The Steam users responded to this action, but not in a positive manner.
Lars Wingerfors, the CEO of THQ Nordic (which owns Koch Media that has Deep Silver, which will publish Metro: Exodus in two weeks), wrote the following in a press release: „I fully support our sub-groups’ autonomy to run their respective businesses. I believe it’s in the group’s, and ultimately the consumers’, best interest that business decisions are made close to the market and this is the group’s consistent business model. I firmly believe that Deep Silver and Koch Media have carefully considered the advantages and disadvantages, opportunities and risks in their decision to go solely with Epic Games Store. The decision has my full support. I have noted that there is some confusion about the two different THQ Nordic entities, the parent company and the operating entity in Vienna. As already communicated to shareholders last year, the parent company will change its name to better reflect its status.”
THQ Nordic AB, the parent company that is on the Stockholm Exchange, has three subgroups: Koch Media (distributor/publisher), who owns Deep Silver – they have the Metro, Dead Island, Saints Row and TimeSplitters IPs (amongst others); THQ Nordic GmbH (the publisher), who owns Darksiders, Titan Quest, Wreckfest, MX vs. ATV IPs (amongst others); and Coffee Stain (developer/publisher), who owns the Goat Simulator IP (amongst others). Basically, there is no full agreement under THQ Nordic between the subgroups. Weird…
Steam users did not take positively that the third instalment of Metro will be exclusive to Epic Games Store for a year. On Steam, they review bombed Metro 2033 Redux and Metro: Last Light Redux – both of them have over 1800+ negative reviews that came in the past few days. While 4A Games‘ titles still have highly positive overall ratings (86% and 87%, respectively), if the negative reviews continue, they might lose this ratio.
Tim Sweeney, the founder and CEO of Epic, wrote two months ago the following on Twitter how they plan to improve Epic Games Store: „We’re working on a review system for the Epic Games Store based on the existing one in the Unreal Engine marketplace. It will be opt-in by developers. We think this is best because review bombing and other gaming-the-system is a real problem.”
Metro: Exodus, which is out on February 15 on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC; the CEO of THQ Nordic agrees with the Epic-exclusivity on PC for the upcoming year (but the blame is on Koch Media here, not THQ Nordic!), and the Steam users do exactly what Sweeney talked about…
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