AnotherGills

Man I had a blast with EDF 4.1 on PC, was kinda miffed they didn't release 5 on PC at the same time as consoles.  I was tempted to buy the DLC for the game in the meantime, but at least the sequel is coming out.  It's very unfortunate that every Japanese publisher and their mother is adopting the Rockstar approach to PC.
Edit:  Apparently the top down shmup spinoff, "Wing Diver the Shooter", was released on PC last year, and strangely appears that this is the only western release of the game.

Why even put it on GOG then if they are so concerned of people stealing it?
Atleast people will buy it on GOG so they can get a DRM free experience without pirating it. Absolute morons.

I definitely agree with this. Hosting game files isn't free, and I don't think Valve should have to host games that aren't being sold on the platform.

Tim Sweeney, founder of the mega-popular studio Epic Games, took to Twitter in a dialogue regarding the recent Shenmue III fiasco.
For those unaware, Shenmue III is a crowdfunded game produced by Ys Net. At E3 2019’s PC Gaming Show, Ys Net announced that Shenmue III would be launching on the Epic Games Store, instead of the previously announced Steam platform. Many backers were aggravated at the bait-and-switch, with no option to receive a Steam key, nor a refund.
Sweeney revealed an alleged Steam policy discovered through partner discussions, “Valve policy prohibits providing Steam keys for games that aren’t going to be available at launch on Steam.”
Furthermore, Sweeney criticizes the policy, “Steam policy change traps crowdfunded projects into either launching on Steam for 30% or offering backers refunds.”
He further clarifies, “By “traps”, I just mean: requires that the game be distributed on Steam, ruling out any funding opportunity associated with exclusivity or preferential terms that might “disadvantage Steam customers””
Finally, when inquired about the fairness behind paying for exclusivity, Sweeney states “Valve has every right to make deals with developers and publishers to secure more exclusives, just as Apple, Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo, and Epic Games do!”
What are your thoughts on the matter? If Valve truly has a policy prohibiting keys for non-launch titles, would you agree that Steam is "trapping crowdfunded projects"?

Tim Sweeney, founder of the mega-popular studio Epic Games, took to Twitter in a dialogue regarding the recent Shenmue III fiasco.
For those unaware, Shenmue III is a crowdfunded game produced by Ys Net. At E3 2019’s PC Gaming Show, Ys Net announced that Shenmue III would be launching on the Epic Games Store, instead of the previously announced Steam platform. Many backers were aggravated at the bait-and-switch, with no option to receive a Steam key, nor a refund.
Sweeney revealed an alleged Steam policy discovered through partner discussions, “Valve policy prohibits providing Steam keys for games that aren’t going to be available at launch on Steam.”
Furthermore, Sweeney criticizes the policy, “Steam policy change traps crowdfunded projects into either launching on Steam for 30% or offering backers refunds.”
He further clarifies, “By “traps”, I just mean: requires that the game be distributed on Steam, ruling out any funding opportunity associated with exclusivity or preferential terms that might “disadvantage Steam customers””
Finally, when inquired about the fairness behind paying for exclusivity, Sweeney states “Valve has every right to make deals with developers and publishers to secure more exclusives, just as Apple, Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo, and Epic Games do!”
What are your thoughts on the matter? If Valve truly has a policy prohibiting keys for non-launch titles, would you agree that Steam is "trapping crowdfunded projects"?

Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night has finally launched, powered by Unreal Engine 4. With support for unlimited frame rates, I decided to quickly test performance differences between the game’s multiple graphics settings at full screen, with a resolution of 2560x1440.
Hardware Used:
CPU: Intel Core i5-4690k 3.7 GHz
RAM: 16 GB
HDD: 1 TB
SSD (OS): 500 GB
GPU: Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080
OS: Windows 10 64-bit

(Note: I have not encountered much foliage, and when it was encountered, the setting had no noticeable impact on performance or quality of foliage, and elected to not include in this current report. If I encounter more, this article will be updated.)
First, a comparison of the game at it's highest setting levels vs its lowest setting levels
Turning down all of settings from their highest level (referred to in-game as “Cinematic”) to their lowest level (referred to in-game simply as “Low”) produced a massive bump of 20 frames per second, measured using a program called “RivaTuner Statistics Server”
After achieving this result, I sought to analyze the impact each setting had on performance. For each setting, I would set it to it’s lowest level, while leaving the other settings at their highest.
 
The Anti-Aliasing setting at its lowest has minimal difference in performance as well as visual.
Post Processing had a major impact on performance, providing an average of 18 frames more at its lowest level. However, this has a major impact on the game’s visual style, removing the depth of it’s moody darkness.
Shadow Quality had nearly no impact on performance, yet at its lowest setting, requested around 100MB of VRAM less than at its highest level. This effect does not impact the actual quality of the shadows, instead the presence of certain shadows, such as on the molding at the room's entrance.
Texture Quality’s lowest and highest level had little-to-no impact on performance or VRAM usage, but had a notable impact on quality of specific surfaces in the environment, such as the steps in front of Miriam.
Effect Quality at it’s lowest provided an average of 9 frames per second more than it’s highest, yet had very little noticeable visual impact.
 
As shown above, on a high-end PC, Bloodstained will run with ease.
After seeing how well the game performed on a high-end PC, I performed a similar analysis with the same method on a much lower-end PC (lacking a discrete graphics processor), with an accompanying resolution of 1280x720.
Hardware Used: 
CPU: AMD Ryzen 3 2200G 3.5GHz
RAM: 8 GB
SSD: 120 GB
iGPU: Radeon Vega 8
OS: Windows 10 64-bit
Again, I started this analysis by comparing performance between the game at it's highest settings and lowest settings, with an increase of only 5-7 frames per second with settings at its lowest.
After further testing, I found that the settings had an impact of 1-3 frames of performance at low resolutions (sans Anti-Aliasing, which resulted in no change in overall performance.)
Next, I tested the impact that resolution would have on performance. The lowest in-game resolution setting is 1280x720.
1280x720 – 1600x900 – 1920x1080 at the highest settings

1280x720 – 1600x900 – 1920x1080 at the lowest
settings

 
To fully verify how much of an impact resolution played on performance, I edited Bloodstained's user settings configuration file, allowing me to set the resolution below 1280x720.
[The configuration file can be located at: %LOCALAPPDATA%\BloodstainedRotN\Saved\Config\WindowsNoEditor\GameUserSettings.ini]
 
In this instance, I set the resolution to 960x544.
While the game looks washed out, this drop in resolution provided a MASSIVE boost in performance, doubling the frame rate. With all settings maxed out, the overall frame rate ranged from 120-150 frames per second.

As previously stated, Bloodstained's most intensive setting is its resolution. For those on low-end PCs, cranking down this "hidden" resolution setting can make the difference between the game's performance chugging, or being exceptionally smooth.
Bloodstained's minimum system requirements included a note, stating "If you have a potato PC or above, you're ok."
I believe this statement is arguably misleading due to a lack of "potato-friendly" resolution settings. However, the fact that high frame rates are attainable on low-end PCs at all makes up for this.

 
 

I would say it is competition. What is stopping Valve from throwing even more money at developers to keep them from jumping ship to the Epic Store?

Epic isn't only paying for exclusivity, they are also taking a smaller share of revenue from game sales.
Epic is providing a more lucrative store for developers. If Valve has an issue with this, they can adapt Epic's policies for the Steam store. Valve could pay off developers and publishers to not release games on the Epic Games Store, yet they have chosen not to compete in that regard.