Valve Epicdemic

This could possible be billy-bullshit. However, it would be a good move on their part to deter people actively taking piss out of them as well as, everyone else.

Valve Adds New Clause to Steam Distribution Agreement, Could Block Epic Store Exclusivity

Steam has updated its terms for developers and publishers to seemingly ban them from announcing the game for the platform, only to back out later for exclusivity on another platform.

The news comes from an alleged screenshot (via Reddit) of Steam’s terms of service for those who wish to sell a game through their Steamworks program. The thing to make note of is the first segment of section 2 – Delivery (2.1).

“Delivery. Company shall submit the Applications to Steam for release no later than the first commercial release of each Application or Localized Version, or, if already commercially released as of the Effective Date, within (30) days of the Effective Date. Thereafter, Company shall submit to Steam any Localized Versions and Application Updates (in beta and final form) when available, but in no event later than they are provided to any other third party for commercial release. Company shall provide these copies in object code form, in whatever format Valve reasonably requests.”

In short, once a company has agreed to “deliver” their game to Steam for launch – the files must be submitted to Steam before it’s release (or 30 days after). Updates must also never happen later than on other platforms.

The new terms are most likely to counter the recent trend of games being announced on Steam, only to be later pulled for an exclusive release on the Epic Games Store. This has occurred with titles including Shenmue III, Anno 1800, and Metro Exodus (the latter even prompting a response from the series creator).

Others have rejected the Epic Games Store’s exclusivity offer outright, including Bandai Namco, Microsoft, and indie developer Unfold Games– going as far as to say pulling Darq from Steam for Epic Games Store exclusivity would ruin their credibility.

What do you think? Sound off in the comments below!

The Epic Games Store can't be defeated that easily

Tencent-Epic store is a short-term solution to a problem that never actually existed.

Sure it can. Hell, it's going to defeat itself.

1. Pay developers for exclusivity deals.

2. Only sell game on Tencent-Epic store

3. Game won't sell well because no one [rightfully] likes Tencent-Epic store

4. Tencent-Epic doesn't pay for follow-up exclusivity rights because "game didn't sell well" (that's just business sense right there)

5. Developers a.) go bankrupt, b.) crowdfund, or c.) go back to Steam who, like the noble champions of gaming they are, take their prodigal developers back into the fold.

6. Developers and publishers wise up to the Tencent-Epic Store and stop listing their games on there.

The only reason Tencent-Epic store is still operational is because it has the billions of dollars of that Chinese oligarch money propping it up.

@uninspiredcup said:

This could possible be billy-bullshit. However, it would be a good move on their part to deter people actively taking piss out of them as well as, everyone else.

This...this is what a pro-consumer company does.

Their customers expected these games on Steam, only to have them revoked from that platform.

Sorry to burst people's bubble here, but:

That clause of the Steam Distribution Agreement has been there since at least 2017. Valve could use it to take action against developers who violate it, but have so far decided not to do so, for reason unknown.

Which, on the other hand, sounds very much like a Valve thing to do.

Yeah, must be nice to still be a privately-held company and not beholden to anyone except your customers and your vision.

Tencent-Epic, being a publicly-traded company, is only interested in pleasing their investors. They don't care about the long-term as long as tomorrow yields better earnings than today did.

Some pretty **** moves pulled by Metro and Anno, removing the game at the last moment. Metro is said to come back, but Anno will never return. So it's weird to advertise on a store you have no intention of selling on.

Valve is in their right to do this imho

So that's their solution?

Bully devs into submission?

Now how will Epic know if a game will be worth stealing?

I mean, if someone was living in your house paying the rent, but decided to shit on the floor and then piss-off to another house without paying the promised installment, you'd probably institute a rule as well.

Aside from losing money, they are just straight up making Valve look like cocks, in-front of their user-base who themselves became understandably irate.

@uninspiredcup: That's a bit extreme, but people gave shit to Xbox for giving the same rule for indie devs when this gen started.

1st on Xbox or no Xbox.

Not sure why Steam gets a free pass.

It's actually epic who says:

"Exclusive deal with Epic or no Epic"

In Valve's case this is different:

- If you make a steam page for a game coming dec. 2019 but decide at the last moment you want to make it Epic exlcusive that is no longer allowed.

-If you release your game on Epic dec. 2019 but have no steam page yet, than you are free to publish your game on steam a year later.

In no way is Valve saying: 1st on Steam or no Steam. You are actually still allowed to do whatever you want.

basically the best explanation I've read for this is that Steam no longer wants to provide publicity and free steam community (forums, support forums) for game that want to go with Epic exclusivity for a year.

All it says is that 3rd parties can't release a game on Valve's store and then take an exclusivity deal for a year, tying up Valve's resources. They can still release on 3rd party sites first, or both, this just ties up that loophole where companies were advertising on Steam and then releasing only on EGS. This was added last December before Epic exclusives fiasco and has nothing to do with poaching games. It basically means that, when you release a game on Steam and another 3rd party service, you must keep the Steam version patched to the current build, if you release a more current one on the other services.

I am not sure what this is accomplishing, seems like maybe all it will do is stop publishers from announcing a Steam release early if it doesn't prohibit Epic exclusives from going to Steam, just games announced for Steam then yanked.

IMO they could ethically go as far as say either the game is released on Steam + other storefronts at (or close to) the same time, or not on Steam at all.

It would help stop Epic from closing up the PC gaming eco system by buying up temp exclusivity.

And I think that is exactly what Valve is doing here, but in the long game.

By waiting to this point, they'll have most PC gamers backing that decision.

Meh Steam sucks ass anyways, feels so outdated, barely changed since the mid 2000's. Needs modernized and cleaned up so bad. I don't find it to be intuitive and user friendly at all, the store looks like a clusterfuck of indie games. And the amount of downright dogshit games on Steam is unacceptable. And legit every time I start up steam there's some update that doesn't let me do anything while it downloads, it's so annoying. Not to mention one of my old Steam accounts got hacked so I have some serious questions about their security.

Overall Valve in general went from one of my most loved companies in gaming to one of my most hated. They used to be a passionate game developer who was pumping out amazing games. Now they don't give 2 shits about giving us fans the games we want. Them teasing Half Life (chapter) 3 for a damn near a whole fucking decade really rubbed me the wrong way, meanwhile they just rehashed Counter Strike YET AGAIN instead of making a true sequel to that, then created the weapon skin Crates and ever since then they haven't done shit. Just sat on their asses collecting checks from children who were openly using those crates for gambling purposes, and didn't do jack shit about it except continue to make more and rarer weapon skins. How anyone still has respect for them after that is beyond me.