Yesterday, during the PC Gaming Show, a new trailer for Shenmue III dropped which announced that the game’s PC release would now be exclusive to the Epic Store. Backers of the original crowdfunding campaign were not happy about this decision, to say the least.
The post on the Shenmue III crowdfunding page, announcing that the game would be exclusive to the Epic Store, received well over a thousand angry comments regarding the lack of a Steam release. Many of the backers demanded refunds. The Steam store page for Shenmue III is still up with the November release date, and the backer survey still lists Steam as an option.
Now, the excuse that we’re given as to why this isn’t actually a bad thing is that the Epic Store’s launcher is free to download. But in reality, the Epic Launcher is “free” in the same way that Facebook or Discord are “free.” The launcher collects data on what other computer programs you’re running and the files you have stored in certain directories. And if that wasn’t creepy enough, Tencent, the company that owns 40% of Epic Games, has ties with the Chinese government. The Epic Store is so horribly mismanaged that, during a sale last month, several publishers pulled their games from the store because they weren’t informed about the sale ahead of time.
We’re also told that, because there’s no ethical consumption under Late-Stage Capitalism, there’s nothing wrong with supporting a company that abuses its workers. Other companies do it too, so it’s perfectly fine!
Shenmue III isn’t the first game to be made exclusive to the Epic Store, nor is it the first from Deep Silver Inc. Metro Exodus was another game published by Deep Silver to launch exclusively on the Epic Store. Deep Silver has clearly learned nothing from the poor sales of Metro’s PC release.
Deep Silver also published Mighty No. 9, another game that was fraught with controversy during and after the crowdfunding campaign. They also own the rights to the Saints Row series, the Risen series, and Kingdom Come: Deliverance. According to Moby Games, Deep Silver is “a wholly-owned subsidiary of Koch Media,” which I assume has no connection with the Koch Brothers.
Normally, this would be the part where I call for a boycott of Deep Silver, but I’m pretty sure most of you already refuse to buy anything from the Epic Games Store. They clearly don’t care that the majority of the gaming community hates their guts, because they have Fortnite’s ten million playerbase. So I have a different plan in mind.
I’d like to take this time to introduce the National Socialist Gamer Workers Party, or NSDAP for short. Our party platform includes mandatory Pokémon breaks during work hours, abolishing all copyright laws, and removing women from gaming and forcing them back in the kitchen. We’re planning on having Lucario make a bid for the presidency this election.
This symbol is now the official logo of the Gamer Workers Party. It may appear to be similar to Deep Silver’s logo, but I can assure you that it’s now a symbol of the right wing death squads. Make sure everyone knows it.
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Interesting.
How long would the Pokemon breaks be?