Every game doesn't have/need to release on Steam. The perception that this is a requirement is a problem in itself.
It wouldn't be a requirement if most of the other services weren't, to say politely, a complete joke.
Every game doesn't have/need to release on Steam. The perception that this is a requirement is a problem in itself.
Every game doesn't have/need to release on Steam. The perception that this is a requirement is a problem in itself.
Valve is a developer, not a publisher. So it's more like saying that EA should release its games on Steam.
I think this discussion would be way different if people here would actually be in the know of what kinda deals game developers often are forced to sign. I've seen developers with a great track-record sign deals where they had to accept them getting 4% of the net revenues vs. 96% of the net revs going to publishers and that's after the game has recouped all development costs, during which time a developer makes 0$. So imagine being in that position: You're working your butt off for years on end and work insanely hard while knowing that almost all of the profit the game is going to make is going to someone else and you might very well end up in the unemployment line after you delivered the work. A lot of devs still do it just because they love making games, but for a ton of developers out there it's hard to even make a proper business-case given the deals that are usually thrown around. You're not happy with signing a deal where you give up almost everything the game will ever make to one of the big publishers out there? Fine, screw you, the next developer out there will be happy to accept a shitty deal to keep their business running, so feel free to shut down and fire everybody.
You folks have no idea how insanely scary it is to not know whether or not you have to shut down everything you just built for years and years and lay off all the people you've been working with just because, and let's be honest here, most developers have always been shit about getting good deals from publishers. This goes all the way back to publishers becoming a big thing in the late 80s and early 90s when games became way too expensive to self-fund... The fact that it's customary for games to have to recoup their entire development budget (meaning 100% of all revenues go to the publishers until the game actually fully made its development budget back before the actual developer even makes his first penny on his own creation) should tell you all you need to know about how developers in the past have let themselves being fucked over just because they were desperate to keep their studios running. It's customary in the games industry right now for developers to basically take 100% of the risk and for the development budget to basically become a pretty shitty loan that you have to pay off while praying that your game will become a huge hit.
Even if you just shipped a great game, there might not be an offer on the table that's anywhere even close to reasonable cause most publishers know that developers are burning money each month after a game shipped and they probably can't sustain their burnrate for all too long before they have to shut down. I've seen developers being starved to almost bankruptcy just so publishers can sign a deal with them that's heavily in their favor. Publishers can easily sit tight and take their sweet time on contract negotiations, cause with every month that's passing, the studio they're negotiating with will lose money and at some point they'll be desperate enough to accept a shitty deal just to keep the studio from shutting down.
Remember a few years back when we saw tons and tons of smaller games studios just shutting down left and right? That's why. To a ton of studios it didn't make sense to spend 3-5 years on something that they knew would not make them any money.
And look at this now: Here comes Epic, who after their Fortnite success is reaching out to developers and offers them deals that are actually fair for once and gamers flip their shit cause the games might not end up on their preferred platform. I mean, I get it, I also love my Steam library and want to buy my games on one platform (...which is why we heavily negotiated for Ori and the Will of the Wisps to actually launch on Steam day and date), but try to really think about what it's like for developers out there for a while before you start throwing around blame. I don't want to portray Epic as a savior who's finally good and gracious to developers out there, but I know the deals they've signed with these studios are actually good deals that are win/win situations for both parties. So shit on Epic as much as you want, from the perspective of a developer, what they're doing is a good thing in the end and might just force other publishers to change their future deal structures, so that developers can actually make a good living while they're slaving away on your next favorite game.
Things are way better nowadays than they were 5-10 years ago when we saw all these studios shutting down simply because there's now way more avenues where developers could get the financing they need to make their games, but we're still very far from developers actually getting fair and square deals, so I honestly can't blame any studio head who accepts a deal from Epic. If you're faced with getting laid off and having to lay off every single person you've worked with or you accept a deal that's actually fair with the only downside being that your game might not launch on Steam... Just ask yourself what you would do.
There's a reason why a studio like ThatGameCompany, who made some excellent titles with flow, Flower and Journey, had to sign a deal with Apple Arcade - is Jenova Chen happy that his new game didn't launch on all consoles at the same time? Probably not. But I'm guessing it was the best thing to do to keep the studio alive. So it really doesn't help if gamers then throw around blame and post a lot of funny 'shaking my head' emoticons over how dumb some developer was to sign up with this or that publisher instead of going the 'traditional route', simply because the traditional route might have just led them to bankruptcy...
