People, he noted, sometimes even go so far as to threaten piracy in reaction to Epic exclusivity shifts. “It’s more like just having to press a button on your remote to change between free TV channels,” he said. He also took aim at the commonly-held belief that it’s “anti-consumer” to have exclusives, reiterating what many have pointed out before: Epic’s client is free to download, as opposed to a subscription-based platform like Netflix, Stan, or anything else along those lines.
“I’m sure there’s a team of folks working on launcher features for EGS, but their work depends on the platform being worthwhile from a market-share perspective to keep going,” Wasser wrote. He prefaced it by saying that he doesn’t “expect much of our uniquely-lovely community to fit into this weird anti-Epic contingent,” but went on to use that as a launchpad for a discussion of common complaints against the Epic Games Store.įirst up, he addressed the store’s well-documented lack of features like social tools, achievements, wishlists, and user reviews, saying that software development takes time, and that Steam, in particular, took 15 years to get where it is today. Wasser then moved on to the elephant - or most elephant-like Ooblet - in the room: the volcano of vitriol that erupts on every studio that signs an exclusivity deal with Epic. This also means the game’s two-person development team can hire an additional programmer and “ramp up our development resources,” but it might delay Ooblets’ early access launch because “it takes some time to ramp things up and because we won’t have as much financial pressure to prematurely shove something we’re not happy with out the door.” Wasser then settled into a more serious discussion, explaining that Epic offered the studio a minimum guarantee on sales “that would match what we’d be wanting to earn if we were just selling Ooblets across all the stores,” which takes the looming existential uncertainty associated with modern game development off the table. What’d be next? Game consoles paying for games to be exclusive on their consoles? Netflix paying for exclusive shows? Newspapers paying for exclusive articles? It’d be some sort of late capitalist dystopia.”
“Just imagine if other companies got it in their head to offer funding in exchange for exclusives. “This is exactly what Marx warned us about!” designer Ben Wasser wrote to kick it off. In an attempt to meet the inevitable backlash head on, they explained their rationale in exhaustive detail.ĭeveloper Glumberland’s exclusivity announcement post is a mixture of frank and tongue-in-cheek. Today, the game’s developers announced that, on PC, Ooblets will be an Epic Games Store exclusive. It’s not even out yet, but the gooey, chewy mash up of Animal Crossing, Harvest Moon, and Pokémon has already earned its fair share of salivating admirers. Ooblets is one of those games that just oozes effortless charm.
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