Valve says removing Metro Exodus from Steam is unfair to customers

Yesterday we learned that Metro Exodus would no longer be available on Steam at launch, despite being one of the highest pre-ordered games on the platform. Those who already paid will still get their copy of the game on Steam, but those who were waiting until launch have been left feeling burned. It looks like Valve has a similar view, labelling the newly forged Epic exclusivity deal as “unfair to Steam customers”.

In an update to the Metro Exodus Steam page, Valve posted a notice letting people know that “sales of Metro Exodus have been discontinued on Steam due to a publisher decision to make the game exclusive to another PC store”.

The notice goes on to say: “We think the decision to remove the game is unfair to Steam customers, especially after a long pre-sale period. We apologize to Steam customers that were expecting it to be available for sale through the February 15th release date, but we were only recently informed of the decision and given limited time to let everyone know.”

At this point, Epic Games is not only offering a stronger revenue cut for publishers compared to Steam, but the company is also signing exclusivity deals to keep games off of Steam. At first, we saw indie titles mainly signing up, but Triple A titles are starting to join the ranks too, including The Division 2 and Metro Exodus, both of which were going to be available on Steam beforehand. Metro Exodus is reportedly going to be available on Steam again in February 2020, but this announcement has already sparked quite a bit of backlash, which could hurt future sales on Steam when the game does become available again.

KitGuru Says: In the case of Metro Exodus, this does feel like a bait and switch. The game enjoyed high pre-orders on Steam and then it was yanked away just two weeks before launch. It is a move that was bound to ruffle some feathers, especially given how much loyalty a lot of PC gamers have for Steam and Valve. I don't think we've seen the end of deals like this though.

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