Chris Avellone calls The Outer Worlds exclusivity deal with Epic “a cash grab”

Former Obsidian writer Chris Avellone has some harsh words to share with his former company over its choice to take an exclusivity deal with Epic, putting The Outer Worlds on their store – and keeping it off of Steam, at least for a year.

The writer – who worked for Obsidian on Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2, Fallout: New Vegas, Neverwinter Nights 2, Pillars of Eternity and more – calls the Epic Games Store exclusivity deal “a cash grab”. While at first he mostly blames Obsidian management for the deal, who he’s had a strained relationship with since he left the developer, he seems to eventually agree that Epic are also to blame.

His main worry seems to be that the news has turned the hype for The Outer Worlds from positive to profoundly negative, hype Avellone himself helped build up. “It’s how you kill the best hype you could have for a game,” he tweets, “Possibly best hype for any of the studio’s games, ever – then undermine it for a cash grab.”

The reveal that Obsidian’s The Outer Worlds would launch exclusively on Epic Games Store – and wouldn’t be coming to Steam until 2020 – appeared at Epic’s keynote address at GDC earlier this week. The response from fans, just like pretty much every announcement of this type, was profoundly negative. Avellone then weighed in with his tweet, which then set up a full thread on his feed.

After which he mostly responded to comments about alternative solutions, such as user Szogyenyi’s idea of selling it cheaper on Epic and full-price on Steam – “let the customer decide what is more important: the price, or the fact he owns every game at one place.” Avellone simply replied, “totally agree.”

On the other hand, Chris Avellone is very happy with Paradox Interactive for insisting that there would be “no exclusivity deal” with Vampire The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2, which he also worked on. Other than retweeting the confirmation, he also notes that “Paradox understands, and for that, I’m grateful.”

We can only hope that Dying Light 2 won’t go exclusive to the Epic Games Store either.