I unearthed and blew the dust off my account here to let the nice folks at Obsidian and whatever corporate masters they've prostrated themselves before know that I won't be purchasing The Outer Worlds during the year it's exclusive in The Epic Games Store.  And then, when it releases elsewhere, I still won't buy it.  Nor am I too likely to buy any other Obsidian products going forward.  Steam may be garbage - GOG is the only proper digital retailer - but Epic has, in its short time of functioning, been composing a whole list of anti-consumer policies like this exclusivity nonsense, invasion of privacy, and letting publishers decide whether or not their game can be reviews.  That's the kind of scumbags that Obsidian has allowed itself to be dragged into bed with.  Well, I can't speak for others and I'm sure there's more than enough gamers with little enough discretion that you'll still do just fine, but I, for one, don't support companies that spit in the face of their customers, so I'll be taking a hard pass on all titles that go Epic-exclusive for any amount of time.  You've lost this sale, and you'll probably be losing more from me in the future.  I have a long memory, and the market is over-saturated with so many RPGs that I'll never find myself without something to play, with or without your products.

Edited March 21, 20196 yr by The RPGenius

Microsoft Store

Edited March 21, 20196 yr by Infinitron

I don't think it was Obsidian's decision to make TOW Epic Store exclusive. Private Division is the one that's pulling all the strings. If you're gonna blame anyone, then blame Private Division/Take-Two. I'm not entirely surprised that this happened since Take-Two executives are a bunch of out-of-touch, hypocritical, greedy individuals who only cares about monetary gains. It's sad that Obsidian didn't have any say in this exclusivity decision.

That's speculation. Yes Private Division has an exclusivity deal with Epic, but that does not mean Obs wasn't also ok, even enthusiastic, about going with Epic. Obs's tweet about the deal comes across rather glowingly.

I will also note that I'm dusting off my account to come in and express my disappointment. 

 

It is worth noting that The Outer Worlds was originally announced as coming to Steam and so this is a bait and switch.

 

I do understand the financial incentives to use the Epic Store right now from a developer's point of view, but from a consumer's point of view it is an outright inferior platform to Steam for many of the reasons that the topic creator already listed.

 

 

It's quite obvious that this was not done with the end customer in mind, but given that Obsidian sold itself to Microsoft, itself not known for handling it's developers or IPs well...let alone being very customer friendly (some of us have NOT forgotten the original Xbox One launch), this would appear to be becoming a trend for Obsidian. I am absolutely in no hurry to decide on if this will bother me to the point of deciding not to purchase or not, but trying to force PC players to decide on which platform they will play the game on is a scummy thing to do.

 

If Obsidian had decided to simultaneously release on Steam, GoG and Epic and let players choose, then that would be one thing. Heck, you could even make the game less pricey on the Epic Store in return for their taking a smaller cut of the revenue and given your customers an INCENTIVE to go that route and that would have been fine.

 

But it is ironic that a game that is marketing itself as being all about player choice in-game is going out of it's way to restrict the choice of their players out of game.

The problem with defending Obsidian as the stooge with no say in the matter is that they're still owned by Private Division, and my buying this or any other Obsidian game will still mean financially supporting Private Decision.  So whether Obsidian is guiltless in this matter or was chomping at the bit to slap customers around a bit for some extra shekels, my course of action to protest is still the same: refusing to buy this Obsidian product is refusing to support the asswipes who made this decision and refusing to support the asswipes in charge of Epic.  If Obsidian decides in the future it wants to cut ties with its corporate masters, then I will potentially reevaluate my position on their non-Outer Worlds products.  Until then, the reality is that showing my displeasure for companies that abuse their customers, abuse the people they owe their existence to, is boycotting this and likely future games by Obsidian, regardless of whether owner or dog is the one truly responsible.

Eurgghhh walls of text HOYYYY!

