Epic Games Exclusivity and how it will affect the release of Hitman 3

I’ll still buy Hitman 3 on PC. At this point, the client I launch it from is of little significance to me. Can’t wait, personally.

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It does not matter. The reason your CPU runs hotter on desktop with EGS running is that EGS right now prevents AMD CPUs from downclocking and/or putting cores to sleep correctly. When you are running a game your CPU does not downclock anyway so this will make no difference to your temps under load.

Or at least, games shouldn’t downclock the cpu/gpu.

UPDATE: Epic released an update patch that fixed the issue completely (atleast for me). Now all it’s using is 0.3% CPU, very low power and 57 MB of ram [when running in the background]

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Indeed, they fixed the issue. Now I have 3% CPU load when opened and 0.3% idle. It appears a recent change was causing higher CPU usage :

https://twitter.com/TimSweeneyEpic/status/1342892301312548864

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That’s in line with what I saw before this bug cropped up (more like 0.7, but eh, i’ll take it). The RAM usage was always at least 100MB idle for me prior, so this is a nice improvement.

Was just having a bit of a read through IO’s 2019/2020 financial statement that was published earlier in the month and thought this was interesting.

In it they talk about how they have achieved two strategic goals, one of which is self-publishing and distributing HITMAN 3 and the other is opening the Malmö studio while also self-publishing and distributing Project 007.

They then go on to say:

This has all been made possible by our stable income from existing products and the collaboration with various platforms.

So while everyone is bitching about PSVR exclusivity and the EGS deal - without it, it’s clear that Malmö and Project 007 wouldn’t exist and IO would probably still be dependent on someone else like WB Games. It’s not unfathomable to imagine that without all these “crap agreements” the fate of IO would have likely hinged on the success of HITMAN 3.

And if for whatever reason, if IO had folded - then depending on how their deal with Square Enix and their exclusive license to the Hitman IP is worded, who knows what shit company SE would’ve made an agreement with for the IP (if anyone even wanted to bid for it too).

So doesn’t having to buy the game from a different storefront seem like the lesser of two evils? Yup.

PS: If you want to read the statement, go here, expand the ‘Financial Statements’ section and download the PDF.

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That’s what we’ve been saying for months, and it is confirmed since December 2nd on this financial statement. Now try to explain that on Steam forums :joy:

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I was discussing this with a developer about a month ago. They want to become a major publishing and development company in Scandinavia and not a sub-division of a big company. If deals are necessary to remain independent, I am fine with that. They have acquired a major IP, funds from Danish government to lead technical improvements for the next generation games, so it’s now or never.

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All this huge talk about IOI being a successful company is making me realise that they’re not at all completely under fire as a lot of people are under the impression of. I remember years ago IOI had to lay off a bunch of staff once Square Enix put them up for sale for a new publisher. And it wasn’t just the staff that they were stressing out - a lot of fans in this forum and within the community were worried that Hitman was to meet its end if IOI didn’t find a publisher. Ultimately this issue is long solved now when they performed a management buyout.

To have an independent company perform such actions like a management buyout, acquire a major IP, self-publish their first game - it’s no exception that IOI are actually doing better than ever with no indication of them ever becoming bankrupt. People always treated IOI like we must support them because they were an owned major company now independent, self-publishing company. It’s sorta like treating a child when he can’t fend himself, when in fact they were able to fire a gun.

We probably wouldn’t be here if the circumstances were up to the company deciding where they lead to remain in business without going bankrupt.

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They lost 50% of their staff after Hitman Absolution in 2013 and after Hitman 2016 in 2017. Since they are independent, they are stable in terms of employees and have opened a new studio and acquired the Bond IP.

I prefer timed-exclusivities with full creative freedom and ownership, than owned by a shady publisher. Yeah it’s easier to have a publisher who cover up to 100% of development costs, from developer salaries to go-to-market expenses such as QA, localization, marketing, and all publishing various costs. But did the last 10 years prove it was the right thing ? I’m not sure.

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Or /r/FuckEpic…good god I can’t imagine.