I think this discussion would be way different if people here would actually be in the know of what kinda deals game developers often are forced to sign. I've seen developers with a great track-record sign deals where they had to accept them getting 4% of the net revenues vs. 96% of the net revs going to publishers and that's after the game has recouped all development costs, during which time a developer makes 0$. So imagine being in that position: You're working your butt off for years on end and work insanely hard while knowing that almost all of the profit the game is going to make is going to someone else and you might very well end up in the unemployment line after you delivered the work. A lot of devs still do it just because they love making games, but for a ton of developers out there it's hard to even make a proper business-case given the deals that are usually thrown around. You're not happy with signing a deal where you give up almost everything the game will ever make to one of the big publishers out there? Fine, screw you, the next developer out there will be happy to accept a shitty deal to keep their business running, so feel free to shut down and fire everybody.
You folks have no idea how insanely scary it is to not know whether or not you have to shut down everything you just built for years and years and lay off all the people you've been working with just because, and let's be honest here, most developers have always been shit about getting good deals from publishers. This goes all the way back to publishers becoming a big thing in the late 80s and early 90s when games became way too expensive to self-fund... The fact that it's customary for games to have to recoup their entire development budget (meaning 100% of all revenues go to the publishers until the game actually fully made its development budget back before the actual developer even makes his first penny on his own creation) should tell you all you need to know about how developers in the past have let themselves being fucked over just because they were desperate to keep their studios running. It's customary in the games industry right now for developers to basically take 100% of the risk and for the development budget to basically become a pretty shitty loan that you have to pay off while praying that your game will become a huge hit.
Even if you just shipped a great game, there might not be an offer on the table that's anywhere even close to reasonable cause most publishers know that developers are burning money each month after a game shipped and they probably can't sustain their burnrate for all too long before they have to shut down. I've seen developers being starved to almost bankruptcy just so publishers can sign a deal with them that's heavily in their favor. Publishers can easily sit tight and take their sweet time on contract negotiations, cause with every month that's passing, the studio they're negotiating with will lose money and at some point they'll be desperate enough to accept a shitty deal just to keep the studio from shutting down.
Remember a few years back when we saw tons and tons of smaller games studios just shutting down left and right? That's why. To a ton of studios it didn't make sense to spend 3-5 years on something that they knew would not make them any money.
And look at this now: Here comes Epic, who after their Fortnite success is reaching out to developers and offers them deals that are actually fair for once and gamers flip their shit cause the games might not end up on their preferred platform. I mean, I get it, I also love my Steam library and want to buy my games on one platform (...which is why we heavily negotiated for Ori and the Will of the Wisps to actually launch on Steam day and date), but try to really think about what it's like for developers out there for a while before you start throwing around blame. I don't want to portray Epic as a savior who's finally good and gracious to developers out there, but I know the deals they've signed with these studios are actually good deals that are win/win situations for both parties. So shit on Epic as much as you want, from the perspective of a developer, what they're doing is a good thing in the end and might just force other publishers to change their future deal structures, so that developers can actually make a good living while they're slaving away on your next favorite game.
Things are way better nowadays than they were 5-10 years ago when we saw all these studios shutting down simply because there's now way more avenues where developers could get the financing they need to make their games, but we're still very far from developers actually getting fair and square deals, so I honestly can't blame any studio head who accepts a deal from Epic. If you're faced with getting laid off and having to lay off every single person you've worked with or you accept a deal that's actually fair with the only downside being that your game might not launch on Steam... Just ask yourself what you would do.
There's a reason why a studio like ThatGameCompany, who made some excellent titles with flow, Flower and Journey, had to sign a deal with Apple Arcade - is Jenova Chen happy that his new game didn't launch on all consoles at the same time? Probably not. But I'm guessing it was the best thing to do to keep the studio alive. So it really doesn't help if gamers then throw around blame and post a lot of funny 'shaking my head' emoticons over how dumb some developer was to sign up with this or that publisher instead of going the 'traditional route', simply because the traditional route might have just led them to bankruptcy...
