So this week has been a bit of a rollercoaster for fans of sport racing title, Rocket League. With the newly announced buyout of Psyonix by Epic Games, gamers have once again let their displeasure at anything Epic does be known.
The company declined to say if the game will remain on sale on Steam after it becomes available on Epic Game Store. And it’s this particular detail which has provoked the ire of the internet en mass. Users have taken to Steam’s store page for the game to express their apparent discontent by leaving a glut of negative reviews.
And luckily for Psyonix/Epic, Valve has been testing a new review moderation algorithm since this same issue played out with the Borderlands games on the service. Users bombed Borderlands titles on Steam after the decision by Gearbox to move the game to the Epic Games Store was announced. Valve deployed the automated moderation tool to remove “off-topic” reviews, and has now done something similar with Rocket League.
Psyonix has worked to get ahead of some of this backlash as well, posting a Q&A on their website detailing the future of the studio and their games.
In the short term, nothing will change at all! We’re still committed to providing Rocket League with frequent updates that have new features, new content, and new ways to play the game for as long as you’ll have us.
In the long-term, we expect to bring Rocket League to the Epic Games store and to leverage our new relationship to grow the game in ways we couldn’t do on our own before. We believe that bringing Rocket League to new audiences with more support is a win for everybody.
So while it hasn’t been confirmed that the game will be exclusive to the Epic store, or how long that exclusivity will last if it does come to pass. We do know that there are some certainties, like that the Steam version will continue to get support from Psyonix, and that Psyonix will be able to continue their work within Epic without too much interference.
So whether you despise Epic and think they’re doing a terrible job of building their sales platform, or you think their doing a fine job and are celebrating Steam having new competition, these kinds of developments are bound to keep happening.
