Epic boss Tim Sweeney says it’s Valve’s fault that Shenmue III Kickstarter backers aren’t getting their promised Steam keys.
The latest game to fall to Epic’s machinations is Shenmue III, the latest and long-awaited installment to the Shenmue franchise. After a successful Kickstarter campaign that raised the most funds for any video game project at the time, developer Ys Net and publisher Deep Silver promised backers a Steam release by December of 2017.
Things didn’t quite go as planned. Development took longer than expected, and after a series of delays, Shenmue III will finally release this November. But rather than release on Steam as originally expected, Deep Silver signed an exclusive release deal with Epic Games.
This did not go over well with Kickstarter backers, who en masse flooded Ys Net and Deep Silver with demands to either refund their money or provide a Steam key as promised.
The outcry got so large that Ys Net had to post an update saying they will “assess the situation” with regards to their Epic exclusive arrangement, but stopped short of actually providing refunds.
In the meantime, backers are also taking to Twitter to criticize Epic’s policies in a public forum. Epic CEO Tim Sweeney is known to address these debates directly, but once again refused to back down from his plan of gobbling up as many exclusive games as he can.
However, this time Sweeney offered an explanation to Shenmue III backers as to why they weren’t getting their promised Steam keys: it’s Valve’s fault.
According to Sweeney, a Valve policy prevents Steam keys from being distributed if the game is not going to publicly release on Steam.
“As far as we and our partners can determine,” wrote the Epic boss, “Valve policy prohibits providing Steam keys for games that aren’t going to be available at launch on Steam. This would make it impossible to deliver Steam keys for a game releasing exclusively on Epic at launch.”
Sweeney went on to say that Epic would be happy to pay for Steam keys (which would involve a 30% payment to Valve) if it were possible for them to be released. One user pointed out that this would mean that Epic would still profit while Valve takes on the financial burden of hosting the game, which explains why Valve’s policy exists.
Sweeney once again refuses to back down and accuses Valve of creating “traps” for Kickstarter backers by refusing to send out Steam keys for Epic exclusive releases.
There’s still no word from Ys Net or Deep Silver on whether or not they will break their Epic deal and release Shenmue III on Steam as promised.