7 replies to this topic

[S3dition]

Not sure how many people have been tracking this, but Valve updated the conditions of game releases on Steam that effectively blocks any game that was previously an exclusive.

This is in the Steamworks Distribution Program Agreement, section 2.1. Specifically:

Quote

Delivery. Company shall submit the Applications to Steam for release no later than the first commercial release of each Application or Localized Version, or, if already commercially released as of the Effective Date, within thirty (30) days of the Effective Date. Therafter, Company shall submit to Steam any Localized Versions and Application Updates (in beta and final form) when available, but in no event later than they are provided to any other third party for commercial release. Company shall provide these copies in object code from, in whatever format Valve reasonably requests.

What does this mean? Well, basically Mechwarrior 5 either releases on Steam the same time it releases on EGS, or it will never be able to release on Steam.

It's likely that PGI already signed an agreement with Epic and is no longer able to back out now. For as long as this clause is in place, there is no chance that MW5 will ever make it to Steam.

To clarify, this was updated in 2017 but hasn't been enforced. The concern now is that they can let a game like Red Dead Revolver 2 launch on Steam to cash in on big titles, but block games like Mechwarrior 5 who took Epic's shilling.

Will they? Well, they're in a bit of a cold war with Epic, so it's very possible.

*updated to add entire delivery section to quote.

*Second update for clarity

Edited by S3dition, 12 September 2019 - 06:17 PM.

[Appogee]

Steam moves to protect its de facto monopoly against a cashed-up competitor trying to take some of their marketshare.

"Exclusivity" vs "Lifetime Punishment for Exclusivity" - now neither can claim the high moral ground.

While there are valid reasons to hate on Epic, a reduction in the standard 30% of sale price that Steam skims off developers with every sale would ultimately be good for developers and good for the industry.

Edited by Appogee, 12 September 2019 - 06:05 PM.

[Bombast]

Apparently you haven't been tracking this - It isn't new, it doesn't mean what you seem to think it means, and Valve has no intention of leveraging this against any of the "Ship Jumpers" that are going Epic.

[S3dition]

Bombast, on 12 September 2019 - 06:11 PM, said:

Apparently you haven't been tracking this - It isn't new, it doesn't mean what you seem to think it means, and Valve has no intention of leveraging this against any of the "Ship Jumpers" that are going Epic.

You may want to read my revised post. Also, just because they haven't yet, doesn't mean they won't. Kind of like saying WW2 won't start because the Germans won't invade Poland.

[Aidan Crenshaw]

I don't see that point of contract prohibiting a release on steam. That part says that if a contract with steam is made, and the game in question is already released on other platforms by the time the contract is made, it is to be released within 30 days.

[Karl Streiger]

S3dition, on 12 September 2019 - 06:19 PM, said:

You may want to read my revised post. Also, just because they haven't yet, doesn't mean they won't. Kind of like saying WW2 won't start because the Germans won't invade Poland.

They didn't as, USA didn't invade Panama - nothing to see here

Well as far as I know PGI never did any deal with Steam about MW5, yet. On the other hand, Steam would be stupid to not take MW5 - at least when they followed the rumors they know that there are a couple of guys that wait for this game to be released after the Epic Exclusive period

[Nesutizale]

You realy think that steam is reading the forums? Also you realy think they care about a few hundret, maybe let it be a few thousand people?

Nope unless you find tenthousands of people waiting for a MW5 steam release Steam wouldn't even bother with you.
Steam will worry about something like Metro or Boarderlands

[Zoan]

While I am by no means a legal expert, that clause basically should read like this:

If your product is already available on other platforms at the time you sign the contract with Steam, you have 30 days to deliver the product for distribution.

If your product is not yet available on other platforms, you must release it on Steam at the same time as the other platforms.

Anything exclusive on Epic can be released on Steam, they just have 30 days after they sign the contract with Steam to get it out, or they are in contract breach.

*Edit*
The entire point of the clause is to stop stuff from being poached by Epic from the Steam page. A great example of this is the game from the Metro series. Exodus I think it was? Where the developer made the Epic deal, and pulled down all the Steam stuff. This would allow Steam to sue developers for breach of contract if any tried to do this in the future. This helps ensure that if Steam spends the resources to put something together on their page, that they do not waste their resources on it.

Edited by Zoan, 13 September 2019 - 09:24 AM.