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Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney has taken to Twitter following yesterday's announcement of Shenmue 3 allowing refunds for Kickstarter backers who weren't happy with the upcoming game becoming an Epic Games Store exclusive for one year, revealing that it's actually them who'll be footing the bill and pledging to do the same for crowdfunded projects going forward.
In the tweet, Sweeney said that the Unreal and Fortnite creators stepped in 'so that refunds won't reduce Ys Net's development funding' and in a follow-up tweet, said that 'When future games go Epic-exclusive after offering crowdfunding rewards on other PC stores, we’ll either coordinate with colleagues at the other stores to ensure key availability in advance, or guarantee refunds at announcement time.'
When future games go Epic-exclusive after offering crowdfunding rewards on other PC stores, we’ll either coordinate with colleagues at the other stores to ensure key availability in advance, or guarantee refunds at announcement time.
— Tim Sweeney (@TimSweeneyEpic) July 2, 2019
However, some of these games – such as Shenmue 3 – have been crowdfunded projects that, at the time of their respective campaigns, previously promised Steam or DRM free keys to backers on PC before the Epic Games Store was a known quantity or any exclusivity deals were formed and can now no longer offer these keys due to their deals, which has been a bone of contention for many users especially those still skeptical about the six-month-old store.
It remains to be seen if this will be seen as a benevolent move on the publisher's part, or taken as Epic throwing more money at a problem that it created in the first place, but given the success of many games that have taken the exclusivity deals, expect to see this argument roll on for a while yet.
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