The Outer Worlds won't launch on Steam

[DCParry]

 

 

 

Decision made by the publisher.

 

Clearly Obsidians fault.

 

I love this logic.

 

The thing is that it doesnt matter who made the decision. In this purpose the developer and publisher are one and the same. It may suck for the developer but they are inseparable in guilt because either they are not able to separate or they do not separate and for us, the consumer, the end result is the same. Everything else is just shooting ourselves in the foot and making excuses for greed.

 

This is logic. Your arguments is logic cut in a third and presented as the full result. It is faulty and it is misleading, it is borderline lying.

 

 

Spoken like someone who has no idea how contract law and publishing deals work. I suppose developers should divorce from the constraints of reality for us consumers too? Obsidian should have been prescient when the signed the deal to know Epic years later would rocket onto the multiplayer game as a service scene, and launch a store with a salacious deal to wag in publisher's faces.

 

 

On one level I would love to agree with you. 

 

Obsidian, however, is no babe in the woods. They are an experienced company and they have been screwed over (more than once) by publishers. 

 

They should be better at this. The fact that they aren't is troubling to say the least. The don't have to be prescient to know that a publisher will try to be scummy. They just have to be ****ing conscious. 

[slopesandsam]

I think that panel at PAX is gonna be interesting...

[FecklessFool]

 

They should be better at this. The fact that they aren't is troubling to say the least. The don't have to be prescient to know that a publisher will try to be scummy. They just have to be ****ing conscious. 

 

They had the chance to do something great with Kickstarter. Instead we got mediocre POE. Tyranny should have had POE's budget. Though I guess they don't own that IP. But Tyranny really should have been the IP they created over generic POE.

[GrumpyPirate]

Whoa this place has turned into a **** storm real quick.

It saddens me that this game will not be across all PC platforms, but I will wait until it comes on Steam. I don't trust the Epic Store in it's current state especially with the news that Epic was going through private Steam files. If the game is good, I will buy. If the distributor is untrustworthy, I won't.

 

 

 

 

Decision made by the publisher.

 

Clearly Obsidians fault.

 

I love this logic.

 

The thing is that it doesnt matter who made the decision. In this purpose the developer and publisher are one and the same. It may suck for the developer but they are inseparable in guilt because either they are not able to separate or they do not separate and for us, the consumer, the end result is the same. Everything else is just shooting ourselves in the foot and making excuses for greed.

 

This is logic. Your arguments is logic cut in a third and presented as the full result. It is faulty and it is misleading, it is borderline lying.

 

 

Spoken like someone who has no idea how contract law and publishing deals work. I suppose developers should divorce from the constraints of reality for us consumers too? Obsidian should have been prescient when the signed the deal to know Epic years later would rocket onto the multiplayer game as a service scene, and launch a store with a salacious deal to wag in publisher's faces.

 

 

I completely understand and this is the entire point. You however do not understand it seems. When you sign a contract that takes away your independence then you are responsible for what comes from it, good and bad. There is no "but" or "if" or "however". It may be necessary, they may believe it is necessary or it may just be ignorance and greed mixed with intentionally blinding themselves to reality (my money is on a mix of the last and the middle) but in the end it does not matter.

 

They are responsible for their actions and this fact is something that all the apologists in the world and all of the greedy or well-meaning-but-naive companies in the world wants to ignore. Reality is a double edged sword and they want to throw themselves on the blunt end of the blade, giving the illusion that it is a selfless sacrifice to reality. You cannot nitpick on logic, if you choose one branch you have to follow it to the tip.

[injurai]

On one level I would love to agree with you. 

 

Obsidian, however, is no babe in the woods. They are an experienced company and they have been screwed over (more than once) by publishers. 

 

They should be better at this. The fact that they aren't is troubling to say the least. The don't have to be prescient to know that a publisher will try to be scummy. They just have to be ****ing conscious. 

 

 

A company that has remained independent for years, far beyond most every other video game company in existence. In part from learning from mistakes, and from putting the games first.

 

A company that still needs to find cash flows to support their full time employees with families, debts, mortgages, health and insurance needs, and retirements plans.

 

A company that has a legal team that can only sign as good of contracts as their lawyers are prescient.

 

A company that isn't actually one in the same with the publisher, that doesn't actually need a divorce, but does have a contract that needs fulfilled.

 

A company that started this project long before Epic's re-ascent as a developer, way back when Leonard Boyarsky departed Blizzard after Diablo 3. Way before this new wave of games that Overwatch was part of. Before they would ever need to lock down launch platforms back when Take-Two was known as being a 3rd party multi-platform powerhouse.

