You may not have heard of Ooblets, but if you have, you were hopefully blown away by the cuteness and general good-natured sweetness of it. It’s best described as Harvest Moon meets Pokemon, with a little Animal Crossing too. It’s been in development for a while, and was supposed to be published by Double Fine Productions, at least before their buyout by Microsoft. However, developer Glumberland has now announced an Ooblets Epic exclusivity deal to put the PC version solely on the Epic Games Store.
This is something that Epic has aggressively pursued recently, usually to the anger of the gaming populace, with titles such as Phoenix Point, Shenmue 3, Quantic Dream’s catalogue of games, and Metro Exodus. However, the Ooblets announcement of Epic Games Store exclusivity is a little different, as Glumberland has taken to both Twitter and its own blog to talk about the deal and why anyone angry at the deal should find something “more worthwhile to be upset about.”
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Okay, so we did the thing!
The thing people get angry about.
But maybe don't get angry about it? pic.twitter.com/hZR9rTZVvP
— Ooblets (@ooblets) August 1, 2019
In the blog post, the developers try to talk frankly about why they took the deal, what it means for the game and for them, and why it’s not worth getting angry about. The most important point is that Epic offered Glumberland “a minimum guarantee on sales that would match what we’d be wanting to earn if we were just selling Ooblets across all the stores.” This basically means that, if Ooblets doesn’t achieve its ideal sales targets, Epic will cover the deficit. So for Glumberland, the game has already sold well and it can “afford more help and resources to start ramping up production and doing some cooler things.”
The post also attempts to head-off gamers’ anger about Epic exclusivity deals, by discussing complaints such as the Epic Store’s lack of features, and that “it’s anti-consumer to have exclusives.” The developer then suggests people “look at the things going on around you and ask yourself if there might be anything just a tad more worthwhile to be upset about,” with examples such as climate change, human rights abuses, and the last season of Game of Thrones (they’re joking about that one). The post finishes with, “we’re really hoping this Epic stuff is something you can all celebrate with us for the good thing that it is.”
