because you already have the crate but the steam division in valve has provided me with a consistently great experience in every way games on there own launcher almost always just work on linux refunds are trivial family sharing is great for making it even cheaper I don't like drm and I'd use gog more if they didn't kinda suck from a user perspective but even with heroic playing games on gog is a little jank on linux in a way it just isn't with steam and gog has literally no family sharing I don't play games from the shared library much but I like having it when I do and my siblings actually do play some games from my library a fair bit steam/valve is a company like any others that ultimately cares about profit not me or any other customer but unlike other companies they understand the value of long term thinking and good customer relationships they don't care about me but they know I'm more likely to keep coming back and buying loads of games if they don't keep trying to screw me over and add lots of good features that save me money and make my experience better
Its because the industry is full of companies that are so much worse than Valve. Gamers are used to companies like EA, Valve are saints in comparison to the other major players.