Saturday, February 2nd 2019
Metro Exodus Developer Discusses Boycott of the PC Platform for Sequels over Steam Review Bombing
Update 2: February 5th, 2019: A post on TwitLonger from the official @MetroVideoGame handle has looked to bring a more positive outlook to this whole scenario, in an attempt to bridge the gap between a lone developer's sentiment and the entire 4A Games studio. The post follows:
The entire handling of this issue has seen wrong turns of hand on all parts involved, the way this particular editor sees it (my, Ravenlord's, sole opinion and not TPU's, so as to avoid a Metro-style situation here), whether it be Valve, 4A Games, the lone developer who made the initial comments, and yes, the particular users in the Metro community that reacted too passionately, inflamming what was already a sticky situation. I, for one, will never see the justice in extrapolating one "wrong" move as a reason for bringing down either the trust or confidence in a whole team of people working hard to bring their creative vision to life. But I suppose gaming is like a relationship, in a way. You can read the original story below.
The whole Metro Exodus saga has been getting uglier as we get closer to launch date. We had reported earlier this very week how Metro Exodus had jumped over to the Epic Games Store for a timed exclusive through February 2020, with Valve and THQ Nordic putting out statements on this move. The move was clearly an unpopular one, and arguably for valid reasons too, but this then led to the mob turning against Metro 2033 and Metro: Last Light by leaving an extreme number of negative reviews on the respective Steam store pages.
We do not agree with this behavior, but neither do we condone what happened next. A user by the handle scynet on the Russian Gameinator forums claimed to be one of the developers on the Metro game franchise, and expressed disappointment, and even anger at the review bombing ongoing. Perhaps emotions took over, when he then effectively threatened that the Metro series would not come to the PC platform again, and be a console exclusive, should this behavior continue and also if PC gamers in turn decide to not buy Metro Exodus as a result of the move from Steam to the Epic Games Store. We will note here that (a) the identity of said person has not been confirmed to be an actual developer for the game, and (b) such decisions are usually in the publisher hands. Regardless, both parties are not showing their best here, and hopefully cooler heads will prevail soon.
[Update: Feb 3, 2019: TechPowerUp user birdie has provided what appears to be the most accurate translation at this time, which can be seen past the break.]
An English translation by a native Russian (TechPowerUp user birdie) is seen below.
Sources:
User 'scynet' on Gameinator Forums, TwitLonger
The recent decision to move Metro Exodus from Steam to the Epic Game Store was made by Koch Media / Deep Silver alone.
The recent comments made by a member of the 4A Games development team do not reflect Deep Silver's or 4A Games' view on the future of the franchise. They do reflect the hurt and disappointment of a passionate individual who has seen what was previously nothing but positive goodwill towards his work turn to controversy due to a business decision he had no control over. We respectfully ask that any and all valid feedback over this decision is directed at Koch Media / Deep Silver, and not the developers at 4A Games.
The future release strategy of the Metro series lies with Koch Media / Deep Silver. Our decision to partner with Epic Games was based on the goal of investing in the future of the series and our development partner at 4A Games. We have every intention of continuing this franchise, and a PC version will always be at the heart of our plans.
The entire handling of this issue has seen wrong turns of hand on all parts involved, the way this particular editor sees it (my, Ravenlord's, sole opinion and not TPU's, so as to avoid a Metro-style situation here), whether it be Valve, 4A Games, the lone developer who made the initial comments, and yes, the particular users in the Metro community that reacted too passionately, inflamming what was already a sticky situation. I, for one, will never see the justice in extrapolating one "wrong" move as a reason for bringing down either the trust or confidence in a whole team of people working hard to bring their creative vision to life. But I suppose gaming is like a relationship, in a way. You can read the original story below.
The whole Metro Exodus saga has been getting uglier as we get closer to launch date. We had reported earlier this very week how Metro Exodus had jumped over to the Epic Games Store for a timed exclusive through February 2020, with Valve and THQ Nordic putting out statements on this move. The move was clearly an unpopular one, and arguably for valid reasons too, but this then led to the mob turning against Metro 2033 and Metro: Last Light by leaving an extreme number of negative reviews on the respective Steam store pages.
