An indie horror adventure called Darq recently went viral as its “mostly solo” developer, Wlad Marhulets, noted that he had turned down a deal for Epic Games store exclusivity – and that Epic wasn’t interested in releasing the title on a non-exclusive basis. Now, Marhulets says he’d like to put Darq out on the store for a charitable cause.
This comes after Tim Sweeney responded to a tweet from an Epic store critic taunting him over Darq’s early success on Steam. “We’re happy to see Darq succeed because it’s a great game and it deserves success,” Sweeney says. “That’s why we contacted them to explore exclusivity.”
“Tim, I’m glad to hear that,” Marhulets tweets in response. “If you change your mind and accept Darq to your store non-exclusively, I’ll donate 100% of my EGS revenue to a charity. If you accept, the charity can be picked by the gaming community at a later date.” This was a little over 24 hours ago, and Sweeney has not yet offered a response.
I don’t personally expect this to come to anything, but one thing’s for sure – this has proven a pretty effective bit of marketing for Darq, if only by accident.
In a Medium post last month, Marhulets said “I never intended to become the face of the Epic Store exclusivity controversy,” and that he only mentioned turning down the deal in the first place “so the community can rest assured Darq is still coming to Steam and GOG.”