theBrownLlama
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they certainly wont blame themselves.
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Metro Review-Bombed: Dev Threatens Next Game Won't Be on PC If Sales Are Low
- Thread starter Megalith
- Start date
they certainly wont blame themselves.
That's a different issue as that game pretty much is a huge disappointment to all Fallout fans. The game play and world of this Metro game by comparison looks a damn sight better.
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Zarathustra[H]
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I don't know. I've never paid any attention to reviews before buying games. I find it a little surprising that there are people who do.
Mode13
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Had metro exodus in my wish list on steam for a good few years now and they go and pull this?
Good faith to your customer base would have been to release it on steam but announce that future titles will be epic exclusives.
I won't buy it just on that alone, I'll get it in a year or three when its on sale for $5 on steam.
I also agree with all of the users saying less copies will sell on epic. What makes them think the preteen fortnite crowd is going to drop that kind of money on a single player game?
As an aside hopfully all of this pressure causes Valve to reconsider their high percentages, oh and to start making games again, millions of people out there would pay a high price for portal 3 or half life 3 or even a new entry in the counterstrike world.
Good faith to your customer base would have been to release it on steam but announce that future titles will be epic exclusives.
I won't buy it just on that alone, I'll get it in a year or three when its on sale for $5 on steam.
I also agree with all of the users saying less copies will sell on epic. What makes them think the preteen fortnite crowd is going to drop that kind of money on a single player game?
As an aside hopfully all of this pressure causes Valve to reconsider their high percentages, oh and to start making games again, millions of people out there would pay a high price for portal 3 or half life 3 or even a new entry in the counterstrike world.
Most of you defending 4A Games and Epic are completely missing the point - let me break it down for you.
Deep SIlver and however many companies involved in this shit show sold the game on Steam until a week ago, sold physical pre orders worldwide under the impression it will be a steam key, and then last minute sign an exclusive deal with Epic which nullified everything I just said. The developers benefited with a fat check but fucked over the consumers by making the game exclusive instead of selling the client based on merits - which it has none.
The player base on PC specifically enabled Metro to get where it is now, and are not completely getting fucked over. No one wants a 10th game client, especially when its being forced on you. Its anti consumer and a dick move all around. The money 4A is saving is going to be nullified by the fact that no one is going to buy their game now, and people will essentially shit on the whole series because of it. Not saying its right, I feel bad for the 4A developers the most as they poured their heart out to make this happen. But its the publishers fault and the parent companies involved that could potentially kill this series for good. I would say this is beyond what EA has done and other companies where bad publicity and overall dick move can potentially kill the brand, which only the people involved making these decisions are responsible for.
Deep SIlver and however many companies involved in this shit show sold the game on Steam until a week ago, sold physical pre orders worldwide under the impression it will be a steam key, and then last minute sign an exclusive deal with Epic which nullified everything I just said. The developers benefited with a fat check but fucked over the consumers by making the game exclusive instead of selling the client based on merits - which it has none.
The player base on PC specifically enabled Metro to get where it is now, and are not completely getting fucked over. No one wants a 10th game client, especially when its being forced on you. Its anti consumer and a dick move all around. The money 4A is saving is going to be nullified by the fact that no one is going to buy their game now, and people will essentially shit on the whole series because of it. Not saying its right, I feel bad for the 4A developers the most as they poured their heart out to make this happen. But its the publishers fault and the parent companies involved that could potentially kill this series for good. I would say this is beyond what EA has done and other companies where bad publicity and overall dick move can potentially kill the brand, which only the people involved making these decisions are responsible for.
Ah, the good old I am going to wait till this game is $5 mindset. And you wonder why developers say fuck you to PC gamers. You expect a company to be happy that they make $3 off of a sales of a game.
Most people that are bitching would have probably waited for the game to be $5 or not purchased it at all.
I would also be willing to bet that most already have the Epic launcher due to that small game called fortnight. So it isn't another launcher for most but is a launcher they already have installed.
Who cares? People already having a free Fortnite launcher installed doesn't create any urgency to buy other games and encourage Epic's behavior of bribing publishers to stop selling games on Steam.
The hordes of kids playing Fortnite certainly won't buy any games on Epic since they've got the "F2P with microtransaction" mindset and that's all they really know.
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NukeDukem
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I personally don't mind too much... if the game is worthy of a purchase, I'll buy it. Sadly these Euro devs are the only ones making solid single player games anymore. I'll financially support them as long as the quality continues.
Look on the bright side, competition to Steam is the only way we'll ever see a HL3. Make Valve Great Again by supporting their rivals!
.
Look on the bright side, competition to Steam is the only way we'll ever see a HL3. Make Valve Great Again by supporting their rivals!
.
D
Deleted member 222586
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They stabbed their customers. All physical copies were supposed to ship with a Steam key in them. Heck, the game was announced like that. A $60 game has more value to me on steam than it does at the same time on any other platform. Simply because Steam has value. It is DRM, indeed, but it is a very useful, polished and fully functional platform.
