Deep Silver and 4A Games Respond to Metro Exodus Developer Talking about Metro Leaving PC

Following the critical comments of the Metro Exodus developer in regards to boycotting the game, Deep Silver and 4A Games release an official statement saying that they do not share the same view.

[TK-55]

This is a genuine case where you might want to tell an employee to keep their mouth shut. I don't want the guy fired but seriously most businesses wouldn't take an employee agitating potential customers lightly. Especially when bad PR is already going around.

[Dark_Knightmare2]

You know what I dont blame him. I would be damned if I spent years working on something that I was passionate about and put thousands of hours into just to hear people crying because of a business move 4a had no control over. I’m tired of people acting like they can say whatever they want and the developer is just supposed to sit there and take it hell no they should be allowed to point out stupidity especially when it’s coming from people who don’t know the first thing about making games yet are telling them how to do their jobs like are you serious

[TK-55]

"I would be damned if I spent years working on something that I was passionate about and put thousands of hours into just to hear people crying because of a business move 4a had no control over. "

If you can't handle it you're in the wrong business.

[Cobra951]

I don't blame him a bit either. He laid the smack exactly where it was deserved, on the lazy crybabies who can't be bothered to spend two minutes installing a new launcher.

[starchild]

You know, this is a hard one for me. I believe that people have the right to criticize something they don't like or even boycott it, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's right. People get these two things confused. What you have the right to do isn't always the right thing to do. I have the right to stuff my face with donuts every day until I die of a heart attack, but it's not a smart thing to do.

I also think that developers or representatives of any company have the right to speak up and correct misrepresentations of their product or to comment on whatever they want really. But they have to be ready for how consumers might react.

So, neither the developers nor the consumers are acting outside of their legal rights here. That said, I think the complainers are overreacting and I can sympathize with how the developers feel. But I don't think the one developer should have reacted based on emotion and said they should stop putting their games on PC. He should have stuck to facts and logic that illustrate how this is being blown out of proportion.

[rainslacker]

While I understand why a dev can be annoyed by whats happening, both with the way it's being distributed, or in this case, against those who are critical, it is not the devs place to go and criticize the potential customer base of this game. It is not up to the dev, particularly a random dev within a team, to make public statements that address the community at all, and if they were given permission, they should understand that when addressing the community, you don't chastise their concerns with disdain, but rather express empathy and understanding to try and curtail the situation.

Without fail, becoming aggressive with the community, even if in a passive way like was done here, it will backfire on you, and serve no purpose to remedy the situation at hand. People will dig in more, and become more hostile back, and when it comes to the internet, the every day user has a lot more voice than the developer themselves. Even the producer and publisher can be drowned out in changed narratives, or snow balling criticism for the game, often times which grow to become much worse than the original situation.

In this case, the people aren't blaming the devs, they're expressing that they don't like the situation that caused them to have to choose a platform they may not wish to use, or choose to wait on the game. While I think this was probably overblown, and likely won't result in any meaningful loss of sales to the game, it's still not necessary for the dev to address the community with an appeal to trying to get them to accept it because of the long term ramifications. The dev themselves is using extreme hyperbole and worst case scenario to get people to panic, all while disregarding people's criticism.

@Star

"I also think that developers or representatives of any company have the right to speak up and correct misrepresentations of their product"

Yes, they have that right, but in this case, he wasn't correcting false information. He was telling people something that is false, in the hopes of mitigating the criticism, instead of addressing the criticism of the actual scenario(and it's facts) in question.

[Dark_Knightmare2]

Ok it goes both ways though if you can’t handle a dev replying back and giving it to you don’t comment. It’s no excuse that because they are game devs they need to be able to take crap like this and not be allowed to speak up. I don’t care what job you have your aren’t going to let people who have no clue how to be successful in your field and who aren’t in your field come to you and say whatever they want because they think they know better.

[TK-55]

"Ok it goes both ways though if you can’t handle a dev replying back and giving it to you don’t comment. It’s no excuse that because they are game devs they need to be able to take crap like this and not be allowed to speak up."

When you put yourself out there and make a product you have to accept that the product will be criticised along with any business decisions related to it. He obviously can't handle it and decided to stupidly go onto a forum and blackmail anyone boycotting the game by saying "well in that case any future games won't be on PC". Turns out he was basically making things up and now he's being called out on it.

Also, I can handle responses to my own statements which is why I'm responding to you calmly. The developer clearly wasn't capable of doing this.

" I don’t care what job you have your aren’t going to let people who have no clue how to be successful in your field and who aren’t in your field come to you and say whatever they want because they think they know better."

Sounds like a childish way of handling things and the sort of mindset people who flag videos of critics on Youtube have. Just so you know that statement can actually be interpreted as being in favour of taking down criticism of a product if the critic isnt in the same field of work. Good logic. Btw no one is actually criticising the quality of the game because it's not out yet so your comment is asserting something that's just not happening.

