Metro:Exodus proves several of my points about Epic's new marketplace

When I posted at length about Epic Games' new storefront, and why it was a much bigger gamble than a lot of people were assuming when it was announced,  fair chunk of that post was about two big points:

1. Steam has a very loyal customer base, who will not be happy if strong-armed into buying into any other ecosystem. Nobody uses Microsoft's storefront, either, remember.
2. Individual indie games, no matter how good, are simply not big enough to act as system-sellers. Yes, having indie games on their platforms did wonders for Steam (and later for the PS4 and eventually Nintendo Switch; even Microsoft's XBox division belated came around to the need for them) but no one indie title or indie developer was responsible for that, and none of them are individually essential to any platform's success.

The sole possible exception to point #2 would, of course, be Fortnite... which launched on Steam, and arguably owes its success to Steam's existence. It's also the only reason that Epic Games have a hundred million or so customers with Epic accounts, customers who don't want anything from Epic except more Fortnite.

The fact that Fortnite players are likely not looking to Epic to satisfy their hunger for varied, non-Fortnite gaming experiences, something which Fortnite can't offer many of anyway, was a clear weakness that Epic needed to address, so it's no surprise that they were actively trying to lure other developers to their storefront, up to and including "poaching" them away from Steam after they'd already announced planned Steam launches. None of those early indie exclusives had moved over to Epic after already selling their product on Steam, but it really was the obvious next move.

It should be no surprise that Epic found some greedy indie dev willing to screw over their Steam customers in an ill-advised "hardball" power play, but I will admit to being slightly surprised that the makers of Metro:Exodus volunteered to be exactly this kind of test case so soon. The problem? Up until five minutes ago, the game was being advertised as a Steam launch, and has been available for pre-order on Steam.

Oh, and the move to Epic came with a $10 price drop, which wasn't immediately offered to customers who'd already bought the game on Steam.

And then there's the fact that the makers of Metro:Exodus are still advertising the game and its DLC on Steam, even though neither the game nor its DLC can be installed from Steam.

Screwed-over Steam consumers are, naturally enough, pissed, and threatening to boycott the game's launch entirely... which, in a world where The Pirate Bay exists, means that they're planning to play the game anyway, but just not pay for it, because fuck Epic and fuck the makers of Metro:Exodus for this egregiously anti-consumer bit of bullshit. All of which has the makers of Metro:Exodus threatening to boycott PC gaming entirely in the future... because that's going to help, isn't it?