Borderlands 3

Gearbox tweeted out and then deleted a tweet saying that September 13th is the release date.

Also, apparently there was another tweet with a clip that listed the Epic Game Store but not Steam.

https://twitter.com/Wario64/status/1112767604072964104?ref_src=twsrc^tfw|twcamp^tweetembed|twterm^1112767604072964104&ref_url=https://comicbook.com/gaming/2019/04/01/borderlands-3-pc-epic-games-store-steam/


Being April 1st and all take it all with a grain of salt, but those could both turn out to be true. We'll find out in a couple days.
 
FUCK!

Fucking Gearbox! Either its a bad April Fools joke or its indeed an Epic Store exclusive.
 
The internet is going to shit itself if it's an Epic Store exclusive.
As a consumer, I want competition in distribution space. I wonder why are people mad about a new entrant giving back more money to developers and in process potentially lowering the cost of game for a consumer? I am all for Epic challenging steam through any (exclusive deals included) means. When companies compete consumer wins.
 
As a consumer, I want competition in distribution space.

Then you should be against EGS's shady practices. Here's the reality:

Competition: If Epic would subsidize the price of games to be $10+ cheaper than Steam. Consumer has a choice.

Anti-competition/monopoly: Epic bribing publishers to not sell games on Steam. Price is locked, consumer has no choice where to buy.

The latter is what's pissing everybody off, especially since Epic seems to be trying to steal every new game coming out.
 
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As a consumer, I want competition in distribution space. I wonder why are people mad about a new entrant giving back more money to developers and in process potentially lowering the cost of game for a consumer? I am all for Epic challenging steam through any (exclusive deals included) means. When companies compete consumer wins.
Since the publisher makes the decision on the cost of the game I doubt prices will be much lower on EGS. Shaving $10 off a game isn't going to compel many gamers to flock to their underdeveloped store.
 
Here's another thing they don't put into account, Hardware sales. If people refuse to buy games from exclusive stores, not only does it hurt the game developer, it hurts the Hardware manufacturers as well, if people aren't playing the latest and greatest, they aren't upgrading either.

I am probably in the minority on that statement.
 
I am probably in the minority on that statement.
You are. I’m willing to bet the vast majority of PC gamers do not care at all what launcher is used to launch the game. The echo chambers of Reddit and online forums typically aren’t an accurate depiction of the population they’re trying to represent.
 
FUCK!

Fucking Gearbox! Either its a bad April Fools joke or its indeed an Epic Store exclusive.

I honestly hope not, mainly because I don't think Gearbox can really afford to fuck up this badly if it's true.
 
I honestly hope not, mainly because I don't think Gearbox can really afford to fuck up this badly if it's true.

If it’s true it’s 2K’s decision and not Gearbox so the blame should be on the publisher’s head for that one. Pitchford even recently asked why store exclusives are bad and apparently (at work, can’t find the exact conversation) said he didn’t see a problem with them as long as the exclusivity is short term.
 
Then you should be against EGS's shady practices. Here's the reality:

Competition: If Epic would subsidize the price of games to be $10+ cheaper than Steam. Consumer has a choice.

Anti-competition/monopoly: Epic bribing publishers to not sell games on Steam. Price is locked, consumer has no choice where to buy.

The latter is what's pissing everybody off, especially since Epic seems to be trying to steal every new game coming out.

I disagree with this entirely. For starters, EGS has nothing to do with the price of games on it's platform. Competition, per your definition, they literally cannot achieve. What really confuses me is to call them out for creating a monopoly, while somehow defending Steam? Steam is the monopoly. It's taken 15 years for a real competitor to try and challenge Steam, and I imagine it will take several more years for EGS to really make a dent in their market share. For the most part, Steam is PC gaming. The fact that Steam is a monopoly doesn't have an easily perceived negative impact on the consumer, and thus we either don't see it, or don't care. The reality is that Steam is taking 30% of every sale they make because they can. Because their dominance has been largely unchallenged. For basically anybody that isn't EA, your option is to give 30% of your games revenue to Valve, or don't sell your game on PC. That is abso-fucking-lutely as monopoly as it gets, and quite honestly I don't think it's good for PC gaming. PC is already the underdog platform compared to consoles. By being the least profitable platform, it's the platform that gets the least attention. It's the reason we get shitty PC ports. Or see games that release on consoles but don't make it to PC. Or come years later so that we'll all double dip. I'm not blaming Steam for this, and I don't know if EGS giving developers an extra 18% of their sales can change that, but it sure as shit can't hurt.

