Epic buys Psyonix | Rocket League might become an Epic Store exclusive

Many of us here have played or heard of Rocket League, a vehicular soccer video game which was released back in 2015. The game was developed and published by Psyonix, an American game development company based in San Diego.

According to an announcement made yesterday, Epic Games now owns Psyonix. The acquisition will be closed near the end of May to early June, this year.

Certain terms regarding the deal such as the amount of money that Epic paid to Psyonix have not yet been publicly announced. But since Epic now owns Psyonix, it probably means that all of Psyonix’s ongoing projects, it’s assets, it’s workforce, and upcoming products have now been acquired by Epic Games.

The relationship between Epic and Psyonix

Psyonix and Epic Games have been in a close business and contract-based relationship for years. Over the last two decades, Psyonix has worked with them on Unreal Tournament games as well as other popular titles such as Gears of War and Mass Effect 3.

“Psyonix has always been a part of the Epic family, and we’re happy to make it official. We have great respect for how Psyonix has built an excellent team and an incredible community around Rocket League,” – Tim Sweeney, CEO, Epic Games.

“We’ve been working closely with Epic since the early days of Unreal Tournament, and we’ve survived changing tides as partners, so combining forces makes sense in many ways. The potential of what we can learn from each other and accomplish together makes us truly excited for the future,” – Dave Hagewood, Founder and Studio Director, Psyonix.

Psyonix looks really happy to be a part of the Epic family as according to them, they have the “power and experience of Epic Games behind them”. On the other hand, Epic is glad too as they have now acquired the rights to a company that owns one of the most played games in the world.

Now here’s the BIG question.

Will Rocket League become an Epic exclusive ?

Let us read two of the statements made by Epic Games.

“We are continuing to sell Rocket League on Steam, and have not announced plans to stop selling the game there. Rocket League remains available for new purchasers on Steam, and long-term plans will be announced in the future.”

“The PC version of Rocket League will come to the Epic Games store in late 2019. In the meantime, it will continue to be available for purchase on Steam; thereafter it will continue to be supported on Steam for all existing purchasers.”

So here’s what we do know. For now, Rocket League will continue to be available on Steam. Even though no specific date have been announced for it’s Epic Store launch, they have stated that Rocket League will come to Epic Games Store in late 2019. According to Epic’s statement to Variety, users who already own Rocket League on Steam will continue to get updates and have access to any future downloadable-content released for the game. Anything that’ll come to Epic Store will come to Steam for Rocket League owners.

So far, Epic Games has not officially confirmed whether they’re going to pull off Rocket League from Steam after it’s Epic Store launch. But the fact that they used the phrases “in the meantime” and “thereafter it will”, indicate that it is likely for Epic Games to remove Rocket League from Steam once it hits Epic Store. Even though owners of the game will continue to get support from the developers, new players who would want to try out the game may be forced to buy it through Epic Store. The situation isn’t exactly unlikely as we all know that Epic is aggressively trying to take over the market established by Steam by making newly launched titles exclusive to their store.

Rocket League’s future exclusivity has not been officially confirmed, but given Epic’s tricky statement, one should be ready for the news anytime and must prepare beforehand, i.e, buy the game on Steam before it gets removed.