Maybe a little empathy for those who were looking forward to the game wouldn’t be amiss - I may be misreading some of you guys, but you seem awfully suave about a game you had no interest in, and thus others should just calm the fuck down - world hunger you know?!
I wouldn’t be surprised if Epic pulled the plug because Funcom wasn’t able to smooth out the problems with “Funcom Live Services” in time. It’s only been 2 and a half weeks since they de-coupled player accounts from Steam accounts, and the server browser still hasn’t recovered. Even with the latest hotfix, I’ve been occasionally crashing when trying to connect to a server. It’s a shame because the game is normally rock solid (outside of modded servers). I just don’t think Funcom gave themselves enough time to roll out the new account system before this deadline.
That seems likely.
If anyone really had their hearts set on playing Conan Exiles, I’ll just point out that it’s still on sale over at Steam:
Epically bush league, both the last minute pulling of the game and the bizarre tweet.
I said in my post: “Pity. I would have loved to try it with you all”.
I was looking forward to it… I just can’t get mad at Epic because something fell through and they couldn’t give me free stuff. I could still spend money on it. The accounts by players sound really neat. I’m just on a tight budget this month.
Thanks for the heads up! I’ve been staying away from the Steam sale to avoid being tempted by too much stuff.
I don’t think anyone is mad, just mildly disappointed.
Exactly!
I also think there are people who already play the game, who were maybe looking forward to an influx of newbies to advise, and to be able to share their enthusiasm! :)
Probably an accurate assessment of me ;-)
I don’t think anyone is mad, just mildly disappointed.
That’s what I say to my kids!
I was sort of interested and just logged in to download it for free. Oh, well… mildly disappointed, but I have plenty of other games to play. Recent steam reviews talk about serious server problems, so maybe that’s why it was canned.
Maybe they should say that then instead of “hey we decided it won’t be free guess what though we’ll sell it to you later”.
This is a forum with its fair share of industry people. I don’t speculate on such things related to the industry because it’s not my style. Fact is, we all talk, are mostly six degrees from the next person whose talking. So if there’s anything going on, all it takes is one person to blurt it out to another - and it spreads. And when it comes to EGS and Stadia, the more they try to shroud it all in secrecy, the more alarming it gets and more likely that someone is going to tell someone.
Also, remember that the entire industry is one massive game of musical chairs whereby people go from studio to studio; and they retain those relationships as they move around. That’s how we are all connected to someone who knows something about another thing.
Your entire statement is based on the same level of speculation that you decry.
Lunarstorm works at Epic.
^this
Also, people don’t really know how EGS works, what the deal points are, how they get negotiated etc.
I do.
Another fact that isn’t readily public knowledge is that EGS has planned out its free games MONTHS in advance. Last I heard, there were NO available slots right through year end. What this means is that all those free games are carefully curated in the same manner that they curate which games to sell.
And you don’t need to be an AI programmer not to take one look at the curated games sold and the free games to see that there’s an eclectic pattern in their selection.
What this means is that for a game to be listed as free, then suddenly pulled at the last minute can only mean that it was already slotted months ago, the deal was on-going etc. Why it fell apart is anyone’s guess, but it all boils down to a variety of things including:
- Royalty points. It’s not as straightforward a deal as you would imagine, but it’s not far from how Valve does theirs, except Valve doesn’t do guaranteed minimums, payouts etc. So these deal points all get squared away, agreed up etc, before it even becomes public
- Technical issues. Throwing up a game on EGS is pretty simple and straightforward, and dare I say, not as rudimentary and convoluted as Steam. While they are constantly adding capabilities to the backend, a game’s deployment can present some technical issues - especially where billing backend is concerned.
There are a myriad of other reasons which would see EGS pull a game at the last minute; but if you look at the wording of their reason, it’s easy to see that if it were technical in nature, they would have probably worded that differently to indicate that. But they flat-out pulled it as if it was a premature announcement, mistake etc. Then again, it’s not as if whoever is running the social media account is going to divulge things which aren’t meant to be public.
I am well aware, seeing as I think I know who that is. My point - which stands as was originally written - was about the “speculation” commentary, not the veracity (if you think an employee of a company is going to tell you - on a public forum - wtf is going on, then I’d like to sell you this here bridge) of what he said.
Try this. Go ahead and ask him what really happened. I’ll wait.