The issue here isn't exclusivity. If these games were Steam exclusives, zero fucks would be given. The real issue is people don't want to install another launcher. And truthfully, I get that. I bitched as well as any of you when Battlefield 3 and Mass Effect 3 never showed up on Steam. Then I bitched some more when Uplay became mandatory for games I bought on Steam. But honestly, now that pretty much every major publisher has their own launcher, I'm numb to it. I'm done worrying about what platform my games are on. I haven't purchased anything on EGS yet, but really only because nothing has been released there that interests me yet. I would like to see them grown and become as fully realized as Steam. If they can do that, and make PC a more lucrative platform for publishers, they absolutely have my business.

At the end of the day, the guy you quoted was 100% right. Competition is absolutely a good thing, and that makes EGS a good thing. If EGS can grow large enough to challenge Steam, to take away their monopoly status, that is a good thing. And quite honestly, right now they're doing it the only way they can. Without exclusives, nobody has a reason to shop with them over Steam. You're average consumer doesn't put enough thought into their purchase to consider what an 18% going into a developers pockets could do. Without exclusives, they can't grow and it's business-as-usual over at Steam. It's only anti-consumer until you realize that a lower price tag isn't the only way to benefit the consumer.

Also, it wouldn't surprise me if we start seeing EGS exclusive games that aren't negotiated by Epic. Metro seems to have done well, proving that games can sell on a platform that isn't Steam. If a publisher thinks that the extra revenue cut can bring in more money than they may lose by ditching Steam, it makes sense to launch only on EGS. 2K knows BL3 is a big enough franchise to get people to give up the fight and install EGS. It wouldn't surprise me if BL3 was EGS exclusive. It also wouldn't surprise me to hear Epic had nothing to do with it.
 
^ Steam is anything but unchallenged or a monopoly these days. Almost every major AAA publisher has their own store/downloader now.

More importantly Valve has never bribed publishers or told them to stop selling their games on other stores. That would be actual monopolist behavior. People are upset about far more than Epic being another launcher, it's disingenuous to try to minimize it.

I also don't buy the "it's the only way Epic can gain a foothold" ..then if Epic gets bigger then what? You think they're going to stop their current business practices and stop trying to steal every new game that comes out?

Anyone that gives Epic/Tencent a dime is feeding the biggest cancer in PC gaming right now. People are looking at the now only, not the long-term damage Epic is doing.
 
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Metro seems to have done well, proving that games can sell on a platform that isn't Steam. If a publisher thinks that the extra revenue cut can bring in more money than they may lose by ditching Steam,

Nothing was really proven. They were too embarrassed to release the numbers the way every other publisher does when they have amazing sales in the first days and weeks, and only congratulated themselves for exceeding Last Light's initial sales, a title that had low sales in the beginning and most sales came after. Metro Exodus got a huge boost by a year and a half of hype, free advertising and prominent front page and popup placement on Steam. Epic did fuckall.

And the extra revenue cut is meaningless when theyre doing a fraction of the volume they would on steam. I don't get how so many people miss the basic math here.
 
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I disagree with this entirely. For starters, EGS has nothing to do with the price of games on it's platform. Competition, per your definition, they literally cannot achieve. What really confuses me is to call them out for creating a monopoly, while somehow defending Steam? Steam is the monopoly. It's taken 15 years for a real competitor to try and challenge Steam, and I imagine it will take several more years for EGS to really make a dent in their market share. For the most part, Steam is PC gaming. The fact that Steam is a monopoly doesn't have an easily perceived negative impact on the consumer, and thus we either don't see it, or don't care. The reality is that Steam is taking 30% of every sale they make because they can. Because their dominance has been largely unchallenged. For basically anybody that isn't EA, your option is to give 30% of your games revenue to Valve, or don't sell your game on PC. That is abso-fucking-lutely as monopoly as it gets, and quite honestly I don't think it's good for PC gaming. PC is already the underdog platform compared to consoles. By being the least profitable platform, it's the platform that gets the least attention. It's the reason we get shitty PC ports. Or see games that release on consoles but don't make it to PC. Or come years later so that we'll all double dip. I'm not blaming Steam for this, and I don't know if EGS giving developers an extra 18% of their sales can change that, but it sure as shit can't hurt.