[Update: Feb 3, 2019: TechPowerUp user birdie has provided what appears to be the most accurate translation at this time, which can be seen past the break.]
An English translation by a native Russian (TechPowerUp user birdie) is seen below.
I've watched the shit storm that gave me contradicting impressions. On the one hand, Steam withdrawal was dubious, no one before us has done this so abruptly (as far as I know). This is new and and it could have caused resentment. And also this move makes it necessary to install the Epic launcher, so it could have inconvenienced certain gamers, and caused resentment.This does not seem as feverous as initial translations make it out to be, however the underlying tones are still applicable to the same bottom line. We also are more confident now that the original poster is a verified employee of 4A Games, and likely a developer on Metro Exodus as well. He/she is no doubt passionate about the work put in to the game, and ideally recognizes that the deeds (however undeserving the review bombing of past games may be) of some members of the PC gaming community does not speak for everyone. At the same time, this does not mean that 4A Games/Koch Media/THQ Nordic/Epic Games Store are all blameless in this debacle either, just that here too the work of few is affecting the rest adversely.
On the other hand a reaction of the certain category of players ("torrents" only and likewise [he meant those who pirate games]) is hardly adequate. I've got the impression that people didn't really want to play and they have been waiting for a reason to pour out bile. It turns out that we (the developers) have toiled over for years trying to create something extraordinary but a certain category of players believes that our work isn't worth two minutes of installing a new game launcher. Naturally, it's their life and right, but why do they care about Metro at all? Obviously, they are not interested. I can only say that they've never been our players, they are not interested in our work, and as a result, for example, I'm not interested in their opinion. What's the point of me (and not only me) listening to their opinion?
But! Let's take a deeper look at the situation. Someone says that having shit on Metro Exodus and other games of the series has made the world a better place and put the greedy developers in their place. For that, I can only say that, at the worst scenario if all [PC] players boycott the game, then future games, if they get released at all, certainly won't be for PC. Will it be for the better or worse, is up to you. Personally, I will be sorry for devoted fans. But it won't change my appreciation of the work done by me, my friends and co-workers. I'm absolutely certain that almost everyone who is smearing us on the internet is not capable of the tiniest part of the work already done, and I hope, is yet to be done. Which means they are totally unaware of what they are talking about.
One extra thing. Despite the fact that during development I've finished every level of the game countless times, I still love playing Metro. I've completely finished previous games of the series several times and right now when we are putting the finishing touches to the game I'm going to finish it once more. For me it's already a tradition when I finish the game right before its release. It allows to evaluate the work we've done. What am I talking about? I remember the words of Prof [some nickname presumably - no idea who this person is] which I've heard straight from him several times and also on the Internet: you must create a game for yourself, so that first and most you like it yourself. And only now I'm starting to fully understand that - no smartass will make me doubt the work we've done. And there always will be the dissatisfied.
288 Comments on Metro Exodus Developer Discusses Boycott of the PC Platform for Sequels over Steam Review Bombing
Could be wrong!
Its one game against millions different minded people its normal to get negative review.
Sell it on not hack able sd card.
Your email getting spoofed is not Epic's fault. Just the other day news came out about 2.2 BILLION account detail combinations being out there in the wild and it likely includes yours - it did include mine. That is another issue entirely.
Platform? No. The games offer the online communities, not the platform, regardless of how much they try to make it so. A community is tied to a game, not to a storefront like Steam. There is no 'Steam community' consisting of 95% of PC gamers worldwide that have nothing in common. Its just a big dataset, nothing more. The games determine what people you see online at what games. With or without Steam. Devs can make those frameworks themselves and they can do it as good or better.
Calling a store a platform is simply wrong. A platform immediately implies a degree of exclusivity which is exactly what people are up in arms about. Steam is as much a 'self imposed exclusivity' as a release on Epic alone. Its an irony you and everyone else completely fail to see.
What should be happening here is that the game goes on Epic's site AND on Steam the buyer can then decide, if Epic charge the dev less and they can put it on the Epic store for less, folks can vote with their wallet if they want it cheaper or if they choose to use steam, they pay more but the dev could make nearly the same money.
