Yeah, but the question is if this is a timed exclusive, or is it never ever coming back to Steam and GOG for new purchases even if everyone protests the decision and votes it back up the wishlist.

I would guess pure exclusive - not timed... Epic are working to "entice" non-AAA developers. Then again I guess sales will tell the ultimate story - Thronebreaker was going to be GOG exclusive for a lot longer than it was until CDPR saw the effect of NOT selling on Steam.



Unless the code expired, it'll probably still work. Codes for removed games have worked before. They're still updating the game for old customers, but blocking it for the rest of us to go be with Epic.

This new situation puts GOG and Steam in a very disturbing position. It requires GOG and Steam to be complicit in discriminating against some of their customers, by dictating that a certain group of their customers can buy the new products, whilst at the same time, the rest of their customers cannot. IMO that's very dirty pool.

In order to avoid such a situation of being complicit in discrimination, the most equitable thing for GOG and Steam to do would be to say that the new games are not allowed to be sold on GOG or Steam, period. But it seems like they aren't going to be caring about equity on this matter.

Not really. It's the best that could have happened given the sellout to Epic.

Anyone who bought the Season Pass - who did not take up an offer of a refund - will get their games on their platform of choice (GOG or Steam). As far as I know GOG doesn't sell the Telltale games as episodes (not sure about Steam - if they do then having to buy Ep 3 & 4 on Epic when you own 1 & 2 on Steam would be a pain).

It's only new customers that will not be able to buy TWD TFS anywhere but Epic Store.

What will be interesting is to how the choice progression from season 3 to 4 will be handled for new customers - maybe an EA Mass Effect / Dragon Age style DLC where you can set your previous choices?

Oh well, if they don't want me to buy it then I guess I won't.

I may have misunderstood the situation, but haven't GOG and Steam customers already paid for the game, consisting of four episodes? They have received only two, so it's all about honoring the purchase that has been made in the past by delivering the two missing episodes.

Now, I'm not sure if the new company is legally obligated to deliver them, my guess is that they are not, but it would be a very bad move for this new company to make players pay again for the episodes they have already once paid for.

As far as the thing about not making them available on GOG and Steam for new buyers goes, I think that's a weird move, and this new company can be seriously overestimating a) the customerbase of the Epic store, and b) the number of people willing to buy their game from that store.

Epic is making a push for exclusives. They may have put a lot of money on the table to get this given the news that surrounded it. Customer base and sales may not even matter to Skybound. Epic might have given them a lot of money to keep it exclusive.

Yup this. I sort of imagine a reverse Obi-wan from the first Star Wars (you know, the scene with the droids and the stormtroopers?).

*waves hand across face*
"This is the giant bag of money you were looking for"

The worst part about the situation is that Skybound didn't bother telling anyone this was the case until well after the removal. Steam and I presume GOG both had disclaimers stating that the removal of TFS was only temporary until production of the final episodes could be worked out, not knowing that Skybound was making a deal with Epic to release it exclusively on their platform.