The issue here isn't exclusivity. If these games were Steam exclusives, zero fucks would be given. The real issue is people don't want to install another launcher. And truthfully, I get that. I bitched as well as any of you when Battlefield 3 and Mass Effect 3 never showed up on Steam. Then I bitched some more when Uplay became mandatory for games I bought on Steam. But honestly, now that pretty much every major publisher has their own launcher, I'm numb to it. I'm done worrying about what platform my games are on. I haven't purchased anything on EGS yet, but really only because nothing has been released there that interests me yet. I would like to see them grown and become as fully realized as Steam. If they can do that, and make PC a more lucrative platform for publishers, they absolutely have my business.

At the end of the day, the guy you quoted was 100% right. Competition is absolutely a good thing, and that makes EGS a good thing. If EGS can grow large enough to challenge Steam, to take away their monopoly status, that is a good thing. And quite honestly, right now they're doing it the only way they can. Without exclusives, nobody has a reason to shop with them over Steam. You're average consumer doesn't put enough thought into their purchase to consider what an 18% going into a developers pockets could do. Without exclusives, they can't grow and it's business-as-usual over at Steam. It's only anti-consumer until you realize that a lower price tag isn't the only way to benefit the consumer.

Also, it wouldn't surprise me if we start seeing EGS exclusive games that aren't negotiated by Epic. Metro seems to have done well, proving that games can sell on a platform that isn't Steam. If a publisher thinks that the extra revenue cut can bring in more money than they may lose by ditching Steam, it makes sense to launch only on EGS. 2K knows BL3 is a big enough franchise to get people to give up the fight and install EGS. It wouldn't surprise me if BL3 was EGS exclusive. It also wouldn't surprise me to hear Epic had nothing to do with it.

As others have already stated there are more launchers then steam, but as consumers we want price wars, not exclusivity wars, same as with PC hardware, looking at you Nvidia.

Also if you sell enough steam takes a smaller cut https://www.polygon.com/2018/12/3/18123649/valve-steam-revenue-sharing while ofc this is mostly usefull for AAA games that sell enough volume.

Sidenote, Bethesda recently announced that their upcomming games will also release on Steam and not exclusively on their own store, so they at least get (some of) it.

And while EGS maybe has no say on the price of games on their store, if you get a bigger piece of the pie you can drop you price a bit and still make more money at least if you sel the same amount os you would on the competition.
 
^ Steam is anything but unchallenged or a monopoly these days. Almost every major AAA publisher has their own store/downloader now.

More importantly Valve has never bribed publishers or told them to stop selling their games on other stores. That would be actual monopolist behavior. People are upset about far more than Epic being another launcher, it's disingenuous to try to minimize it.

I also don't buy the "it's the only way Epic can gain a foothold" ..then if Epic gets bigger then what? You think they're going to stop their current business practices and stop trying to steal every new game that comes out?

Anyone that gives Epic/Tencent a dime is feeding the biggest cancer in PC gaming right now. People are looking at the now only, not the long-term damage Epic is doing.

Again, I disagree. There is a big difference between a AAA publisher migrating to their own storefront and a digital distribution service meant to sell other peoples games. For any publisher who isn't big enough to push their own launcher, Steam is absolutely, unquestionably the only option. The only other storefronts that come to mind that sell non-first party games are Origin and GOG. With Origin, I have to assume that very few people use it to buy non-EA titles, and GOG is dominated by mostly indie and older titles because of it's DRM free status. Therefor, my point stands, for a large number of PC releases Steam is the only practical option for a successful launch. Steam knows this, and Steam charges dearly for it. If you can't see how that is a monopoly, I'm not sure what the point of continuing this discussion is.

