Or how about banning you for buying too many games in a short time period (no cart, remember), during a sale no less (also not letting devs know there is a sale beforehand so they can potentially opt out)?
Yea that's the gist of the issue. They're not competing by being a better storefront, they're competing by monopolizing the products. It's scummy.
I am really displeased with the Epic Store fiasco, even if Epic provided late-stage funding. We, the backers, made development possible in the first place. We asked for a PC option, which was quickly revealed to be Steam as expected. Backtracking on their announcement and saying that it will still be released on Steam is simply not good enough, as it will come at an uncertain later date. Kickstarter backers should never be the last to get the game, unless it was due to a porting delay akin to Yooka-Laylee for Switch. In this case there is no such technical delay, just an act of greed. The game looks better and better with each trailer, but my excitement toward it has plummeted. I refuse to install Epic, and I shouldn't have to.
This article was already updated twice since I first saw it, so the situation could change again and probably will: Shenmue 3 is a 1-year Epic exclusive, developer 'looking into' community feedback Initially the article said they were looking into it and might be able to offer refunds, via an interview with Yu Suzuki and Deep Silver. Then it was updated again because Deep Silver wanted to distance themselves from Kickstarter backers by saying they weren't involved with that part of the project and backers need to contact the team handling the official site / kickstarter campaign. It sounds like their actions might have violated some consumer protection laws in some regions, so it's possible the situation could still change again. Perhaps they'll get stuck offering Steam keys to KS backers without actually selling the game on Steam. This may have been covered on the previous page (don't remember what's here and what isn't) but it was confirmed today that Epic Game Store has 1 year exclusivity. After that it can show up on other stores. Also worth noting: The EGS exclusivity only affects regions where Deep Silver is publishing the game. In China for example, they already announced a deal last year for Tencent to publish the game there on their WeGames store. I don't believe we know who's publishing it in Japan yet. Either way, I'm glad I backed PS4 physical as my primary and only added PC as digital so that I'd have both versions. With Shenmue I & II, I had a purchased both platforms with the intention of modding & playing through it again on PC after I was done with PS4 but I never got around to it and instead just played around with modding only recently. Regarding the gameplay footage released today (over 20 minutes!), I suspect we'll be getting more from other outlets later in the week. It looks very much Shenmue in both the good and bad. The voice acting seems okay, probably better than the originals but I think we'll still end up with some room for improvement. The UI seems more animated than before, which is a plus I guess. Lucky hit looks weird - I remember the first time I played on Dreamcast I thought downward gravity looked way too fast but eventually decided it made sense for a ball falling directly downward - but this version of it looks slow by comparison even though the overall behavior of it is comparable to the previous game. Fighting and training look good, and so does opening those toy capsule machines. It's kind of neat that they put lures for fishing into a toy capsule machine - kids are going to love the dangerous pointy toys! tl;dr - Yeah, they kind of fucked up with the EGS exclusivity, but I still think the gameplay itself looks exactly like what I'd expect continuing from the previous games in the series and they did well on that.
Mine: Me being a backer, for what it's worth, I hope they are taking a good long look at the situation and honor the steam codes for backers.
>tfw the Steam page still says November 19, 2019 Anyway, that technically isn't true. If they put Shenmue III in any kind of beta on Steam they then could provide keys. In fact, some Kickstarters provide keys the moment they get their money and have seen how many backers there are. Point is, if they really wanted to, people could have already had keys.
Of course it's not. It's Epic Games swinging their dicks around because they have a store and they are trying to create a market who they happened to be in bed with Deep Silver.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ysnet/shenmue-3/posts/2553891 Looks like I'll be demanding a refund.
Man, what a mess. Yeah, there is a Steam Key, but a year later? So I guess that gives us a little understanding of the time window of when the Steam version will be availible to non-backers. It does tick me off to hear "The PC Physical version will be delivered on disk. However, the disk will contain the Epic Games Store installer and not the actual game data." Like, what's the point?
Paying 30 dollars more for a disk with an epic game store installer would tick everyone off. I wouldn't be surprised if there will probably never be a drm-free release at this point
It didn't really have to be DRM-free, just... well, not this. lol I'm just going for the PS4 physical version. Unlike PC, you can just play it without having to worry about launchers and stuff. (I hope... there's still time where they can goof that up!) Gone are the days where we could just play a game on a "PC platform" rather than "platforms for the PC". It's pretty sad.
Something they didn't address: If backers who choose to wait a year will get their backer-exclusive in-game perks for the Steam edition. Holy fuck.
I actually found a game that backs up my claim. It's due out in August 2020 but the Kickstarter ends this month yet you get a key fairly quickly once it's over. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2081517796/ethereal-enigma-visual-novel-game/posts/2557389
[INSERT LAUGHTRACK HERE] Sure, it'll be out it in Aug 2020, without any problems or delays whatsoever Also, another article confirming backers will not get any of the preorder bonus content.
I continue to believe that as this shit keeps happening, we're even less likely to see another sequel made ever again.
I mean, if this is the kinda precedent they're setting up for the franchise, I kind of don't even want the third one anymore... I regret backing it the more I hear about these practices.
The articles claiming backers won't get preorder bonus content is fake news. It hasn't been confirmed either way, it's based on someone misreading a PM that basically says the opposite (people who preorder won't get backer-exclusive content).
Let's post the important part here and let people dissect it for themselves: To me, this just sounds like bonus dlc, which will be included with the retail sales, will be able to be purchased at the time of launch. Nowhere does it state "pre-order", but they just happened to be bundled with those versions of the releases.
