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A comment on Microsoft to acquire ZeniMax Media and Bethesda Softworks for $7.5B. Parent comment

Re:Microsoft to acquire ZeniMax Media and Bethesda Softworks... by RealStickman_ on Monday September 21, 2020 @12:26PM (#24545296)
The exclusivity deals were disruptive because they took games that were promised to come to steam and made them exclusive.

The customer has no benefit from the lower cut epic charges.

Epic doesn't treat everyone equally. Big games like Cyberpunk 2077 are allowed to also sell on other platforms, while smaller games either go exclusive or go with everyone else.

Competition is good, but I'd rather have GOG be that competition to Steam than Epic purely based on their anti-DRM stance.

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Re:Microsoft to acquire ZeniMax Media and Bethesda Softworks... by eropple on Monday September 21, 2020 @01:39PM (#24546216)
I don't much care for EGS, but Epic is paying small developers a lot for that exclusivity. In the current indie market, that chunk of change can be the difference between profitability and failure.
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Re:Microsoft to acquire ZeniMax Media and Bethesda Softworks... by johnnyanmac on Monday September 21, 2020 @02:18PM (#24546646)
Or, as the above user put it, the difference between making a creative masterpiece or a clone made to exploit the system.
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Re:Microsoft to acquire ZeniMax Media and Bethesda Softworks... by Wowfunhappy on Monday September 21, 2020 @07:04PM (#24549344)
> Epic doesn't treat everyone equally. Big games like Cyberpunk 2077 are allowed to also sell on other platforms, while smaller games either go exclusive or go with everyone else.

There isn't a conspiracy here. Epic pays developers to make certain games (like Control) temporarily exclusive to EGS. Other developers, like CD Project RED, have not made such a deal, and thus Cyberpunk 2077 is available on many different PC game clients.

There are plenty of games on EGS--large and small--which are not and have never been exclusive. Examples include The Unfinished Swan, SuperHot, and Axiom Verge just to pick three off the top of my head.

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Re:Microsoft to acquire ZeniMax Media and Bethesda Softworks... by RealStickman_ on Tuesday September 22, 2020 @06:37AM (#24552935)
I meant the case of DARQ, where the developer was specifically told to either go exclusive or every other store with no possibility of selling on EGS and other stores. [1] According to the article other indie games got similar offers, while the big budget ones can go to multiple stores.

[1] https://www.dsogaming.com/news/epic-games-wanted-darq-as-an-...

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Re:Microsoft to acquire ZeniMax Media and Bethesda Softworks... by ThatPlayer on Monday September 21, 2020 @07:36PM (#24549518)
To me, asking smaller games for exclusivity is just asking for commitment. One of the reason I don't buy games on GoG anymore is that the developers don't commit to updating their GoG version to keep parity with other versions of the game.

https://www.gog.com/forum/general/games_that_treat_gog_custo...

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Re:Microsoft to acquire ZeniMax Media and Bethesda Softworks... by RealStickman_ on Tuesday September 22, 2020 @12:53AM (#24550977)
I didn't know that. Thanks for that list.
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Re:Microsoft to acquire ZeniMax Media and Bethesda Softworks... by lagadu on Tuesday September 22, 2020 @05:19AM (#24552498)
Should we also rail against Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo for paying developers to make games exclusive to their platforms?
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Re:Microsoft to acquire ZeniMax Media and Bethesda Softworks... by RealStickman_ on Tuesday September 22, 2020 @06:34AM (#24552921)
No, because it's clear from the beginning what platforms their games will support. That wasn't the case with Metro Exodus [1] for example and one other indie game I can't remember the name off.

[1] https://www.tomshardware.com/news/metro-exodus-pulled-from-s...

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Re:Microsoft to acquire ZeniMax Media and Bethesda Softworks... by account42 on Tuesday September 22, 2020 @06:37AM (#24552934)
Yes
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