You keep using the word bribe, as if you don't understand how exclusives work. This has been standard practice on consoles for decades now. The only reason we haven't seen it on PC goes back to my entire point. It's never been necessary, because Steam is the default option. Why would Valve need to make exclusivity deals when they already have market dominance? Like I said above, unless your a big enough publisher to launch your own platform, Steam gets your exclusive and they don't have to do jack shit to get it, it is the only choice. I can't say enough how much this is a bad thing. Steam is to PC gaming as Wal-Mart is to physical shopping and Amazon is to online shopping. It's technically not the only option, by it's by far and away the largest and most practical and because of that, they basically control their respective platforms.

If you don't buy into the idea that exclusives are the only way for EGS to compete (right now), what alternate solution do you suggest? "No steam, no buy" is pretty much the catchphrase for PC gaming right now. Any game that releases on both platforms is going to dominate on Steam, that's the way it works when you have the controlling platform. I very much think that Epic won't continue their exclusive deals. They have already publicly stated they don't intend to do this forever, just long enough to gain some sort of market share. I've got no reason to believe that's not true. EGS can't survive by buying exclusivity rights, they probably are making little to no money on those titles. But by having some big exclusives, games that people want bad enough to put another launcher on their computer, they are able to break through the first major wall of going up against Steam. Once people have purchased a few games from EGS (because they had to) and see that the world didn't end and their mother still loves them, they might open up to the idea that it's ok to buy a game somewhere that isn't Steam, even if it is available on Steam.

Also you ignored the last bit of my post, which is that publishers can, and likely will choose to publish games exclusive to EGS despite no deal being made. Or are you going to blame Epic for a publisher choosing EGS of their own volition? After all, how dare they try and make PC a more profitable platform for publishers.
 
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Nothing was really proven. They were too embarrassed to release the numbers the way every other publisher does when they have amazing sales in the first days and weeks, and only congratulated themselves for exceeding Last Light's initial sales, a title that had low sales in the beginning and most sales came after. Metro Exodus got a huge boost by a year and a half of hype, free advertising and prominent front page and popup placement on Steam. Epic did fuckall.

And the extra revenue cut is meaningless when theyre doing a fraction of the volume they would on steam. I don't get how so many people miss the basic math here.

Perhaps I'm not reading the right news sources because I very rarely see publishers sharing sales numbers, especially platform specific. Exceeding the previous games sales is enough to say it wasn't a total flop, and no doubt other publishers are looking at that. I'm not trying to draw a conclusion from a sample of one, but right now it's really the only example for a AAA release exclusive to EGS. As time goes on, and more games release on it, we will see how viable it really is.

Obviously you're 100% correct that both the increased cut and the loss of Steam sales have to be factored into if you've made or lost money by being exclusive, but we'll really never know how many Steam sales might have been lost. You can't prove how many people would have bought the game but didn't because it wasn't on Steam. And it's really no different to what we saw with EA so many years ago. People bitched like crazy and I'm sure EA lost sales by ditching Steam initially, but it obviously worked out in the end because Origin is still a thing and they never went back, and several years later people don't bitch about it anymore. You have too look at this as more of a today issue. Origin is as normal as Steam for most people, we've accepted it and moved on. EGS is merely the Origin/Uplay/etc for publishers that aren't big enough to launch their own platform. Their reasons for jumping ship are the same.
 
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As others have already stated there are more launchers then steam, but as consumers we want price wars, not exclusivity wars, same as with PC hardware, looking at you Nvidia.

I agree that consumers want price wars, not exclusivity wars. The point I'm trying to make is that not everything can happen today. Trying to take a significant enough market share away from Steam to be a serious competitor is going to take time. Right now, Epic's only way in is brute force. It's not the most eloquent option, but it's the most effective. If they succeed, if they gain enough market share where (unpaid) EGS exclusives are viable, or games can sell significant numbers on EGS even if they release on Steam also, we might just start seeing lower priced games. Or better games. Obviously that's hard to prove, but like I said, publishers and developers getting paid more can't be a bad thing for the industry. EGS just needs to reach a point where the increased cut from EGS is greater than the potential lost sales on Steam. Until that happens, I think prices are likely to stay the same on EGS because they need the extra money to make up for the losses incurred by not being on Steam. We're in the very early stages of a long process.

Also if you sell enough steam takes a smaller cut https://www.polygon.com/2018/12/3/18123649/valve-steam-revenue-sharing while ofc this is mostly usefull for AAA games that sell enough volume.