Why would anybody accept for the same prize to be forced to use the worst possible platform? Specially because this decision was done because of a greedy ass publisher?
Bethesda burnt pretty much every single Fallout fan they had. Bad example.
Also, Epic didn't "ask" for anything, they paid for it.
Developers say fuck you to pc gamers but then never drop the pc platform. Funny, ain't it? And having or not having the Epic launcher already is irrelevant.
The Epic store ain't competition. The 30% that Steam charges doesn't even look that relevant to me. What cut do they have in retail after you account for shipping, distributing and final sales? Even less. And lets not forget that the 30% also gets you the best platform, which also adds value for the players.
Nor in any case will force Steam to start doing games again. Heck, they release Artifact not too long ago and it is dead already.
Krenum
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Mission successful, two bad reviews in the bag.
naib
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https://www.pcgamer.com/metro-publi...ture-of-series-following-boycott-controversy/
Metro Exodus publisher says PC 'at heart of plans' for future of series following boycott warning
Metro Exodus publisher says PC 'at heart of plans' for future of series following boycott warning
Krenum
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Ha! What a bunch of flip floppers. Spineless worms make up your mind!
Full damage control they are in now lol.
"Our decision to partner with Epic Games was based on the goal of investing in the future of the series and our development partner at 4A Games. We have every intention of continuing this franchise, and a PC version will always be at the heart of our plans."
What a bunch of lip service BS!
Zarathustra[H]
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They probably just don't control their messaging very well.
Any company has lots of people in various roles. A good company controls who in the organization is responsible for external communication and bars everyone else from making official statements. Looks like these guys didn't do that, and some guy spouted off at the mouth...
Publisher fucked the customers, not the other way around. Not one single fan would have an issue if the game was listed on both clients, giving them the choice to decide which to go with - both parties win.
I do feel bad for 4A, as they likely had the least input in all this fuckery.
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delita
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Bethesda did burn a lot of people with Fallout 76, the point was, they are big enough that they can get away with it. They'll make a new Fallout, Elder Scrolls, whatever they want - it will still sell in the exact same numbers, which are much, much higher than 4A. Potential profit loss for a smaller development company is far more serious, which is why it's funny to see them make empty threats about no future PC releases - then PROMPTLY take it back. The review bombing is actually working because 4A isn't EA or Bethesda or anyone too big to fail.
Zarathustra[H]
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The part I don't understand is, what purpose do publishers even serve in our modern era of digital distribution? Why do they even exist? Why don' the devs just develop their games and place them on digital distribution platforms themselves? What value do the publishers add?
They just remind me of some sort of Mob presence which has to be paid protection money or they fuck everyone up...
There are many of us just love the game so that's bullshit. Metro games are corridor shooters. Easy to make and simple to play. Kinda the new COD really.
D
Deleted member 222586
Guest
Not so sure about Fallout. Fallout 4 was mediocre, but 76 not only is a dumpster fire, they have treated their player base as idiots once and again.
It's not bullshit at all. The game has pretty much been cained by every reviewer and gamer out there. I can tell you that you are definitely in the minority calling it a great game.
Money, they have money to market the game, and perform the duty that extends beyond the development of the game. Some publishers like EA for example are deeply tied to development as they call the shots, so its a bit different in that scenario. Basically, Deep Silver takes 4A under their umbrella and negotiates the rest of the components that development companies normally dont do. CDproject Red is an example of a company doing it alone, and it works, but you need money for that.
Well we are having fun. Its the best Fallout game so far and I have thousands of hours in the 3D games and their mods. Fallout 76 is head and shoulders above them all.
You have a nice time with your COD clone.
Zarathustra[H]
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That's exactly why they've never been particularly good games.
As I've mentioned before I'm a sucker for a good post apocalyptic shooter with an eastern European setting, but being a linear tunnel shooter, the Metro series is really just a poor mans S.T.A.L.K.E.R.
I own the previous two installments. I bought them WAY after launch for a good discount. Without that discount they wouldn't have been worth it for me. I played through them for the story, which wasn't bad, but other than that they weren't very good games.
Now, take the Metro franchise and make an open world non-linear FPS, like Dying Light or Fallout and you might have something great on your hands.
Not sure what you're talking about. I love Fallout 3 and 4. I haven't played the earlier versions.
Metro Exodus is supposedly an open world game a bit like Stalker, which i also loved playing. It doesn't look linear in the game play i have seen. It certainly is nothing like COD. I can't even understand why you would reference that.
Zarathustra[H]
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I did not know this. That certainly makes it more interesting to me.
I'm still not going to download the Epic client in order to buy it.
I guess I'll take a look in 2020.
It is one reason why I'm really looking forward to playing it. To see how they implement the whole openness of the Metro world. Should be interesting for sure.
Yeah, definitely a great way to piss off their customers even further after pulling Metro from Steam is to make such a bold fuck you announcement. All this asshattery is only going to result in worse sales for what otherwise could be a good game. It's a great example of biting the hand that feeds you.
Peter2k
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While true dat on the second thing, why do people care that Steam "lost money" advertising?
