Shenmue III is exclusive to Epic Games Store

[kane_magus]

Just got a email from Kickstarter saying the following (among other things):

"PC Version Epic Games Store Exclusive!

We are happy to announce that Shenmue III for PC will be will be an Epic Games Store exclusive. Development for Shenmue III has been moving forward using Unreal Engine and the support we have received from Epic has been excellent. But most importantly, in looking for the most enjoyable experience on PC, it was decided together with Deep Silver after much discussion that the Epic Games Store would be the best distribution platform option."

I left the following comment on the Kickstarter page for that update:

"Why? This is asinine.

"I backed this with the expectation of it being on Steam, not on Epic Store. The Epic Store didn't even exist then, and to make Shenmue 3 exclusive to it now is incredibly vexing.

"If this is just a timed exclusive, then I'll just wait for it to come out on Steam, regardless. If not... well, I'm not going to ask for a refund, and I *guess* I'll eventually bite the bullet and install whatever I need to get it on the Epic Store, but I definitely won't be happy to do that, and I'll have to consider very carefully before I ever back any more projects from you in the future, and I'll probably opt not to do so, because of this.

"I really hope you reverse this terrible decision and make the game available on Steam on launch, though. I could not care less about the Epic Games Store."

So, yeah, since I'm on my blog now and can really cut loose... this is fucking idiotic dumbshit. Fuck Epic Games Store and fuck Deep Silver. Why the fuck does Deep Silver even have anything to do with this in the first place? I must have missed the update where it was announced that they (and Epic, apparently) had stuck their grubby fingers into the Shenmue III pie. This isn't the first time Deep Silver has pulled dogshit like this, either.

Hell, Shenmue III still has a fucking Steam page for crying out loud, at least for now, until it gets removed. Also, Shenmue I & II are on Steam, so that would make it even more inane if Shenmue III isn't. (Though Shenmue I & II was published by SEGA, and SEGA has nothing to do with this Epic Games clusterfuck, aside from allowing Ys Net to use the IP.)

Just another nail in the coffin for the shit I long ago stopped giving about the modern video game industry, I suppose. Also, more specifically, it proves yet again why Kickstarter and other "crowd-funded"/"early access"/whatever horseshit is horseshit. (Though, to be fair, this was not the fault of the Kickstarter platform, but the fault of scuzzbuckets using and abusing that platform. If Kickstarter can do something about this and hold these assholes accountable somehow, then my faith in the Kickstarter platform will be at least partially restored. That said, though, I've already long since decided that, from now on, a game company has to offer me a game that is already finished and that I can play that day, or they can go take a long walk off a short pier, because I am fucking done with crowd-funded games, and bullshit like this fuckery is why.)

As far as refunds go, irrelevant to me though they may be since I wasn't and still am not planning to ask for one, apparently the dev/publisher has already said that they will NOT be giving refunds over this, so that's another reason to give a big, hearty "FUCK YOU" to Deep Silver and Ys Net.

Comments

[owsf2000]

You know, I'd like to see a dev do this in a kickstarter started after the epic store launched. IE: Where they make the promise during the campaign that they would NOT be Epic-exclusive (or even timed exclusive.)

As if, after the kickstarter ended, they decide to change gears on that then the entire group of people that made pledges would be eligible to go into a class action against the devs if they explicitly pledged due to the promise of not being epic-only/delayed. I'll bring plenty of popcorn to watch that shit go down.

Shit like this that makes me glad I don't really do much in the way of kickstarters. Only kickstarter I've pledged to was Angry Joe's Street Fighter board game currently on the go. The kickstarter has ended but they're still accepting late pledges and shit I think. I'm pretty sure I can add more to my pledge if desired. Main reason I want the board game is due to the figurines I suppose but whatever~

Odds are I would never have picked up Shenmue 3 on steam anyhow. (And will definitely not touch it on Epic.) I'll likely pick it up for the PS4 instead - already got the 1&2 combo on PS4. (And the originals for dreamcast and the xbox port.)

[kane_magus]

They didn't explicitly say that they would not be Epic-exclusive, but they did explicitly say that there would be Steam keys for the game, which is just as bad, given that they turned around and took that away (at least for a time, and I'd bet dollars to donuts that the whole "timed" part of the exclusivity was a hasty backpedal on their part). It's still a bait-and-switch, no matter how you look at it.

If a KS campaign were indeed to expressly say "will not be exclusive" and then was exclusive, yeah, that'd be even worse, but not by much.

In any case, I think this is seriously going to fuck over Shenmue III even if it is just temporary, because people are going to (and have already) give up on the game altogether, rather than wait for Steam release, and that is a shame, though at the same time I can't honestly blame them for that mindset, either. But then, for the developers at this point, it's merely a case of "fuck you, we got ours" in the form of that sweet Epic money. And, of course, Epic's ploy is going to work, at least to some extent, because too many people (i.e. more than zero people) are going to go ahead and download the Epic client to play Shenmue III "early," despite it being a temporary exclusive.

On a related issue, the whole argument of "We have to be exclusive to Epic store because our game uses Epic's software in it" that the devs for these exclusive games claim is also bullshit. If true, for one thing, then the exclusivity wouldn't be timed, the way most of them have been so far, including Shenmue III. And what fucking "software" are they even talking about to start with? Sounds like an even more heinous from of DRM to me. I.e. store client specific DRM. Steamworks is pretty much the same thing, but that's not usually something that "requires" a game to be sold on Steam and only on Steam, since it's apparently not much effort to remove it or leave it out so that a game can be sold on GOG or whatever as well, without breaking a game's functionality or whatever. And just because a game might be using Unreal Engine or whatever, that should not be a condition for exclusivity to Epic Store, if that is indeed what they're blathering on about.

[owsf2000]

I don't think there's anything telling them they HAVE to be exclusive just because they use Epic's software - they own Unreal Engine. So if you made your game with Unreal Engine, you normally pay a royalty to Epic if you sell that game on Steam or some other service. If you sell that game on Epic's store then they wave the licensing fee and you still get 88% of the profits.

However if that's what the devs are claiming, then it's still complete bullshit of an argument since according to Epic's FAQ they don't require exclusivity to have that waived:

"Beyond the normal ease of shipping on every platform, there are no engine royalties for UE4-based games sold on the Epic Games store. If you’re using the default free license with a 5% royalty, for example, you won’t pay the licensing fees from your sales on the Epic Games store. Royalties from sales on other platforms would remain the same 5%."

So if they're claiming they HAVE to, it's because they absolutely do not want to pay royalty fees to Epic for Unreal Engine for selling the game elsewhere.