I'm aware of this, but it's a bit crap. Steam gives you a lower cut after your game has sold enough to make them millions of dollars? That's a big fuck you to the smaller publishers and indies, who are quite frankly the biggest supporters of Steam right now. Steam needs to lower their take for everyone. And if they do ,that's a good thing, and I'd give credit to EGS for making it happen.

And while EGS maybe has no say on the price of games on their store, if you get a bigger piece of the pie you can drop you price a bit and still make more money at least if you sel the same amount os you would on the competition.

You can't blame Epic becuase publishers aren't using their increased cut to give consumers a better price. Like I said above, hopefully we'll see that some day, but right now that extra cut is compensating for lost Steam sales. The stigma against EGS needs to go away and maybe then we'll see better prices for it.
 
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Perhaps I'm not reading the right news sources because I very rarely see publishers sharing sales numbers, especially platform specific. Exceeding the previous games sales is enough to say it wasn't a total flop, and no doubt other publishers are looking at that. I'm not trying to draw a conclusion from a sample of one, but right now it's really the only example for a AAA release exclusive to EGS. As time goes on, and more games release on it, we will see how viable it really is.

Obviously you're 100% correct that both the increased cut and the loss of Steam sales have to be factored into if you've made or lost money by being exclusive, but we'll really never know how many Steam sales might have been lost. You can't prove how many people would have bought the game but didn't because it wasn't on Steam. And it's really no different to what we saw with EA so many years ago. People bitched like crazy and I'm sure EA lost sales by ditching Steam initially, but it obviously worked out in the end because Origin is still a thing and they never went back, and several years later people don't bitch about it anymore. You have too look at this as more of a today issue. Origin is an normal is Steam for most people, we've accepted it and moved on. EGS is merely the Origin/Uplay/etc for publishers that aren't big enough to launch their own platform. Their reasons for jumping ship are the same.


Perhaps I'm not reading the right news sources because I very rarely see publishers sharing sales numbers, especially platform specific. Exceeding the previous games sales is enough to say it wasn't a total flop, and no doubt other publishers are looking at that. I'm not trying to draw a conclusion from a sample of one, but right now it's really the only example for a AAA release exclusive to EGS. As time goes on, and more games release on it, we will see how viable it really is.

Obviously you're 100% correct that both the increased cut and the loss of Steam sales have to be factored into if you've made or lost money by being exclusive, but we'll really never know how many Steam sales might have been lost. You can't prove how many people would have bought the game but didn't because it wasn't on Steam. And it's really no different to what we saw with EA so many years ago. People bitched like crazy and I'm sure EA lost sales by ditching Steam initially, but it obviously worked out in the end because Origin is still a thing and they never went back, and several years later people don't bitch about it anymore. You have too look at this as more of a today issue. Origin is an normal is Steam for most people, we've accepted it and moved on. EGS is merely the Origin/Uplay/etc for publishers that aren't big enough to launch their own platform. Their reasons for jumping ship are the same.

The problem is that there is a large segment of population that responds emotionally to issues without quantifying their rationale through empirical evidence. This is why I gave up responding on this topic.
 
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Yeah I wouldn't be suprised one bit if it launches on Epic seems like any good AAA games are launching under it because all the cool kids are doing it.
 
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Yeah I wouldn't be suprised one bit if it launches on Epic seems like any good AAA game is launching under it because all the cool kids are doing it.

given it's using the unreal 4 engine you don't have to pay the 5% royalty fee for using the unreal engine when the games sold on EGS so it doesn't surprise me at all. but i do hope they do something similar to anno 1800 where you can pre-order on steam but can only be bought after release on EGS so at least the option is available to get it on steam.
 
I recently had a very bad experience with Epic so if they use that digital platform then I wont be buying it. I refuse to ever use Epic again. I like competition as much as the next person but if the competition is pure shit then no I will not support it and I hope it dies quickly. My advice is to avoid Epic like the plague.
 
I think it will be epic exclusive. That is the reason nothing was said when they showed off the trailer to that crowd. They didn't want to have a video out there of the fans booing them.
 
