The Epic Games Store has been gaining momentum ever since it was announced back at the start of December, with Epics store seemingly getting one over on Steam on a weekly basis. That trend looks set to continue, as it has now been announced that the upcoming Metro Exodus’ digital PC release will be exclusive to Epic’s store.
Speaking about this exclusivity, founder and CEO of Epic Tim Sweeney said:
“Metro Exodus is amazing and is deservedly one of the most anticipated PC titles of 2019. We are partnering with Deep Silver to launch Metro Exodus, underpinned by Epic’s marketing support and commitment to offering an 88% revenue split, enabling game creators to further reinvest in building great games and improving the economics of game stores for everybody.”
We spoke about how Epic’s terms of 88% revenue split for developers over Steam’s 70% could be game-changing in convincing developers to jump ship when the Epic store was first announced, and that does indeed seem to be the driving force behind Metro’s publisher, Deep Silver, deciding to release their title on Epic’s platform. Deep Silver CEO, Dr. Klemens Kundratitz, said:
“We are delighted to partner with Epic to bring the digital PC version of Metro Exodus to market. Epic’s generous revenue terms are a game changer that will allow publishers to invest more into content creation, or pass on savings to the players. By teaming up with Epic we will be able to invest more into the future of Metro and our ongoing partnership with series developer 4A Games, to the benefit of our Metro fans.”
It does appear that savings are already being passed on to players; Metro Exodus is now priced at £41.99 on the Epic Games Store, whereas it was priced at £49.99 on Steam. The game listing is still currently active on Steam, but they have attached a notice to it which reads:
“Notice: Later today, sales of Metro Exodus will be discontinued on Steam due to a publisher decision to make the game exclusive to another PC store. The developer and publisher have assured us that all prior sales of the game on Steam will be fulfilled on Steam, and Steam owners will be able to access the game and any future updates or DLC through Steam. We think the decision to remove the game is unfair to Steam customers, especially after a long pre-sale period. We apologize to Steam customers that were expecting it to be available for sale through the February 15th release date, but we were only recently informed of the decision and given limited time to let everyone know.”
As you can see, players that have already bought the game through Steam will still have their purchased fulfilled and will still be able to access updates and DLC through Steam.
This is another big kick in the teeth for Steam who are clearly rattled as they slowly lose their grip on their PC storefront dominance. This comes just a few weeks after Ubisoft announced that they would be releasing The Division 2 exclusively on the Epic Games Store and that more of their games will do the same. Epic are a major player in the industry thanks to the Unreal Engine and the enormously successful money-making machine that is Fortnite, so they can afford to take less of a cut to persuade developers and publishers to snub Steam. Equally, securing the exclusive rights to highly-anticipated games is the best way to draw players to the Epic Games Store, and that’s on top of the free game that Epic has been giving away every two weeks. One thing is certain, Steam really need to do something to try and stop Epics momentum.
Metro Exodus will launch on Xbox One, PS4, and PC on Friday 15th February. Metro 2033 Redux and Metro: Last Light Redux will also come to the Epic Games store later this year.
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