 

That company? That company should take on greater financial risk? Avoid being coupled to contracts even when mutually beneficial? That company is really guilty for being unable to separate out of their contract over a 1 year exclusive deal made by their contractual publisher?

 

Because that's what I was arguing against.

 

A company as good as Obsidian cannot predict all the schemes of a publisher. Further it's slim pickings when it comes to publishers, and publishing models always leave certain powers to the devs, and certain one's to the publishers. That's what incentives the contract in the first place.

 

You'd love to agree but can't because Obsidian should know better? They only know better in relations to the circumstances they have actually fallen prey to. They have avoided more than any other independent dev, and successfully got bought up by a stable 1st party that can ride out all sorts of risks. They earned their victory. And this final publishing deal that got them through a very rough time is supposed to be a grave mistake?

 

I came into this thread to loathe Epic and it's store. Not to victim blame Obsidian with entitled ideals and estranged understandings of business, economics, and contract law. Take-Two gave them their creative freedom, this game will eventually not be an exclusive. It will be around until the end of human civilization. But I guess it still wasn't worth it or something because "consumer needs" and "Obsidian got properly ****ed and they should have known better." Come on!

[GrumpyPirate]

 

 

 

Not even that surprised. Obsidian have been slipping for a long time indicating worrying degrees of greed that they are desperately trying to hide behind a cracking facade, I was really hoping this would be their redemption arc but it seems it is rather the epitome and end-result.

 

They have for years released games that are half finished, lacked obviously cut content and prioritized DLC beyond desperately needed bugfixes for some pretty damn critical bugs. And it is especially sad to see with a studio that actually can still make good games otherwise because there are very few of those left in this day and age.

 

Tyranny was clearly cut in half or atleast had a third of the actual game missing. Pillars of Eternity 1 was a great game but it only grew into this after all its DLC was released and bugfixes of several years were out. Pillars of Eternity 2 was a mess, with obvious cut content and game breaking bugs everywhere while they happily dished out DLC for your moneys.

 

I had already decided not to buy more Obsidian games until reviews released and users confirmed it was both rich and actually in a working state but this was the final nail in the coffin. Obsidian you break my heart with this bull**** but as you insist on your moneygrubbing ways and blatantly anti-consumer (Remember that guy? The consumer? The person that made you what you are? The person that raised you and nourished you and once flourished with joy your success and its result? Yeah that guy) practices are the final "**** you" to those of us who loved them and their works. You can go bugger yourselves Obsidian, you are a disgrace and I hope you die in a similar fashion as the studio that once was Bioware. I will never give you a single penny of my hard earned money again until you have proven yourself worthy of it and considering it took you years to earn my regard the first time how long do you think it will take for you to earn it back? You completely and thoroughly disgust me in what you are and what you have become.

Decision made by the publisher.

 

Clearly Obsidians fault.

 

I love this logic.

The thing is that it doesnt matter who made the decision. In this purpose the developer and publisher are one and the same. It may suck for the developer but they are inseparable in guilt because either they are not able to separate or they do not separate and for us, the consumer, the end result is the same. Everything else is just shooting ourselves in the foot and making excuses for greed.

 

This is logic. Your arguments is logic cut in a third and presented as the full result. It is faulty and it is misleading, it is borderline lying.

Yes, because Obsidian lacks the funds to self publish, wants to give the consumers the best product they can, and decides that crowdfunding will impair the quality; they are the ones that are at fault for any decision that is made by the publisher.

 

Obsidian should really just decrease the quality of the product, separate from the publisher, and go back to crowdfunding. What could ever go wrong with that!

 

 

That they lack money is simply not true. It is a lie or you are uninformed. They may not have ALL the money but they certainly have enough and more than enough name recognition to make up for the rest despite squandering alot of it lately. They may not be able to make a AAA+++ game but a very very impressive game can be made on a way smaller budget than the classical AAA studios do. Not to mention all of their recent deals.

[injurai]

 

Whoa this place has turned into a **** storm real quick.

It saddens me that this game will not be across all PC platforms, but I will wait until it comes on Steam. I don't trust the Epic Store in it's current state especially with the news that Epic was going through private Steam files. If the game is good, I will buy. If the distributor is untrustworthy, I won't.

 

 

 

 

Decision made by the publisher.

 

Clearly Obsidians fault.

 

I love this logic.