Simple. This messing around and "exclusivity" BS is what is wrong here and does not deserve to be supported. IMO of course.
Here's his full post (© 2019 Artem S. Tashkinov):
And for pulling out their game from the biggest store in the PC market, after it has been sit there on preorder for 5 months (so abusing all the Steam advertising, without paying it back)?
How strange.
So now they want to publish on consoles only?
Dear 4A Games, fu.. you, err, I mean, good luck to you.
I/we don't care at all.
The community hubs. Yes. Other games have forums and guess what, most developers STILL use their own channels for the real announcements, and most importantly, for the real feedback loops. Countless devs never even bother visiting community hubs, they just exist as the cesspool that they usually are. The quality of those comments and topics... is very low, more often than not. You go ahead and compare a random Steam community hub with the developers' own Forum space. It is miles apart. And you find the REAL information, with megathreads about builds, mechanics, and groups of players, on the developers' own forums. Not on Steam. Steam doesn't even offer a real forum functionality, all it has is very archaic 'post your comment' and 'start a topic'. Even reloading a page from an opened forum topic kicks you right back to the Community Hub, losing what you were reading altogether. Its utterly crap all over. You even get to deal with a 2000 character limit. WTF!? Its 2019, Gaben.
So yes, I minimize it because it is simply irrelevant, there are other, much better alternatives around and they have been there since day one.
This is what they call 'grasping at straws'.
What about all those new launchers? In 10 years from now, will that "Epic Launcher" (1 year old) still be here with my Exodus copy?
I don't care about launchers. I care about my digital properties.
I trust STEAM because it is the biggest and more trustworthy player in the field and so I want all my purchases to be there.
Simple as that.
The year is approximately 2105, after the great economic collapse and the 1 year global resource war society as we knew it was gone. The vast cities once the beating heart of our grand nation now just decomposing steel and concrete carcases are a small reminder of the perfect lives we had. In one of these crumbling cities inside a skyscraper somewhere on the 30th floor in a dark room a fire is visible. A small family sits and tries to keep worm in this never-ending atomic winter.
After moments of silence that seemed like an eternity one of the children speaks.
Great grandpa please tell us how it was before the war, before monsters roamed the cities, before people enslaved people and food and water were plenty.
The old man looked at the small dirty child and said.
Back in those civilized days there were even more horrific things happening.
More horrific than the sand worm that captured Timmy and slowly digested him?
More horrific than grandma cutting her own arm so we can have something to eat? said another scared and malnourished child.
How about I tell you kids how I survived the launch of the Epic game store and the exclusivity of Metro Exodus. Can you imagine a digital distribution platform with no cloud saves, no forums, no groups, no family sharing, no user reviews nothing!
After a moment of silence all children speak unanimously like guided by the winds of fate and ask one simple question: What’s a cloud save grandpa?
The old man looked at the children, his eyes full of anger and hate, they were eyes of toxicity and entitlement, eyes that could pierce and devour a child’s innocent soul and with those eyes he said:
Shut up and eat your mom!!!
It is somehow bribed, the whole move. I smell corruption. It looks like scripted. The dev post itself looks darn stupid, the end part especially.
Just put the darn thing on steam, tax more, let it be cheaper on epic or whatever store you put it. Any reasonable CEO would have done it. Everyone would have justice, a mature decision.
This? It looks like old habits.
Hmmm
www.pcgamer.com/metro-exodus-will-only-release-on-the-epic-store-but-steam-preorders-will-be-honoured/
Your behavior is bordering on the childish. You're creating a great deal of bad press for yourselves.
First, you pull out of a previously committed to distribution channel people were expecting to use for one few want to use. Second, the public reacts with the only method of protest available to them, reviews of existing games released by you. Third, you respond with a threat to boycott the PC platform.
The public will respond to this, likely with a boycott of your products on all platforms. What will you do then? Blame everyone else? Or will you hold yourself accountable for your own silly and short-sighted choices?
Please don’t condone infantile actions like review bombing. There really is no excuse for them to do that.
For the record, if it was a member of the dev team, he was not threatening. He laid out facts. If people do not buy a pc version of a game, then future investment in the PC platform is not likely. That’s just business.