Honestly I think they are far more than "fair". These are EXTREMELY generous terms.And look at this now: Here comes Epic, who after their Fortnite success is reaching out to developers and offers them deals that are actually fair for once
100% Correct.I think this discussion would be way different if people here would actually be in the know of what kinda deals game developers often are forced to sign. I've seen developers with a great track-record sign deals where they had to accept them getting 4% of the net revenues vs. 96% of the net revs going to publishers and that's after the game has recouped all development costs, during which time a developer makes 0$. So imagine being in that position: You're working your butt off for years on end and work insanely hard while knowing that almost all of the profit the game is going to make is going to someone else and you might very well end up in the unemployment line after you delivered the work. A lot of devs still do it just because they love making games, but for a ton of developers out there it's hard to even make a proper business-case given the deals that are usually thrown around. You're not happy with signing a deal where you give up almost everything the game will ever make to one of the big publishers out there? Fine, screw you, the next developer out there will be happy to accept a shitty deal to keep their business running, so feel free to shut down and fire everybody.
You folks have no idea how insanely scary it is to not know whether or not you have to shut down everything you just built for years and years and lay off all the people you've been working with just because, and let's be honest here, most developers have always been shit about getting good deals from publishers. This goes all the way back to publishers becoming a big thing in the late 80s and early 90s when games became way too expensive to self-fund... The fact that it's customary for games to have to recoup their entire development budget (meaning 100% of all revenues go to the publishers until the game actually fully made its development budget back before the actual developer even makes his first penny on his own creation) should tell you all you need to know about how developers in the past have let themselves being fucked over just because they were desperate to keep their studios running. It's customary in the games industry right now for developers to basically take 100% of the risk and for the development budget to basically become a pretty shitty loan that you have to pay off while praying that your game will become a huge hit.
Even if you just shipped a great game, there might not be an offer on the table that's anywhere even close to reasonable cause most publishers know that developers are burning money each month after a game shipped and they probably can't sustain their burnrate for all too long before they have to shut down. I've seen developers being starved to almost bankruptcy just so publishers can sign a deal with them that's heavily in their favor. Publishers can easily sit tight and take their sweet time on contract negotiations, cause with every month that's passing, the studio they're negotiating with will lose money and at some point they'll be desperate enough to accept a shitty deal just to keep the studio from shutting down.
Remember a few years back when we saw tons and tons of smaller games studios just shutting down left and right? That's why. To a ton of studios it didn't make sense to spend 3-5 years on something that they knew would not make them any money.
And look at this now: Here comes Epic, who after their Fortnite success is reaching out to developers and offers them deals that are actually fair for once and gamers flip their shit cause the games might not end up on their preferred platform. I mean, I get it, I also love my Steam library and want to buy my games on one platform (...which is why we heavily negotiated for Ori and the Will of the Wisps to actually launch on Steam day and date), but try to really think about what it's like for developers out there for a while before you start throwing around blame. I don't want to portray Epic as a savior who's finally good and gracious to developers out there, but I know the deals they've signed with these studios are actually good deals that are win/win situations for both parties. So shit on Epic as much as you want, from the perspective of a developer, what they're doing is a good thing in the end and might just force other publishers to change their future deal structures, so that developers can actually make a good living while they're slaving away on your next favorite game.
Things are way better nowadays than they were 5-10 years ago when we saw all these studios shutting down simply because there's now way more avenues where developers could get the financing they need to make their games, but we're still very far from developers actually getting fair and square deals, so I honestly can't blame any studio head who accepts a deal from Epic. If you're faced with getting laid off and having to lay off every single person you've worked with or you accept a deal that's actually fair with the only downside being that your game might not launch on Steam... Just ask yourself what you would do.
There's a reason why a studio like ThatGameCompany, who made some excellent titles with flow, Flower and Journey, had to sign a deal with Apple Arcade - is Jenova Chen happy that his new game didn't launch on all consoles at the same time? Probably not. But I'm guessing it was the best thing to do to keep the studio alive. So it really doesn't help if gamers then throw around blame and post a lot of funny 'shaking my head' emoticons over how dumb some developer was to sign up with this or that publisher instead of going the 'traditional route', simply because the traditional route might have just led them to bankruptcy...
Honestly I think they are far more than "fair". These are EXTREMELY generous terms.
In fact, generous to the point I feel it would be mostly unfair to hold them as standards against other publishers, that sure, can be greedy assholes at times, but on the other hand have every right to be wary about accepting any deal that has a good chance to turn out in a monetary loss for them.
