MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries is getting a delay. Not only that, it’s now an Epic Games Store exclusive despite being sold on Steam beforehand.
“Our partnership with Epic Games store allows us the opportunity to make sure MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries meets our internal goal of creating the best MechWarrior game possible,” the statement reads on the MechWarrior website. Refunds are available for those that pre-ordered beginning September 1st.
In an AMA with fans, Pirhana Games CEO Russ Bullock explains why MechWarrior 5 became an Epic Games Store exclusive. The big reason is visibility.
“I really believe in the increased level of exposure and discoverability that the game would get from going to the Epic Game Store,” Bullock says.
“It’s a great platform and we’ve been using it, but the discoverability on there is very, very difficult.”
Bullock points out to their previous game, the multiplayer-only MechWarrior Online, as an example of Steam’s discoverability issue.
“MechWarrior Online has… you fall off the front page within moments, essentially, and it’s really hard. There are plenty of articles out there right now, and kind of a growing sentiment among smaller developers that, with 150 games being released a week or something like that, it’s really extremely difficult to know if your game is getting seen by players.”
With the Epic Games Store still having a small library of games compared to Steam’s gargantuan list, it makes sense. And arguably, the controversy of it being an Epic Games Store exclusive have made enough eyeballs to look at this mech game.
Of course, Bullock also cited Epic’s generous revenue cut. Since the game is already running on Unreal Engine anyway, putting it on Steam will have 5% of the revenue going back to Epic. So putting it on Epic Games Store, which Epic absolves the 5% cut and only taking 12% in total, compared to Steam’s 30% +5%, is a better deal for them.
It’s totally an understandable move. Now if only the Epic Games Store is as competent and has a feature list of what Steam users expected to have. Recently, the store just rolled out cloud saves, but still limited to only a few games. So it’s slowly getting there.
Via USGamer