can't wait for it to hit steam so I can play!

It's not happening, this is more than just a publishing deal - Epic financed the game's development and they're not going to budge. Just pirate it at this point if you're so adamant about refusing to install the Epic launcher. The game is too good to rob yourself of the chance to play it over trying to make a point to Tim Sweeney.

An excellent game that was undercut by their exclusivity deal with Epic

It took so long because Steam is a monopoly. That's what it means, when half the comments lament how the game isn't on Steam. People will say there's only one store that matters, and then insist there's plenty of meaningful competition, and utterly refuse to understand their own words. Epic is an eight-ton gorilla. Half the industry licenses their engine. They made four billion dollars a year off *one* game. They offer lower prices, they give things away, they create exclusivity, and they offer a better revenue cut for developers. And they still can't move the needle. Blaming a janky storefront is grasping for any excuse.

I've been waiting for a sale before grabbing it on xbox. Moderate fan of the original AW and absolutely loved Control. Remedy are amongst the most unique devs out there right now.

The game was acclaimed and beloved by virtually everyone who played it, and it's only becoming profitable *now*? Is it too simplistic to say that a normal release across multiple storefronts, namely Steam, would have made it profitable in a matter of months? I genuinely keep forgetting the game exists. An article like this one will pop up from time to time, and only then will I remember about it. Epic is a black hole.

It's always wild to see Valve be blamed for another company shooting themselves in the foot (or in this case, yet another company entirely).

Why doesn't matter. The fact is - there's one store anyone cares about. We have a word for that.

I loved Control. I absolutely could not get into AW, and it bums me out because it seemed intriguing.

Why does matter. A lot. Just pointing to something and saying it's a problem doesn't help. You need to know why it happened to have any chance of changing things. That you and epic both apparently think throwing cash around should solve it suggests little will actually be done.

You're not listening. This is not about "blame." It's barely about change. It is about the plain meaning of a common word, and how people will point fingers and clutch pearls to avoid acknowledging a simple fact. Steam *is* a monopoly. No matter what I say, and no matter what you say. For whatever reason: they have a supermajority market share, on PC. People glibly treat major desired games like they don't exist unless they're on this one store.

Same. I wanted to like the mechanic but the flashlight levels just feel grindy and repetitive. The rest of the game is beautiful. Control feels like you can recover from your mistakes more.

Really hope control 2 doesn't have this problem

Which is why I haven't played it. Epic will never see my credit card number. I'd throw money after the game on GOG or Steam, and I think there are quite a few of us.

I love that you're saying monopolies are terrible, while crowing about how successful Epic is and how they licence their game engine to half the industry (presumably making them the largest share, given the remaining 50% is shared among every other alternative). Seems like this Steam monopoly isn't having the negative affect you're suggesting. I'm agnostic to all storefronts and platforms, I just hate exclusivity contracts.

Remedy already confirmed that they are going to self-publish Control 2.

Epic probably bankrolled a significant chunk of development to get that deal. Whether accepting the deal was a bad move or not is really hard to say

I fail to see how a Steam's quasi monopoly should affect game engines sales. Or is that about Fortnite ? Because I have an easy answer right there : its main demographics are kids who are either locked to their console's ecosystem, or on the off chance that they're playing on PC, they likely don't have 587 unplayed games in their steam library, so they couldn't care less that the game all their friends play is on EGS. That is basically the strategy with all the free games imo. Trying to reproduce what steam did (through big sales and some very alluring giveaways during the first ones, e.g literally get all current and future Steam games for free, or the top 10 games on your wishlist, etc) on these kids, so they stay on that store. I think PC gamers' boner for Steam is extremely unhealthy and has been slowly killing the only good storefront for a while (GOG) and *will* blow up in our faces when (not if) Gabe ends up being replaced by some suit who only cares about money.

I'm out of the loop. Why hate epic more than others?

They lock up games under exclusivity contracts that others do not, which means you're stuck with their launcher and all of its problems or lack of features. In this case, they're the publisher, so it's a bit murkier. They've also got strong ties to Tencent, so some people are cautious of the influence of the Chinese government. For me personally, it's that they don't support Linux at all, and unlike GOG, I can't guarantee that they'll never push an update that breaks that compatibility. Seeing as my platform is unsupported, I'm not entitled to any kind of make-good, so I'm just not going to spend any money with them. I'll only play it at this point if it leaves Epic or if it's one of their free giveaways.