I'm not sure why people keep specifying "including the devs salaries", by the way.Well, Epic is funding 100% cost of development and marketing including devs salaries. It's basically like making the games themselves. Expecting them to release them on Steam is still like expecting Valve to release their games on EGS.
I'm not sure why people keep specifying "including the devs salaries", by the way.
Isn't that obvious, when "dev salaries" are the overwhelming majority of the pie in any calculation of development costs?
Valve is a developer, not a publisher. So it's more like saying that EA should release its games on Steam.
Why is it a problem?
We'll know in 8-10 years, i guess.Pleased for the developers, but I do think Sony has dropped the ball here.
Would Sony have released these games on anything other than the PS5 and possibly the PS4? Epic can recoup this investment by having games on those platforms plus the Xbox platforms plus the PC. I am sure Sony has already quite the overhead of people employed making games for them.Pleased for the developers, but I do think Sony has dropped the ball here.
I'm not sure why people keep specifying "including the devs salaries", by the way.
Isn't that obvious, when "dev salaries" are the overwhelming majority of the pie in any calculation of development costs?
I think this discussion would be way different if people here would actually be in the know of what kinda deals game developers often are forced to sign. I've seen developers with a great track-record sign deals where they had to accept them getting 4% of the net revenues vs. 96% of the net revs going to publishers and that's after the game has recouped all development costs, during which time a developer makes 0$. So imagine being in that position: You're working your butt off for years on end and work insanely hard while knowing that almost all of the profit the game is going to make is going to someone else and you might very well end up in the unemployment line after you delivered the work. A lot of devs still do it just because they love making games, but for a ton of developers out there it's hard to even make a proper business-case given the deals that are usually thrown around. You're not happy with signing a deal where you give up almost everything the game will ever make to one of the big publishers out there? Fine, screw you, the next developer out there will be happy to accept a shitty deal to keep their business running, so feel free to shut down and fire everybody.
You folks have no idea how insanely scary it is to not know whether or not you have to shut down everything you just built for years and years and lay off all the people you've been working with just because, and let's be honest here, most developers have always been shit about getting good deals from publishers. This goes all the way back to publishers becoming a big thing in the late 80s and early 90s when games became way too expensive to self-fund... The fact that it's customary for games to have to recoup their entire development budget (meaning 100% of all revenues go to the publishers until the game actually fully made its development budget back before the actual developer even makes his first penny on his own creation) should tell you all you need to know about how developers in the past have let themselves being fucked over just because they were desperate to keep their studios running. It's customary in the games industry right now for developers to basically take 100% of the risk and for the development budget to basically become a pretty shitty loan that you have to pay off while praying that your game will become a huge hit.
Even if you just shipped a great game, there might not be an offer on the table that's anywhere even close to reasonable cause most publishers know that developers are burning money each month after a game shipped and they probably can't sustain their burnrate for all too long before they have to shut down. I've seen developers being starved to almost bankruptcy just so publishers can sign a deal with them that's heavily in their favor. Publishers can easily sit tight and take their sweet time on contract negotiations, cause with every month that's passing, the studio they're negotiating with will lose money and at some point they'll be desperate enough to accept a shitty deal just to keep the studio from shutting down.
Remember a few years back when we saw tons and tons of smaller games studios just shutting down left and right? That's why. To a ton of studios it didn't make sense to spend 3-5 years on something that they knew would not make them any money.
And look at this now: Here comes Epic, who after their Fortnite success is reaching out to developers and offers them deals that are actually fair for once and gamers flip their shit cause the games might not end up on their preferred platform. I mean, I get it, I also love my Steam library and want to buy my games on one platform (...which is why we heavily negotiated for Ori and the Will of the Wisps to actually launch on Steam day and date), but try to really think about what it's like for developers out there for a while before you start throwing around blame. I don't want to portray Epic as a savior who's finally good and gracious to developers out there, but I know the deals they've signed with these studios are actually good deals that are win/win situations for both parties. So shit on Epic as much as you want, from the perspective of a developer, what they're doing is a good thing in the end and might just force other publishers to change their future deal structures, so that developers can actually make a good living while they're slaving away on your next favorite game.
Things are way better nowadays than they were 5-10 years ago when we saw all these studios shutting down simply because there's now way more avenues where developers could get the financing they need to make their games, but we're still very far from developers actually getting fair and square deals, so I honestly can't blame any studio head who accepts a deal from Epic. If you're faced with getting laid off and having to lay off every single person you've worked with or you accept a deal that's actually fair with the only downside being that your game might not launch on Steam... Just ask yourself what you would do.
