Epic CEO Tim Sweeney responded to questions about Epic Games Store exclusives saying the exclusivity deals will keep happening. The company has received flack for poaching titles like Metro Exodus, The Division 2, and now Borderlands 3 from Valve’s Steam.
Sweeney explained this when speaking about the Metro Exodus deal at GDC.
“We had been talking to those guys for a number of months and they made some decisions on their end — this is not a throw under the bus thing, it’s just the timing of where that came together and what was important to their business — we decided to do it together, we both knew there was the potential for the thing that happened in terms of communication,” he said.
Epic Games Store head Steve Allison said that Epic does not “want to do that ever again.”
Then in late March, No Code announced that its upcoming Observation will now be an Epic Games Store exclusive. The game’s Steam page was pulled with under two months until it’s May 21 release, and to those following it looked a lot like the Metro Exodus deal. A Twitter user reached out to Epic CEO Tim Sweeney asking, “care to explain what’s going on with Observation after what was said here? The game was already set for Steam”
Sweeney responded a few days later and said, “We’ve had a lot of discussions about this since GDC. Epic is open to continuing to sign funding / exclusivity deals with willing developers and publishers regardless of their previous plans or announcements around Steam.”
Sweeney seemingly conceded that it is up to publishers and developers to sign exclusivity deals with Epic Games. Today’s Borderlands 3 Epic Games Store exclusivity news was met by anger from fans, but it is different than Metro Exodus‘ deal. Unlike Exodus, which was on Steam for years and was available for pre-order on the platform, Borderlands 3 was never up on Steam. Borderlands 3 will be exclusive to the Epic Games Store on PC for six months. At the end of the day, expect to see more Epic Games Store exclusives, but remember that those deals are ultimately up to a game’s publisher.
[H/T PCGamer]