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A very interesting article on how an “independant AAA” game can be successful if things are done right

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One thing I have to say though is that I would rather prefer a Shady Publisher

A shady publisher is, by it’s nature, shady, as that entails what most AAA publishers do to their studio’s; enforced crunch (indirectly confirmed in IOI Monthly for the Bank), forced attempts nobody asked for to broaden appeal “to a wider audience” (Ghost Mode), and while the budget would be bigger, that doesn’t mean the game would be any better for it. It’s how you use that money that matters. I don’t think the two instances are really that equivalent to one another. I’ve always disliked Warner Bros. involvement in pretty much any game for the above reasons.

By comparison, all the timed exclusivity on PC does is lock you out of buying it through Steam…that’s it. The consoles are not timed exclusives, Stadia exists, and you can still use Steam Overlay by adding it manually. So unless you really want to give a middle finger to Epic for their past transgressions while simultaneously ignoring Valves’ past transgressions by giving them your money instead, then sure, a shady publisher is better.

For the record, I’d like to see some more nuanced takes on this.

That’s at least how I tried to understand it in my previous write-up. Most of it requires teamwork and leadership. But also it comes with how you impact and lead your product to be memorable. Every company wants a memorable character that prints money the moment the name is heard from a 50 block radius. So of course it depends on how you play your cards right, it’s also equally important what your product is and who you’re trying to advertise to.

First of all, not many people use EGS

Numbers, please and thank you.

Second of all, you cannot purchase gift cards which just basically means it’s just a credit card store, not a lot of people out there in the HITMAN community have credit/debit cards.

You can use Paypal, Debit/ Credits cards, and 3Pay (on any purchase under £45 due to intentional mobile caps). You have options. And while the lack of gift cards is annoying, GOG and Uplay don’t have gift cards either; whereas Blizzard and Origin do. So it’s not common practice to have a gift card system or a gifting system (again, either would be greatly appreciated).

Thirdly, HITMAN 3 will be greatly affected to the Steam players who are waiting for 2022

If the reddit numbers are anything to go by, the rabid /r/FuckEpic crowd appears depressingly large, but the effects of H3 are not going to be known until the game releases. At this point, what you’re saying is pure conjecture. H3 will definitely be affected, but to what degree is unknown.

if IOI doesn’t do stuff like: pre-order bonus, re-activation for Elusive Targets on Steam (since technically there are people who are basically are Steam players and hate EGS.)

The re-activation of ET’s are a given, in part because IOI are not stupid. If they learned anything from 2016 and 2 is that ET’s cannot be too elusive (one could argue that defeats the purpose of them). As for the pre-order Bonus, IOI has had a history of making them available after release, often several months later.

However, I would love to see some features like Legacy rewards, THE LEGENDARY DUAL BALLERS PRAISE GO-

I’d love to see a Travel Briefcase for H2’s locations.

Another problem is that, Steam has more features than EG, for example, achievements, community creations.

How is this a problem for Hitman specifically? Achievements and challenges are essentially one-in-the-same, and community creations can be shared in other places like Reddit and here and…Twitter? There’s more than one place to post creative things, and while a centralised hub helps, it’s why the reddit and HMF exist; albeit a bit niche.

You are correct in that Steam has more features, but I refuse to believe everyone uses them all the time; people don’t cleanly group up like that. It depends on your use-case. The features I personally care for are already in EGS (cloud saving, DRM-free stuff, DLC management), but YMMV, you very likely will not agree with that, and that’s fine. We’re human, we’re allowed to disagree with one another.

I mean, IOI could have just published it on EGS than make it a EGS exclusive.

It’s quite possible IOI simply couldn’t afford not to. Without the details of how the deal went down, we’ll never know how the deal took place, so I find it pointless to blame either party.

Long statement, longer rebuttal =P

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IOI has managed to survive post H1 turbulence caused due to SE decisions. I was surprised that how fast they released H2 after going independent. I suppose they started working on H2 as soon as first 3 levels of H1 were released. H2 is fine piece of craft and lot of work went into it. It does not feel rushed.

With Bond IOI will have at least few eggs in different basket. Always works in favor of company in tough times.

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The only bits that felt rushed was the post-release content; more specifically the SA’s. The new locations are not so much rushed so much as they were just under time pressure, so they couldn’t be as big as, say Miami.

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most of the opportunities were rushed as well. like the fact you can’t give the hippie the glue in colombie or that you can’t make nathaniel blake meet your target on his own. the game is full of such issues

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I agree. Although there have been shortcuts here and there (like the still cutscenes) and a few opportunities, the only thing that felt rushed to me were the special assignments in Whittleton Creek and Miami.