Valve Brands Metro’s Exodus From Steam “Unfair”
Valve Brands Metro’s Exodus From Steam “Unfair”
In response to this, Valve has issued a notice on their Steam storefront branding the decision as “unfair to Steam customers”. Even so, 4A Games has ensured that all existing pre-orders on Steam will be fulfilled on Valve’s platform and allowed pre-orders to remained available on Steam for several hours after the announcement, giving Steam’s hardcore fanbase time to pre-order Metro Exodus before it was too late.Â
Below is Valve’s full notice regarding Metro Exodus leaving Steam.Â
  Sales of Metro Exodus have been discontinued on Steam due to a publisher decision to make the game exclusive to another PC store.
The developer and publisher have assured us that all prior sales of the game on Steam will be fulfilled on Steam, and Steam owners will be able to access the game and any future updates or DLC through Steam.Â
We think the decision to remove the game is unfair to Steam customers, especially after a long pre-sale period. We apologize to Steam customers that were expecting it to be available for sale through the February 15th release date, but we were only recently informed of the decision and given limited time to let everyone know.
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The driving force behind Metro’s exodus from Steam is the large revenue slice that Valve takes from games on their service, taking a 30% cut by default. In contrast, Epic Games only demands a 12% cut, giving developers 88% of their games’ revenue, rather than 70%. This change gives developers what amounts to 25% more income.Â
Deep Silver’s CEO, Dr. Klemens Kundratitz, has stated that Epic’s revenue terms will allow the publisher to “invest more into content creation, or pass on savings to the players”, both of which will benefit gamers. At this time Metro Exodus costs £49.99 on both Steam and the Epic Games Store. The move to the Epic Games Store has resulted in a price decrease for Metro Exodus in some regions.Â
  
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Valve’s Steam platform has been PC’s leading storefront for quite some time, leaving the company complacent and slow to change, taking a legal battle in Australia to force them to implement an automatic refunds system and constant complaints from both consumers and developers to make any changes to the platform’s visibility system.Â
Moving forward Valve needs to change their ecosystem and make it more attractive to big publishers, as otherwise, Epic Games’ promise of more revenue will eventually push more big publishers away from Valve’s platform. Ubisoft and Deep Silver have already abandoned Steam in favour of the Epic Games Store, and it is likely that more publishers will make similar moves in time.Â
You can join the discussion on Steam branding Metro’s Exodus from Steam “unfair” to consumers on the OC3D Forums.Â