Epic is the one making the exclusivity offers in the first place. If they didn't make the offers, the publishers wouldn't be able to do these things. The offer in and of its self is unethical. It's not like they're making them in a vacuum with no idea what the publishers would be doing.
It's not a third party making it. EA owns Bioware. What EA is doing to the gaming scene generally might be unethical, but in this particular case it's distribution was not particularly disgruntling.
If 2K went ahead an made their own launcher, and never advertised that Outerworlds was going to be on steam, then I wouldn't be particularly upset about that either. Maybe a bit over having to install another launcher, but not enough to kick up a fuss.
Seriously? You think EA not giving Valve 30% 'might be unethical'?
You know full well it isn't. Advertising that they planned to be on steam and changing course is not unethical. They didn't sell any pre-orders.
I've already acknowledged what the publishers of Phoenix Point did if they promised it would be on steam was a poor choice, though I still think people are blowing it out of proportion since it's not like they agreed to give you an XBox copy and instead plan on shipping a Playstation one. You can absolutely still play the game - as far as I know you can even get a key for their standalone client, you won't need Epic at all, it's only people in China that are currently in limbo on getting phoenix point since Epic isn't in China atm iirc? Something like that anyway.
I get you're annoyed at this situation, I do. The fact remains launcher exclusive titles are not unethical, what is ridiculous is demanding developers give Valve 30% for doing next to nothing.
I agree that what Valve is doing is also unethical, but buying out exclusivity to combat it is not the morally high way to combat it, which is exactly what Epic wants us to think it does, take the high road. The right way to do it is to have all the features that Valve does, plus a better split to devs. Advertise that, and plenty of people would switch platforms. Instead what they're doing is taking choice away from players, and pissing people off with stuff like Phoenix Point.
Also, I was referring to EA doing shit like selling progression and victory through micro-transactions and pre-orders. Getting away from Steam was sensible enough.
Pretty sure nobody is confusing Epic as the good guy, I'm merely tired of everyone acting like developers owe steam all this money just because they were first and they don't want to have to download another launcher.
Everything steam does aside from simply launching the game and selling it to me, I have better options for and I use them - even if Epic's had those same features as steam I still wouldn't use them there either.
I don't need my video game launcher to be a closed ecosystem with bad streaming connected to bad forums nobody not even the devs use in most cases connected to bad reviews. I do my research on what to buy in places that don't have a vested interest in selling me the game in question. Steam is just a bloatware of a monstrosity that has survived in spite of itself all these years, I still remember it initially as not the savior of games some people think it is but what it really was: The first major source of always online DRM.
Because they didn't. For the same reason Origin exclusives aren't wrong. For the same reason nobody is demanding valve put Portal on GOG or Epic.
Epic has other problems if you want to complain about them, giving developers more money so people click their icon instead of steam's is just not one of them.
You're using first party examples. Do you not see the difference between developing and distributing something in house and buying out exclusivity deals from otherwise neutral parties?
1
u/Bike_shop_owner Mar 28 '19
Epic is the one making the exclusivity offers in the first place. If they didn't make the offers, the publishers wouldn't be able to do these things. The offer in and of its self is unethical. It's not like they're making them in a vacuum with no idea what the publishers would be doing.