There's a reason why a studio like ThatGameCompany, who made some excellent titles with flow, Flower and Journey, had to sign a deal with Apple Arcade - is Jenova Chen happy that his new game didn't launch on all consoles at the same time? Probably not. But I'm guessing it was the best thing to do to keep the studio alive. So it really doesn't help if gamers then throw around blame and post a lot of funny 'shaking my head' emoticons over how dumb some developer was to sign up with this or that publisher instead of going the 'traditional route', simply because the traditional route might have just led them to bankruptcy...
Valve is a developer, not a publisher. So it's more like saying that EA should release its games on Steam.
Why is it a problem?
Would Sony have released these games on anything other than the PS5 and possibly the PS4? Epic can recoup this investment by having games on those platforms plus the Xbox platforms plus the PC. I am sure Sony has already quite the overhead of people employed making games for them.
To me it's ridiculous and very ignorant at the amount of people who in the comforts of their own home with no actual investment and no risk can judge any developer who makes a deal with any publisher. Like how entitled can one be?When Epic started making exclusivity deals last year, I said that if people want to be angry, they should be angry at the root cause (rising development costs, a more crowded market where visibility suffers) than the symptom (developers taking guaranteed payments). I have no issues with developers feeling financially secure as they work on games. If I have to buy Control 2 on EGS rather than Steam, then so be it.
By the way, Ori is a fantastic game and I really enjoyed it.
Sony wants IP ownership except for special cases like Spider-Man. They never want another Crash or Spyro fiasco.
Well, Epic is funding 100% cost of development and marketing including devs salaries. It's basically like making the games themselves. Expecting them to release them on Steam is still like expecting Valve to release their games on EGS.
Mosty people would agree it would be nice for all games to be on Steam, or for that matter all games on all platforms if possible. Epic sees things differently and are competing with Steam for customers. One way to get customers obviosuly is to have exclusive content.
You tell me? If you fund a game you can put wherever you waby. Period. Don't like it don't buy, but crying about it won't change anything.
To me it's ridiculous and very ignorant at the amount of people who in the comforts of their own home with no actual investment and no risk can judge any developer who makes a deal with any publisher. Like how entitled can one be?
Yes, they have always wanted IP ownership. What exactly are they doing with some of them like Heavenly Sword? Abdsolutely nothing. We all know you'd be thrilled Sony locking up many more deals (with third party), but I don't want to see any one company gain too much ownership. In the end it's not good for anyone.
To me it's ridiculous and very ignorant at the amount of people who in the comforts of their own home with no actual investment and no risk can judge any developer who makes a deal with any publisher. Like how entitled can one be?
Ok, then why does Sony insist on owning them? I would think most developers would like to own their own IP's so that they can distribute them any way they choose in the future but deals need to be made sometimes for the health and future of being a game developer. This is a business after all and Sony (or anyone else) does not care about being as pro-consumer as possible. Which explains the current situation here and why some are a bit upset it's Epic but if it were Sony more would likely be upset because Sony would limit even more platforms for it to be on.Plenty of publishers have IPs wasting away. We saw how well Ninja Theory did trying to self-publish and keep IP. Doubt Heavenly Sword would have helped them much. What did Sunset Overdrive do for Insomniac? Keeping ownership of IP is not some holy grail.
I get that and you can vote with your wallet, but to feel any ill will towards them or any consumer is just ignorant.Entitled about what? The decision to purchase a game or not shouldn't be considered judgment towards any developer in my opinion.
I don't think anybody is finding fault with your decision to purchase or not purchase a game based on what store its on (and by extension, what features it offers). I feel that posts like that are aimed at the people who harass developers on social media for taking such a deal.
Entitled about what? The decision to purchase a game or not shouldn't be considered judgment towards any developer in my opinion.
I get that, but to feel any ill will towards them or any consumer is just ignorant.
I don't think anybody is finding fault with your decision to purchase or not purchase a game based on what store its on (and by extension, what features it offers). I feel that posts like that are aimed at the people who harass developers on social media for taking such a deal.
This. The level of entitlement is insane.
The amount of hatred is complete non-sense, Epic has done way more good moves for the video-game industry as a whole than bad ones.
