Well, and that's the death knell of the Fallout franchise right there. All I can is, Encased, take the ball and run with it!!

Maybe. You can be sure it's a test for Elder Scrolls 6 (or whatever number they up to).

Atom as well.

Makes sense not to give a third of the potential revenue away if you're building an extensive online infrastructure on the side.

Their games are very popular - and especially on consoles where I assume most of the sales will be anyway.

This won't change anything - and I'm willing to bet it's the best business decision for the longer term.

They're not the first big publisher to make this step, and they won't be the last.

With their huge fanbase they're one of the few publishers where establishing an own client could work. I wouldn't bet on it though.

Well, if you buy ESO on Steam - you're still forced into a separate client - which is why I never buy MMOs on Steam - as I hate the concept of redundant clients.

This is the kind of thing only a minor segment of the vocal minority will fight against - and the mainstream won't bat an eye after they remember that it's the game that they want to play and not the platform.

Thank god I won't be seeing this mmo pos among "steam suggests because you play RPGs".

I am not surprised at all, I mean 30% is huge cut to pay for digital distribution store even though I guess it will be more for retail stores but digital distribution doesn't have the same cost as retail distribution.

I think steam needs to cut their fees to 15% or even 10% else we will see more of these clients popping up from other big publishers.

I won't be surprised if Ubisoft did the same thing next and put the next AC only on their store.

Let Bethesda fail miserably with this new wretched reinvention-Sacrilege of the Holy Fallout I-II Flame!!

If the move is indeed to implement the possibility of paid mods, then they did what customers want them to do.

Kicking out Steam will make it easier to set the reward distribution, no longer the 30 pc share owed to Steam.

Players did not oppose paid mods. They opposed modders not being paid enough.

If the move means more money to modders because Steam is out of the equation, Bethesda listened to customers.

Now modders are going to use sites like this one to disparage vanilla versions so to make room for their own products.

It seems all big publishers are moving towards their own delivery system. I guess this refers back to one point that I made in another thread about bypassing complex agreements with Steam so they can charge for services, storage and delivery (effectively changing to rent/subscription services).

With my not existent insight to Valve's numbers and strategy I'd advice for variable cuts. If they could come to agreements with the big buplishers, this could be a win-win-win for Valve, the publisher and the customers.

They're not going to "Launch" on Steam. My money is it's available on Steam within 6 months. There's *WAY* too much riding on a game release to leave all that revenue and exposure on the table. Keep in mind that most devs are hanging on by their fingernails financially with every single release. They don't have the luxury of taking two or three years to establish their own service. If that means no viable subscription/content-distribution model for them, I'm glad.

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Re: Encased, whole lot more to come in the near future! And their Twitter feed is full of concept art: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Djm3z1KX4AMaFF3.jpg:large, https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DjcfCm6XcAYJamu.jpg:large.

If Bethesda had issues with Steam's deal, they would have left that platform the same time EA did back in ~2012.

ESO didn't launch on Steam either, it's not that uncommon for online games.

Ahhh yes indeed, ATOM is one I'm keeping my eye on! I've had big expectations for that project ever since it's kick starter caught my wallet.

They are probably aiming for the longer view here.
Fallout is an IP with enough appeal and history to get most of the people to install a client.
And, that client would probably allow them to monetize much more without Steam lurking behind like Mods, Maps, items, furniture for your bases and so on.
They will be also able to totally control player made content.

Once this is established they can take the risk with their new IP Star Control with the same framework and more Elder Scroll games.

Agreed, though I think you mean Starfield :)

This is a good news / bad new thing from my perspective..

Good news… I have to think even less about there crappy mmo because I won't see it on Steam.

Bad news… as has been said, they're big enough that they might pull it off and what we don't need is yet another platform outside of Steam. My concern is what's happening in the video streaming space, happening in the video game delivery space. Too many players with competing platforms, each keeping their content exclusive to their platform, leaving users to have to manage a bunch of different platforms. I don't want to have a Netflix account and a Hulu account and an HBO account and a Disneys-stupid-new-platform-account and whatever… its' too much fragmentation that does not help the consumer - it just makes the whole process more of a pain in the you-know-what.

True competition would mean you'd find the games/shows you want on competing platforms (much like Steam/GoG)… but that's not happening here. Each greedy company wants to take their toys and go home - and you can only play them if you become their best friend and go to their house. Ugh.

I have Ubisoft Uplay platform and the EA Origin platform too…only because I do like some Ubisoft games, and they force you to get that if you want to play their games. Origin I have because I got a game free from them.

That said, it is annoying and a nuisance to have multiple game platform services. I would prefer everything was on steam. I'm not sure if I would want that much of a hassle of getting another one for Bethesda games. The last game I bought from them (and was interested in) was Fallout 3. Since then, I have not liked their direction at all. Nor have I been interested in any of their newer games.

I suppose if they came out with a new Elder Scrolls that hearkened back to the old school rpg goodness of a Morrowind type game, then I could be persuaded to download yet another game platform service thingie. But fat chance of that happening.

I have a feeling the new elder scrolls will follow the trend of being less complex, stats further simplified or even disappeared, and with a dialogue wheel (groan) , with a big focus on multiplayer, co-op or the like. (more groans)