 

The thing is that it doesnt matter who made the decision. In this purpose the developer and publisher are one and the same. It may suck for the developer but they are inseparable in guilt because either they are not able to separate or they do not separate and for us, the consumer, the end result is the same. Everything else is just shooting ourselves in the foot and making excuses for greed.

 

This is logic. Your arguments is logic cut in a third and presented as the full result. It is faulty and it is misleading, it is borderline lying.

 

 

Spoken like someone who has no idea how contract law and publishing deals work. I suppose developers should divorce from the constraints of reality for us consumers too? Obsidian should have been prescient when the signed the deal to know Epic years later would rocket onto the multiplayer game as a service scene, and launch a store with a salacious deal to wag in publisher's faces.

 

 

I completely understand and this is the entire point. You however do not understand it seems. When you sign a contract that takes away your independence then you are responsible for what comes from it, good and bad. There is no "but" or "if" or "however". It may be necessary, they may believe it is necessary or it may just be ignorance and greed mixed with intentionally blinding themselves to reality (my money is on a mix of the last and the middle) but in the end it does not matter.

 

They are responsible for their actions and this fact is something that all the apologists in the world and all of the greedy or well-meaning-but-naive companies in the world wants to ignore. Reality is a double edged sword and they want to throw themselves on the blunt end of the blade, giving the illusion that it is a selfless sacrifice to reality. You cannot nitpick on logic, if you choose one branch you have to follow it to the tip.

 

 

They remained independent, that's how they could be acquired by Microsoft.

It is necessary  to obtain funding for these people to continue their livelihoods.

The end does matter, which is you having a bug-fixed game on non-EGS platforms. For happily ever after.

 

Apologists? Throw themselves on the blunt end of the blade? Illusion of selfless sacrifice? Nitpick on logic?

 

How about try talk in congruence to reality rather than waxing righteous indignation with angry metaphors sprinkled with angry talking points that sound like they were lifted straight from the works of Dawkins or Hitchens but without any of the backing substance.

[GrumpyPirate]

 

 

 

SNIP

 

Funding is obtained from the customer from a established company. If you are unable to do this then the company should not exist. Obsidian have been around for years and years and years, they have no excuse. They are not new. They do not lack brand recognition. They are not inexperienced and blue eyed in any way

 

The fact is that you are apologizing for monopoly-building. There is no way around it. You are defending the attempted establishment of a monopoly. You really should take a step or two back and consider what it is you are defending mate.

 

Metaphors are clumsy and broad by their very existence and nitpicking on them is frankly silly. They exist to illustrate a point in broad terms and if you are unable to defend your point of view without criticizing a metaphor for being what a metaphor is then you are clearly lacking actual points of argument.

 

And claiming no one can build anything without selling their souls utterly and completely is a pure lie. CDPR built themselves. Valve, the oh so hated dominating force in the marketplace that for some weird reason never tried to force a monopoly situation, was built from valve and never sold out (yes they are degrading but for the purpose of this argument it is beside the point because they attained their position without selling out in this way first). There are plenty of flourishing indie devs that can release good games without selling their soul or falling into anti consumer practices, they just release the game they can make instead of a imaginary game they cannot. And if tiny 1-3 man studios can release games then a huge brand like obsidian can certainly release something even better. May not be AAA+++ but no one excepts or demands this, no one in their actual following anyway. This is just another example of a company that is not satisfied with their money and niche. They want ALL the money and every niche, no matter how absurd and unrealistic this is. And if anything the absurd degradation in quality of actual AAA titles nowadays proves that backing money means nowhere near as much as you think for actually making a good game.

Edited March 21, 2019 by GrumpyPirate

[Ad Hoc]

It must truly suck to be an Obsidian employee and have your reputation defamed this way, while your publisher counts their lucre.

 

I wonder how Valve feels about having provided free advertising for an Epic elusive?

[stoicromance]

This was a ****ty decision

[Zoraptor]

 

 

So, you are saying that NONE of the recent Epic exclusive would have been sold on GoG? I don't think it was unreasonable, given Obsidian's history, as well as the fact it was being fully advertised as a AA game (and I read somewhere - I actually forgot where) that it was being published by the indie arm of 2k, that is would have been released on GoG at launch?

 

What about all those Phoenix Point GoG keys? That doesn't count?

 

 

Phoenix Point would be a loss, and probably the largest of the ES 'exclusives' announced so far, but its GOG keys wouldn't be since GOG gets nothing from them financially. Indies don't sell much in general, but PP hits a lot of targets in GOG's user base. Any A or greater class titles, default is no immediate GOG release anyway with very very few exceptions. Last one might actually be Witcher 3, and that was CDPR's own title.

