That is insane, a whole year!I initially had thought that Tim Sweeney was a good guy and that the Epic Store would bring positive competition for PC digital retailers, but exclusivity deals victimize the whole community / industry by killing competition of quality of platform and service to make it all about who can throw the most money at developers and make the backroom exclusivity deal first.
What Epic is doing, paying for exclusives so that Epic doesn't have to compete with other platforms, will result in lower quality among PC games platforms because it removes the onus from being on the quality of the platform to being simply about who can offer which 3rd-party developer how much. Exclusivity deals are paying so that you don't have to compete against others.
The long-term effect will be reduced pressure for platforms to improve their quality of service, and of an unhealthy and stressful 'us versus them' mentality among gamers.
What Epic is doing is akin to paying for a spot on a sports podium without participating in the event, and screwing the integrity of the whole sport over.
I think that these actions should be lambasted by gamers, and that the participants in these foul plays, who are willing to sell out the whole picture for their short-term selfish greed, deserve to be boycotted.
Also, Metro Exodus will release on Steam and other platforms in 2020:
https://www.pcgamer.com/metro-exodu...c-store-but-steam-preorders-will-be-honoured/
I guess that if I'm going to pay to play Exodus it won't be until then.