The ease of access to UE4, the amount of free content on it, the Mega-grants, now this publishing deal...
But ho noes, they secured exclusivity to their store in the past and they don't even have a shopping cart, BOYCOTT.
I mean yes of course the games they are 100% financing will be exclusively on their store on PC. I don't recall seeing half life alyx, portal 2 or CS:GO on GOG or anywhere else.
I really like Steam too but some people need to chill.
I am also 100% behing you expressing why you don't like Epic and hopefully one day, or what likely appears to be one year, they can improve things to a level of what PC gamers not only want but expect.Fully agreed. This has been my argument from the start of this Epic exclusivity thing. Developers have every right to make a business decision and explain it to customers. Customers have every right to make a purchasing decision and explain it to developers.
To my knowledge nobody, even the most hardline opponent of Epic's policies, has ever supported harassing anyone over these deals. I am all for customers expressing their disagreement but never in the form of harassment or personal attacks.
Fully agreed. This has been my argument from the start of this Epic exclusivity thing. Developers have every right to make a business decision and explain it to customers. Customers have every right to make a purchasing decision and explain it to developers.
To my knowledge nobody, even the most hardline opponent of Epic's policies, has ever supported harassing anyone over these deals. I am all for customers expressing their disagreement but never in the form of harassment or personal attacks.
I am also 100% behing you expressing why you don't like Epic and hopefully one day, or what likely appears to be one year, they can improve things to a level of what PC gamers not only want but expect.
They have picked a few smaller developers like the one who made Firewatch.I wish Valve would do something similar
they have the cash flow
Also this.No one will complain that those games aren't on other platforms either. It's because when people say they hate exclusives 99% of the time what they are really saying is that they hate the game isn't on the platform they use. They wrap it in a lot words, pro consumer this or that and something something more people can play the game. And with all that not one time have I ever seen any of these people advocate for more games to be ported to mobile phones or become F2P. Exclusives are bad people only ever advocate for games to come to their platform. Which in and of itself isn't a problem. It's the false sense of selflessness and righteousness that is so annoying.
They have picked a few smaller developers like the one who made Firewatch.
Plenty of publishers have IPs wasting away. We saw how well Ninja Theory did trying to self-publish and keep IP. Doubt Heavenly Sword would have helped them much. What did Sunset Overdrive do for Insomniac? Keeping ownership of IP is not some holy grail.
Has GENdesign made the transition to a full studio? Last time I heard of them it was a tiny place more focused on concept work and setting up partnerships with other groups to create the actual games, kind of like what they did with Sony and Japan Studio for TLG. Wonder who they might work with if that's still the case.
Plenty of publishers have IPs wasting away. We saw how well Ninja Theory did trying to self-publish and keep IP. Doubt Heavenly Sword would have helped them much. What did Sunset Overdrive do for Insomniac? Keeping ownership of IP is not some holy grail.
No one will complain that those games aren't on other platforms either. It's because when people say they hate exclusives 99% of the time what they are really saying is that they hate the game isn't on the platform they use. They wrap it in a lot words, pro consumer this or that and something something more people can play the game. And with all that not one time have I ever seen any of these people advocate for more games to be ported to mobile phones or become F2P. Exclusives are bad people only ever advocate for games to come to their platform. Which in and of itself isn't a problem. It's the false sense of selflessness and righteousness that is so annoying.
They have picked a few smaller developers like the one who made Firewatch.
The game appears to have turned out very well.
Plenty of publishers have IPs wasting away. We saw how well Ninja Theory did trying to self-publish and keep IP. Doubt Heavenly Sword would have helped them much. What did Sunset Overdrive do for Insomniac? Keeping ownership of IP is not some holy grail.
Since when Valve made them work on Alyx, didn't some members of Campo Santo choose to work on Alyx, which was not surprising choice. I mean what dev wouldn't want to work on project like that.
This is like saying expecting every PC game to release on a platform that has majority of the audience that actually buys AAA or AA games, is wrong and shouldn't be. This is seriously one of the most dumb comments I've seen in EGS threads. Customers flock to it because it offers them the best experience on PC by far.Every game doesn't have/need to release on Steam. The perception that this is a requirement is a problem in itself.
They should.
Valve should have enough money and resources to not pull them, yes I agree.IP ownership adds value to the studio even if they don't use it.
Yeah I like it but I want In The Valley of Gods!