Recently, I was visiting the ever-pleasant Steam forums, looking at what positive outpourings my fellow Steam users had to say (ed - I sense a hint of sarcasm). I was shocked to find out that they were, in fact, acting unreasonably negative towards Obsidian, especially about the exclusivity deal with Epic Games for The Outer Worlds.

Let's just call it as it is; this "boycott" on Steam is pathetic. Reading through the forums, I was actually bewildered at the rudimentary and straw-man arguments that these people were using, to "justify" their anger towards Obsidian and Epic Games. Is the Epic Games store favourable to other game launchers? Of course not, but should you behave in an entitled manner, just because they are "anti-consumer"? Definitely not.



First off, let's talk about this "data-mining" argument that often gets referenced in the thread. The argument stands, that Epic Games has been found to sell personal data of its users to third-party companies for marketing purposes. My response is two-fold; first, how many accounts/websites/sign-ins have you used your email address for? Your cellphone number? So, would Epic be the only cause of your information being put out there? Insurance companies, banks, your cellphone network provider, your medical aid, all of these sell data to marketing companies. Does this make it right? Hell, no. Can you penalise Epic for it, as if they are the only ones doing it? Hell, no. Second, the irony is amazing, considering they are using Steam forums to slander a game's launcher for selling user data. Again, this doesn't justify it, but you cannot slander one and praise the other, for the same act.

The second biggest criticism is that the Epic Store is "anti-consumer". Now, this word has been twisted and tortured to mean so much, that whenever someone uses it, it kind of loses meaning. There have been many anti-consumer practices in recent months. Anthem is the biggest example, where the developer has been consistently promising new fixes and features, but failing to deliver. The Destiny franchise has also been anti-consumer, especially the first, where the base game cost R900+, then you had to buy the R500+ season pass, and still, fork out more for extra content. This would be okay if the content was worthwhile, but the base game's story was generic and just poor overall. These are examples of anti-consumerism; not a developer (or publisher) who has decided to opt for a platform that will put more money, resulting in possible sequels and more content, into the budgets of a studio. Anti-consumer is not "I don't like it".



Carrying on from this, an interesting feature appeared on Eurogamer, where they had an exclusive interview with Tim Sweeney, the founder of the Epic Games store. In the piece, Sweeney talks about the objectives of the Epic Games store, where he stated: "I understand gamers not appreciating that, these are things that are invisible to you. How much of your money goes to a developer, how much goes to Valve - you just can't tell, as a gamer. As a developer, it's critically important to your livelihood - the difference between 70 percent and 88 percent can be the difference between going out of business or growing. Very few developers have a 30 percent profit margin. This isn't some small difference to them. They have all the costs of building their game, paying their employees, marketing their game, paying for user acquisition. For most games, the store makes more profit than the developer makes. It's critically important to fix that - popular or not, it's a strategy that's necessary and it's proving to work".

This is something that Valve will never say - they make more money on the games they sell, than the developers do. At the end of the day, if you are comfortable with the developer - who has spent years creating a game you love - earning less than the storefront - who took a couple of hours to put it up - does. Maybe it's time to look in the mirror.



Should this argument apply to a game that you can see developers have not exhausted all of their efforts on? Maybe not, but for the most part, especially a company like Obsidian, developers offer their literal homes and entire life savings to create a project, only for a store to reap better benefits. As important as it is to remember the economic circumstances of the gamers, it's doubly as important to remember the livelihoods of the developer behind excellent games.

Rather than simply reacting to their cases, though, let's make a few arguments of our own. Games boycotts have always been around, and while a good portion of them have been justified, there are others that have not. For example, Metro Exodus recently launched exclusively on the Epic Store, to which fans responded by negatively review-bombing previous titles, dragging their score down. Turns out, Metro Exodus doubled its PC sales compared to Metro Last Light, and those same people who were criticising a game purely for its storefront, were now praising it. Okay, I get it, people can change their minds, sure, but does this not still indicate a problem? The fact that people are willing to give a game a negative score, no matter how great it is, purely because of its storefront?

Another problem we are having in the community, is the sense of entitlement that seems to be creeping in. A few comments on the thread have quoted "they won't get my money", "I have lost all faith", and "Obsidian has sold out"; while we all have a right to refuse a product, we also have a responsibility to respect the people who are selling it. This links back into what I have said before, there are games that do offer anti-consumer behaviour and deserved to be called out on it. However, when you are using these arguments to justify the fact that they shouldn't be earning what they deserve, because you don't like a platform? Again, take a deep, long look in the mirror. Before the retorts come, I do not know if The Outer Worlds will be good, but we also don't know it will be bad.



Now, let's look at what's actually being criticised: The Epic Store. As a game launcher, Epic Games is not my favourite, and it certainly hasn't been on my PC before Darksiders 3, Metro Exodus, and now The Outer Worlds, were announced as exclusives. Has my experience been good? Not exactly, considering I do get asked a number of times "Do you want to install Fortnite?". Has it got the features that most are looking for? No, but Epic has been bringing fixes and more features, as their revenue stream increases. Should it stop with the incessant Fortnite install request? Absolutely. Does the slight inconvenience, which can be fixed, give a valid reason as to why The Outer Worlds, and the likes, shouldn't be exclusives? I'll say it again, hell no. The Epic Store, for all its quirks, is not unnecessarily convoluted, it is not "anti-consumer", and it's certainly not the ugliest UI around (looking at you Steam). At the end of the day, the Epic Store sold a large portion of Darksiders 3 on PC, it sold double the copies of Metro Exodus compared to Last Light (on Steam), and I doubt the growth will stop at The Outer Worlds.

Finally, I want to talk to you, the person who might just be agreeing with this boycott. I would like to find out from you, without argument, judgment, or the likes, if you would be okay with working years on a personal project, sometimes pouring every last cent you have, and possibly putting your entire family on the streets, only for a third-party to make more revenue than you? If you can honestly, with the greatest of emotional empathy, say yes to that, then perhaps you are the problem.

Okay, my rant is over. Can The Outer Worlds just release already, please?