The problem with defending Obsidian as the stooge with no say in the matter is that they're still owned by Private Division, and my buying this or any other Obsidian game will still mean financially supporting Private Decision. So whether Obsidian is guiltless in this matter or was chomping at the bit to slap customers around a bit for some extra shekels, my course of action to protest is still the same: refusing to buy this Obsidian product is refusing to support the asswipes who made this decision and refusing to support the asswipes in charge of Epic. If Obsidian decides in the future it wants to cut ties with its corporate masters, then I will potentially reevaluate my position on their non-Outer Worlds products. Until then, the reality is that showing my displeasure for companies that abuse their customers, abuse the people they owe their existence to, is boycotting this and likely future games by Obsidian, regardless of whether owner or dog is the one truly responsible.

To be fair (And I myself am pissed)

 

- Obsidian isn’t owned by Private Division.Where did you get that idea? They just have the publising roights (which sadly also includes the right to choose distribution channels)

- Future Obsidian titles will most likely not be on the Epic store, rather on Steam considering Microsofts recent moves.

Edited March 21, 20196 yr by C2B

 

The problem with defending Obsidian as the stooge with no say in the matter is that they're still owned by Private Division, and my buying this or any other Obsidian game will still mean financially supporting Private Decision.  So whether Obsidian is guiltless in this matter or was chomping at the bit to slap customers around a bit for some extra shekels, my course of action to protest is still the same: refusing to buy this Obsidian product is refusing to support the asswipes who made this decision and refusing to support the asswipes in charge of Epic.  If Obsidian decides in the future it wants to cut ties with its corporate masters, then I will potentially reevaluate my position on their non-Outer Worlds products.  Until then, the reality is that showing my displeasure for companies that abuse their customers, abuse the people they owe their existence to, is boycotting this and likely future games by Obsidian, regardless of whether owner or dog is the one truly responsible.

To be fair (And I myself am pissed)

 

- Obsidian isn’t owned by Private Division. They just have the publising roights (which sadly also includes the right to choose distribution channels)

- Future Obsidian titles will most likely not be on the Epic store, rather on Steam considering Microsofts recent moves.

 

 

Then I will consider - with some very suspicious scrutiny, thanks to all of this - future Obsidian title purchases.  But by that same token, this means that this situation in particular is as much on Obsidian's head as Private Division's, because not being owned by PD means that Obsidian chose to deal with a company that has no qualms about harming its customers.  So my grudge with Obsidian isn't really abated by all that much from learning this.

 

 

The problem with defending Obsidian as the stooge with no say in the matter is that they're still owned by Private Division, and my buying this or any other Obsidian game will still mean financially supporting Private Decision. So whether Obsidian is guiltless in this matter or was chomping at the bit to slap customers around a bit for some extra shekels, my course of action to protest is still the same: refusing to buy this Obsidian product is refusing to support the asswipes who made this decision and refusing to support the asswipes in charge of Epic. If Obsidian decides in the future it wants to cut ties with its corporate masters, then I will potentially reevaluate my position on their non-Outer Worlds products. Until then, the reality is that showing my displeasure for companies that abuse their customers, abuse the people they owe their existence to, is boycotting this and likely future games by Obsidian, regardless of whether owner or dog is the one truly responsible.

To be fair (And I myself am pissed)

 

- Obsidian isn’t owned by Private Division. They just have the publising roights (which sadly also includes the right to choose distribution channels)

- Future Obsidian titles will most likely not be on the Epic store, rather on Steam considering Microsofts recent moves.

Then I will consider - with some very suspicious scrutiny, thanks to all of this - future Obsidian title purchases. But by that same token, this means that this situation in particular is as much on Obsidian's head as Private Division's, because not being owned by PD means that Obsidian chose to deal with a company that has no qualms about harming its customers. So my grudge with Obsidian isn't really abated by all that much from learning this.

The EGS wasn't even in existence when Obsidian signed with Private Division.

 

Divination does not exist in reality.

Edited March 21, 20196 yr by Vitalis

We have a thread on this.

 

https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/108935-the-outer-worlds-wont-launch-on-steam/page-1