Epic needs to spend that Fortnite profit somewhere. In a press release sent out today, Epic Games and Deep Silver announced a partnership to have Epic Games as the sole digital distributor for the PC version of Metro Exodus. A surprise announcement considering Metro Exodus is due to release on February 15th and has been available to preorder on Steam for the past few months.
Two quotes from key figures of Epic and Deep Silver Games.
Tim Sweeney, founder and CEO of Epic Games:
“Metro Exodus is amazing and is deservedly one of the most anticipated PC titles of 2019. We are partnering with Deep Silver to launch Metro Exodus, underpinned by Epic’s marketing support and commitment to offering an 88% revenue split, enabling game creators to further reinvest in building great games and improving the economics of game stores for everybody.”
Dr. Klemens Kundratitz, CEO at Deep Silver:
“We are delighted to partner with Epic to bring the digital PC version of Metro Exodus to market. Epic’s generous revenue terms are a game changer that will allow publishers to invest more into content creation, or pass on savings to the players. By teaming up with Epic we will be able to invest more into the future of Metro and our ongoing partnership with series developer 4A Games, to the benefit of our Metro fans.”
A big nugget of information to come from Deep Silver is they are able to price the game at $49.99 in North America because of Epic’s revenue sharing model. The sliminess of store exclusivity won’t feel as dirty if I can get my games cheaper and the developers are happy. Needless to say, I’m torn on the matter.
Where does this lead gamers who already pre-ordered Metro Exodus on Steam after seeing the awesome E3 trailer? Well, it will be business as usual for them as they can still download it. Going forward for everyone else starting today the option to buy will no longer be on the steam page.
First Division 2 and now Metro Exodus. Those aren’t indie darlings or new publishers so seeing how the dominoes fall and how many more publishers start to sniff around for some of that sweet, sweet Fortnite money will be interesting in the next 6-12 months.
Do you think it is anti-consumer to have store exclusives? Are you still going to get it even if you have to download the Epic launcher?