Is Valve that uber good guy?
Who cares about the game not being purchasable from Steam.
If you ordered it on Steam you still get it in you're Steam library.
If you haven't bought it till then, then you're probably waiting till reviews are out.
I seriously doubt they can pull an open world out of their ass. The engine required is very different and much harder to make. Corridor shooters work just fine outside.
Zarathustra[H]
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I'm really not convinced that Valves percentages are that high. 30% sounds like a lot on the surface, but they do a lot for that money, hosting the game for essentially ever, unlimited multiple downloads of 80GB titles also has a huge server and bandwidth cost associated with them, not to mention the staff to maintain all of the servers and software.
Let's not forget that the fact that Valve ONLY kept 30% is why it grew so explosively and took over the market in the first place.
Compare it to the old days when the only way to buy games was in boxes at a store. The retail store took a 100% markup, and had a buyback guarantee where they would return any damaged or opened goods for full price.
Then there was the cost of media, boxes, manuals, trucking that shit to where it had to go, etc. etc.
30% was a real goddamned bargain.
I'm not convinced that Epic's store could survive on the meager 12% cut they are currently yapping on about. I think it is an introductory thing to draw attention and titles up front, only to raise the rate later. A loss leader essentially.
I seriously doubt they can pull an open world out of their ass. The engine required is very different and much harder to make. Corridor shooters work just fine outside.
This game has been 5 years in the making. Who knows what is possible, but to bag it before it's even released make zero sense.
What is wrong is a bunch of childish idiots review bombing a game that hasn't been released because of blind loyalty to a company that isn't any better than the one they are upset about. Every other day I hear complaints about 60 dollar games and 30 dollar dlcs. Why do you think they are priced that high? Steams massive cut is why... Now the same dolts are bitching that a game company chooses to move to a service that allows them to sell at a lower price....some people are never happy.
Gorankar
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Calling Steam's cut massive is pretty silly, since b4 Steam came along, EA, Ubi, Activision, and most other publishing houses were taking 100% until games reached sales goals, and then took 60-90%, after that.
I do agree that the review bombing is idiotic and should never have happened. Reviews are for the game itself, not the storefront/launcher. This behavior destroys what little value reviews have for me.
A lot of people have forgotten who the customer is. The gamers are who all of the money flows from in the end. If you are not pleasing the gamers because you know better, or just got greedy, you may have a bad time of it. I am not asking them not to release on Epic, or Origin, or Uplay, or Amazon, or Discord. I was just asking that they also release on Steam or GOG, Since that is the only way my money is going to flow in their direction.
Mode13
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Interesting. Are you suggesting I should still consider paying full price to these idiots after they pull this platform change and then add a threat to stop delivering PC games? As if I live at the mercy of a software publisher? People have a right to bitch all they please. It's our wallets.
I said it was in my wish list since announcement date. I would have paid full price, until they suddenly pulled it from steam after the pre-sale.
I don't particularly care if they refuse future PC releases either. Ooga booga.. I also wouldn't have cared if it was initially slated for the Epic store.
They promised the game on steam, got a huge amount of PR on the game via steam (the place where I learned of it myself), presold the game on steam, then pulled it (likely for a large sum of money) to make it an epic exclusive. It's almost insane to defend that, but to each their own. I have no particular fondness for steam, but I say this was a bad move.
I don't really think anyone here is defending the decision to move to Epic, i think a few people myself included don't really care. I just love the look of the game and want to play it. It really is that simple. To deny myself the pleasure of this just because it's not on Steam just doesn't make sense to me.
Flogger23m
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I seriously doubt they can pull an open world out of their ass. The engine required is very different and much harder to make. Corridor shooters work just fine outside.
My understanding is that it isn't open world, but rather there are a few decent sized maps that progress through along with the story. Which is smart. Open world games are shit 90% of the time and are for lazy game developers copy/pasting the same content over and over again to pad game length hours.
Skylinestar
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Because somebody prefers not to install additional game clients
The old model had to deal with physical production costs, shipping, under / over stocking, etc. Most of them weren't doing well enough to not get bought up by Gamestop and now Gamespot will likely be extinct.
At 30%, Valve was literally the most profitable company per employee in America. They were more profitable per person than Apple, more than Google. That was back when they only had 250 people though. Now they have a whopping 360, but much higher income too.
So if 30% makes them one of the most profitable operations on Earth, I suspect there's some wiggle room in lowering the margin.
Think about it: what are their main costs? Indexing the site, and maintaining servers. Yes, that costs something, but comparatively, that cost has to be massively low compared to almost every other major corporation out there. If it wasn't, they would simply need more people. Their profit margins are likely fantastic. Yes, hosting may seem like a lot to one person, but for a company bringing in billions, it's a drop in the bucket. I think you're severely overestimating what their costs are.
/dev/null
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Except there is absolutely no way that statement can be taken positvely by PC gamers. Why not wait & see before making a statement that can only come off badly?
When "Exodus: Final Chapter" is coming out, THEN they can make that statement.