Epic Exclusivity is, as far as I am concerned, toxic. This is a title that was a likely must-buy from me were it on Steam to one that is off my list, full stop. Worse, I am concerned about the terms of that exclusivity because Epic does NOT support Mac/Linux game versions the way Steam does (There are games on Epic like Slime Rancher and many others that offer Linux support on Steam, but if you buy them on Epic do NOT offer any way to access Linux much less full client support - you get LESS for your money!), that unlike previous Borderlands titles which were ported to Mac/Linux via Aspyr, they will not do so or will not do so until MUCH later because Epic doesn't care one bit about users and less than that about Mac/Linux users. They are NOT "competition", they're just another greedy fiefdom that offers absolutely nothing to customers, restricts things that used to be commonplace, and thinks they can get away with it if they can lure enough developers into their trap.

Epic is going to keep bringing the toxic console infection of platform/store exclusivity to PC gaming unless they are made radioactive; that companies know dealing with Epic Store (much less exclusives) will cause them to LOSE business in excess of whatever Fortnite sourced money that Epic can shovel at them up front. Even if you don't care one bit about another launcher or whatnot, there are many reasons to put an end to Epic's behavior and we have to start now, especially with a major title like this.
 
It is looking like more of the same, with a bit more variety of location. Which is a good thing in my book.

I am still holding onto the the thin hope that this will not be another Epic exclusive. I only use GOG and Steam, so this being an Epic store exclusive, would be a disappointment to me and a lost sale for them. Meh whatever, if they don't care to sell in one of the stores I shop at, then I will just do without.
This is a game designed for friends lists. Using multiple clients, is a pita when it comes to friends lists.
 
It is looking like more of the same, with a bit more variety of location. Which is a good thing in my book.

I am still holding onto the the thin hope that this will not be another Epic exclusive. I only use GOG and Steam, so this being an Epic store exclusive, would be a disappointment to me and a lost sale for them. Meh whatever, if they don't care to sell in one of the stores I shop at, then I will just do without.
This is a game designed for friends lists. Using multiple clients, is a pita when it comes to friends lists.
Exactly. Borderlands 1 and 2 = the ultimate drop-in co-op games. People I used to co-op with are still on Steam.

However.. its not just about platform loyalty - a bunch of us play Battlefield 3/4/5 on Origin too. So if Epic subsidized Borderlands 3 to be cheaper on EGS, my friends and I might have been fine playing there because the cheaper choice for everyone. But we're not going to be strongarmed.
 
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Do they really make more money on the savings from not taking the Valve cut vs having their game on the most prolific digital platform?

From where I sit, that's really what this whole "Epic exclusive" argument boils down to for me. ADD fronts, guys. ADD.
 
this is insane. i really don't want to keep using this steaming pile of garbage known as the epic store anymore than i have to. i get what they are trying to do but in the mean time until their store is on par with steam, it's annoying and everyone that i've talked to about it hates having to use it.
 
I like to point out it is a 6-month Epic exclusive. It will be on Steam if you don't mind the wait.
 
6 months is a problem for me. I already have 3 seperate game platforms to maintain.. 2 off which i don't even update/keep shit installed with (origin/uplay).. Even worse is that there are a few games on gog i want, and i'm not dipping my toes into that, either. Steam was just fine, and will continue to be. I won't be able to play this game on steam until it's a used title with cheap keys?? No problem. Will I play it on steam, no. It's a huge slap from the developers to a loyal patron who owns 1/2 and most of the dlc. I've got better shit to worry about.
 
I like to point out it is a 6-month Epic exclusive. It will be on Steam if you don't mind the wait.

We have waited a long time so 6 more months is doable but we will see, game looks really fun for someone who really enjoys the series.
 
Thanks TakeTwo for the Epic exclusive. I'll wait the six month embargo and play it when better patched and what not.
 
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Do they really make more money on the savings from not taking the Valve cut vs having their game on the most prolific digital platform?

From where I sit, that's really what this whole "Epic exclusive" argument boils down to for me. ADD fronts, guys. ADD.


Its a 6 month exclusive. Those who absolutely have to own it on Steam will have that option. 2K will get those sales eventually.

During the first couple months though, which are by far the most profitable, it makes sense that they would want to be on the platform that nets them the greatest cut.
 
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