You may assume from the many articles I’ve written on the free games from the Epic Games store; that I think they are doing nothing wrong. However, I’ve also written about Epic not being the savior to gamers, and Epic CEO Tim Sweeney stating the company will change when Valve does. Until that happens, the Epic Games store will continue their slew of exclusives at any cost. In this case, literally.

In a post on YS Net’s Kickstarter for the highly anticipated Shenmue 3, they have said they would like to “offer backers options for moving forward.” To make their explanation short, under the agreement between Deep Silver, YS Net, and Epic Games there is no way to offer codes to those who had wished to play the game through Steam. There had been discussions on a one-day policy change. This would allow those that had requested a Steam key to still receive their reward; however, this was unattainable by all parties. Thus they have all fallen into an agreement on one solution.

If you kickstarted Shenmue 3 and requested a Steam PC key, you will be given the option of:

• A physical PC disc and Epic Game store key,
• An Epic Game store key only,
• A PS4 disc copy,
• Or a PS4 digital release via a PSN voucher code.

However, this is a short-term solution, according to the language used in a piece of additional information. “If selecting either the PC Physical or PC Digital version, an option to also receive a Steam key one year later will be available. Backers must manually select this option in the survey to receive the Steam key,” which indicates the exclusivity is timed.

The announcement of Shenmue 3‘s exclusivity came in the early days of E3 last month. However, surprisingly to myself, this exclusivity will not be everlasting as I, (and I assume many others,) had expected. Those that wish to receive a refund, according to this post, will receive one. Be warned though, that if you selected a reward tier which has already been implemented, you may not receive the entire refund.

Shenmue 3 is set to release August 27th, 2019 on PlayStation 4 and Windows PC via the Epic Games store. If the exclusivity truly is timed, the Steam release should be expected August 2020.

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