 

So there was never a realistic possibility of TOW being on GOG day 1. 2k has never done that, and the very decision to make put it on ES 'exclusively' shows the likelihood of it being on GOG was small with a 2k affiliate publishing. 2k does release on GOG, but typically with a 5 (!) year delay such that their next release is likely to be either Civ5 or Bioshock Infinite.

 

 

 I don't trust the Epic Store in it's current state especially with the news that Epic was going through private Steam files.

 

While they shouldn't be doing that it's mostly a "Origin is reading my medical files" type beat up. If it's genuinely private data then Steam ought to encrypt it, that's basic security.

 

 

Funding is obtained from the customer from a established company.

 

 

It really isn't. A developer goes to a publisher, gets paid by contract for a game, and then the money from the game goes to the publisher. The dev may get a share of sales but they may not, or they may get a share of sales/ proceeds above a break even point for the publisher, or they may (or may not, heh) get bonuses for good performance either critically or in terms of sales. In most cases though if a developer is getting their funding from customers it's because they're also the publisher; and that isn't the case here.

 

Valve [..] never tried to force a monopoly situation

 

 

If we don't define Steam's position as monopolistic we certainly can't define ES as it either though- TOW and most of their other exclusives are on Windows Store too, after all.

 

Valve has tried to get a monopsony situation rather than a monopoly one, technically speaking.

[bucky699]

I was hyped for this game, now i had to create an account here just so i could come and tell you where to shove your EPIC betrayal.......

[axedice]

I'll be sorry to skip a Cain / Boyarsky game at launch, but that's exactly what I'll be doing just out of spite. Exclusivity is cancer, and any money you spend on Epic will return metastasized tenfold.

[Flouride]

So Obsidian got money to force us to have a worse experience with their game.

 

How's that for greed? No consideration for the customer, just money. That's the only thing they care about.

 

I'm fairly certain that the publisher took all of that Epic exclusivity money and laughed on their way to the bank.

[Flouride]

 

 

On one level I would love to agree with you. 

 

Obsidian, however, is no babe in the woods. They are an experienced company and they have been screwed over (more than once) by publishers. 

 

They should be better at this. The fact that they aren't is troubling to say the least. The don't have to be prescient to know that a publisher will try to be scummy. They just have to be ****ing conscious. 

 

 

Epic Gaming Store wasn't even a thing when they've signed their deal. Private Division (under Take-Two) would not in a million years, put their product on the other stores available at that time (Origin and Uplay). That left only Steam and GOG as options. Don't know who could have seen this happening 3 years ago, when this doesn't make sense even now.

[Lord_Darkmmon76]

I can understand exklusive deals, they happen. Some may not like it but that's how it works sometimes.

 

What is not ok imho is that Obsidian used Steam to promote the game for months. They used Steam to build a community for this game. And suddenly they switch to the Epic Games Store but STILL use Steam to maintain the community and continue to promote the game via Steam.

 

So Steam is good enough for still promoting the game but not for releasing it? They should at least be honest and show the courage and remove the game from the Steam until it is released over there.

This is very disappointing.

[sonlieus]

I will not buy a single game from epic store, they are anti-consumer. I will not buy your game, I have high hope and faith in your company. And now you make me disappointed ( I am sure it is not just me). Against your fanbase, and those who have faith in you never be a wise idea.

[Pidesco]

Again, regardless of how you feel about this decision, advocating piracy is not the way to go.

 

Posts doing so will be removed.

[Guest]

Meh. Looks like I'll buy it twice; PS4 at launch and on Steam when it's available.

 

nbd

[Murp]

I'm sad and mad. Mostly sad.

[daven]

Oi fools. Stop white knighting Steam... you know, a giant corporation. 

 

Is it really worth getting that upset about?! Get the PS4 version or something.

[jf8350143]

Oi fools. Stop white knighting Steam... you know, a giant corporation. 

 

Is it really worth getting that upset about?! Get the PS4 version or something.

I highly doubt people are white knighting Steam, we just don't like EGS.

[Calinks]

*Reads through thread*

 

I take it I'm the only person on this site who was getting this game on console. 

[Dean478]

-1 sale.

 

Screw this anti-consumerist crap.

[AeonsLegend]

Oi fools. Stop white knighting Steam... you know, a giant corporation. 

 

Is it really worth getting that upset about?! Get the PS4 version or something.

So we have to give the money to another corp like Sony, who sells all games for 20% more? Since Sony is now on the warpath with censorship I feel like I actually need to boycot them.