I think you've gotten a bit too emotionally attached to this just like the developer lol.

[SlagWolf]

He was a idiot but I don’t think he should be punished for it. The Epic launcher is vomit inducing shit. If to get me use there pile of shit launcher they need to buy exclusive games then you are just proving your launcher is shit. Right now the two best ones are GOG and Steam. They are both far and away more pro consumer then the rest. Epics dumpster fire won’t even let you use reviews unless the developer/publisher grants you the right. The Epic launcher is anti consumer and pro corporate. Not great long to touch it... ever.

I have no problem waiting for the steam release and when it’s $10 or less now

[--bienio--]

Who cares?? They not going to have my money!!! Fuc... then!!!

[pandehz]

Why buy a good game when you can buy skins in fortnite right?

[--bienio--]

I’m not paying fortnite at all..
I’m just saying after removing game 3weeks before release I’m not bothering about this game. It’s only my decision. I prefer give my money to people who actually cares for players instead of giving them ultimatum..

[Dark_Knightmare2]

Wow you showed them slow 👏

[Father__Merrin]

Metro is a great game series. Absolute nerds that will boycott it because its going to another store front, this is extreme fanboyism tbh I've always felt pc fanboys are most annoying. I'm certain all the new batch of pc gamers will embrace alternate stores

[pandehz]

Been playing all the Metro games on pc. The selling platform never mattered. The game is all I care about.

Those complaining don’t care about the game, Metro publisher and dev have nothing to worry about. A good game will get good reviews and they should just ignore these fanboys.

Some pc players are just plain annoying. Usually pc gamers are a blast to play with and know most games in and out and are super friendly. I play Guild Wars 2 and the community is just fantastic there. Metro has a good following and they love the game enough to not care about the vendor.

[Seraphim]

that has kind of been my line of thought since this blew up. A lot of those complaining simply never cared about the game to begin with. Granted there are certainly some in that lot who do care but a lot of the smoke is likely caused by people simply jumping on the hate wagon.

I sold my gaming rig a while back & wish I were able to work again to build a new one (another story).... but it seems to me a lot of PC gamers use various sources for their games already. EA Access, Battlenet, Steam, now Epic, D2D, Humble, perhaps Windows Store, and whatever else. Obviously depending on what they play. Perhaps some do stick to only one, play only EA games, get what they want on Steam, whatever. But I'd imagine a good portion of PC gamers who have a broad taste in games aren't solely linked to one source.

[Cobra951]

@Seraphim: The whole thing blows my mind. The PC has always been about the user controlling the environment, and here people are screaming bloody murder because one company decided not to play ball with the console-like Steam service. Games used to get installed by the user directly, no services involved.

Steam is not a platform. The PC is the platform. Steam, Epic, Origin, Uplay, et al run on that platform. They all run on the same PC. Personally, I wish they'd all go away. But they're the reality now, and I can deal with them, no sweat. Why does anyone get their panties in a bunch about this?

[jagstar44]

Doesn't really make much sense to me, you have to download battlenet to play blizzard games, you have to download origin to play E.A games etc. exclusivity is lame but its pretty normal at this point, I don't get why so many people are so upset to the point they're saying they're going to pirate it instead.

[Cobra951]

It isn't exclusivity. Exclusivity is when *you can't play the game* because you don't own the right platform. You can't get the Xbox to play God of War by downloading PSN. The PC can handle Epic as well as it handles Steam.

[TheOptimist]

I am not boycotting it, but I am waiting for it come to my preferred platform.

[Father__Merrin]

Just to add. I get all Ubisoft games on Uplay, same for EA with Origin, fallout 76 on Bethesda launcher obviously epic games store as well as gog and the rest on steam. I much prefer it this way. On my comp when you hit start page all the stores are there really feels like you have a compendium of games so this topic doesn't bother me

[rainslacker]

It's not even exclusive for that long, so if people don't want to buy it on the Epic store, just buy it on Steam when it releases if you really want to play it. Do that, and if the sales aren't there for the Epic store, then its unlikely that you'll see more of this going forward.

I can understand why people may boycott it on principal, but when you look at it from a publishers point of view, they don't see the loss of sales as a result of their decisions to do something like this, but rather, that people aren't interested in the game or series.

Personally, while I'm not a PC gamer, I'd just buy the games where they were, and not worry about supporting a platform. I'll be playing them on the same system, with the same hardware, and I couldn't care less which store front gets a cut of the take. But, knowing what I do, I actually might consider buying on the Epic store, just because I know the developer or publisher get a larger percentage of the sale. Steam makes more than most publishers, and all they really do is provide a distribution service, with some game related services to round it out and build an ecosystem. I'd rather that money go to the devs.

[Blu3_Berry]

It would be wise for this developer to shut his mouth. There is alot of bad press already surrounding them, and this developer is adding more fuel to the fire. The move from Steam to Epic is a d*ck move, period.

[WitcheRivia]

I don't think anyone cares what Deep Silver has to say.