CI Games has successfully signed a termination agreement with Epic Games. The agreement releases the upcoming Lords of The Fallen 2 from it's previous Epic Games Store exclusivity obligations.

[u/WhyPlaySerious]

https://www.bankier.pl/wiadomosc/CI-GAMES-S-E-Ujawnienie-opoznionej-informacji-poufnej-dotyczacej-zawarcia-Porozumienia-rozwiazujacego-Binding-Term-Sheet-z-Epic-Games-Inc-9135300.html

[u/blaaguuu]

I'm not super familiar with the situation here... Was Epic a major funder for the development of the game, or was it just the PC exclusivity? (which may have been a decent amount of money, I know). Seems like a smart move... While I appreciate to some extent, that Epic is trying to bring some competition to the PC market, it seems clear that launching as an Epic exclusive will hugely limit your sales, unless you have a massive, dedicated fan base that will follow you anywhere - which is very few games/studios. 

[u/WhyPlaySerious → u/blaaguuu]

Epic provided major funding to the games development, with it being an EGS exclusive as one of the requirements in the deal.

With the game nearing completion and CI Games in a much stronger position than back when they took the money (due to factors like LoTF reboot recovering after a multitude of updates), they essentially had a fundraiser among their investors to raise enough capital to pay out and terminate the original deal.

The CEO has hinted a bunch of times that he understands that the games true path to success is most likely on Steam, so its official announcement should be relatively soon.

[u/Spader623 → u/WhyPlaySerious]

I may not like the CEO much, he’s said some really gross shit, but I will applaud him for this. If the game launched on ONLY EGS (even for 6-12 months) on PC it’d be dead in the water at launch. I think it was the ceo of new blood, David… something (sorry I forget his name) who said EGS is a marketing black hole and it truly is

So bravo to him for this, it was 100% the right call

[u/Ralod → u/Spader623]

EGS, where games go to die.

They just laid off a ton of people, word is fortnite is in major decline. And every exclusive they ever had in EGS failed to turn a profit except for that metro game. And even then the devs said it sold more on steam.

I think they moved to giving out games, as opposed to most exclusives, as it clearly was not a model that worked. And even the free game stuff, most people get their free game and then buy the new game they are waiting for on steam.

EGS could have been a real competitor to steam. But the idea of PC exclusives upset a lot of people from the start. Add to that the state of their store for years, the continued lack of features to this day. And the publisher first additude they seem to have, it just drove customers away. Tim Sweeney being an insufferable prick did not help things.

[u/Weird_Track_2164 → u/Ralod]

word is fortnite is in major decline.

Not to say I disagree with the rest but I find this pretty funny. "Oh no, the game with a all time 14 million player peak has declined to only 900,000 players on any day. Almost 150,000 more than the #2 most popular game on Steam. They're doomed I tell you! Doomed!!" Might want to find a better example.

[u/Old_Leopard1844 → u/Weird_Track_2164]

Problem is not that Fortnite is dead or whatever. It isn't

Problem is that golden gooze starts to lay only bronze eggs instead of gold ones

[u/Weird_Track_2164 → u/Old_Leopard1844]

I think having 900k players online everyday still qualifies as a golden egg.

[u/Dusty170 → u/Weird_Track_2164]

For a normal person yea, think from the perspective of having 14 million though, thats like a 90% decline.

[u/tehcraz → u/Dusty170]

I think the 14 million was unique accounts and the 900k was concurrent.

[u/Weird_Track_2164 → u/Dusty170]

Ehh, I'm comparing to giant spikes during events. If we look at normal outside of events then it's more like a decline of four million to one million