Just a day after launching, the Epic Games Store looks to be facing its first controversy. With the launch of the new storefront, several games have made the decision to offer exclusive availability through the Epic Games Store. Exclusivity with Epic on its own is understandable given the store's impressive 88%/12% revenue share. However, a controversy is brewing over both the way in which these games revealed their exclusivity and what appears to be a clamp on transparency with regards to what these exclusivity deals entail.

The Epic storefront launched in the middle of The Game Awards 2018 alongside the announcement of Supergiant Games' latest title, Hades. Hades is, at least for the time being, available via early access exclusively through the Epic Store. While this decision has been met with frustration by some fans, it has otherwise been positively received. After all, Hades was only just announced and there were no prior expectations that it would be available elsewhere.

satisfactory art

In the case of Satisfactory, an upcoming first-person factory building game, the opposite is true. Satisfactory has long been listed on Steam, even to the point of having a healthy community on the platform. Several days ago Satisfactory developer Coffee Stain Studios removed the Steam listing entirely. The community's confusion was answered only when Satisfactory appeared as one of the first wave of games available on the Epic Games Store when it launched yesterday.

Satisfactory's community, particularly on Reddit, reacted poorly given that their expectations of a Steam release would no longer be met, but also because Coffee Stain had apparently decided not to tell the community about it beforehand. Since the Epic store's launch, Coffee Stain's community manager has clarified that they were unable to discuss the change until now. Why they weren't able to discuss it isn't clear, but speculation point towards the exclusivity deal with Epic preventing transparency.

Satisfactory isn't the only game that made a dramatic change with the launch of the Epic Games Store. Ashen, the Annapurna Interactive published action RPG, has also stirred up a controversy. Ashen has long been promised by Xbox as a Play Anywhere Game Pass title, meaning it would be available to Game Pass subscribers on both Xbox One and PC. With Ashen's launch yesterday, however, it was revealed that the PC version of Ashen would be exclusive to the Epic Games Store at launch.

Ashen also has a Steam page, though it has not been removed from the platform. However, it has had its profile changed so its release date now lists "TBD" where it used to list "2018." And advertisements on the Xbox marketplace continue to show Ashen as a "Coming Soon" Play Anywhere title despite its availability on Xbox One already.

ashen screenshot

The entire situation is difficult to gauge since only three games are currently available on the Epic Games Store. Annapurna Interactive appears to have made a deal with Epic, though the studio confirmed that its exclusivity is timed. Similarly, THQ Nordic appears to have partnered with Epic to some degree, yet the THQ Nordic games on Steam remain available.

What PC game players can likely conclude is that Epic is working hard to compete with Steam. It's possible more games currently listed on Steam will be pulled before they launch, or that some games currently available on Steam will be moved to the Epic Store.

Source: ResetEra, Reddit