I think the best action for PC gamers who are interested in Metro Exodus but also want to make a statement against such practices is to buy the game when it releases on Steam, at least that's what I will probably do.

People buy games on Steam for full price? O.o
If that's true than I should have framed my comment differently.

jokes aside, I would wait for a discount if they want the full price one year after the game released on the other platforms but It even hurts the publisher to wait one year for the revenue from Steam.

You aren't done with the store. It will be there every time you intend to play your game... And probably other games that don't even use the store... And probably when you turn your computer on, resulting in boot-up bloat that slows everything down.

Of course not. But engaging in Anti-Consumer practices isn't the best way to offer competition to Steam.
Win consumers over by offering a compelling product and not trying to strong-arm them into submission.

No. Consumers are "mad" because they decided to vote with their wallets and not support said game on yet another digital distribution platform... And were essentially blackmailed/threatened over it... Rather than have the company simply listen to what consumers wanted.

Why couldn't they simply do a Day 1 release on all digital distribution platforms? It's the PC.

Why should they be forced to publish on steam? If I wanted to play Anthem on pc I would buy it where its avaliable steam fanboys are laughable. Can't wait for alternative game stores to grow. Boycotting a game because its not on steam 

Is it 4A games,because upon reading it it sounds like Koch media saying blame us not 4A,just look at this wording "Our decision to partner with Epic Games was based on the goal of investing in the future and our development partner at 4A games."

This thread is a prime example of why we'll never see PC gamers being welcomed here, nor growing as a part of the community.

Aside from that, I'm still not happy with how the response turned out. It still feels like "oh we fucked up, but we're kinda sorry/not sorry".

The devs knew what they signed up for with this. The publisher also knew what they were doing, the devs could simply take a stand if they truly cared about the consumer, but they didn't, instead they let one dev vent and got him to pipe down, while trying to PR their way out of an issue they caused themselves, while also trying to "share" the sentiments of the so called dev they try to "distance" themselves from. It just reeks of a hollow, half arsed apology. Especially the "PC gamers at heart" part, I've heard enough of that PR from the likes of EA, Ubisoft and MS.

That being said, I'm still leaning on the "why should I even buy this at all" fence, due to all this, due to Epic trying to fuck over the consumer, and Deep Silver just going for the moneyhat.

I have read everything.  And I still think it’s blown out of proportion.

Like most other gamers outcry.

But hey, far from me the idea to stop such gamers from being their entitled self.

#Everythingistheendoftheworld.

Are you trying to appeal against a monopoly... by supporting an online shop who essentially bought monopoly over a game for an entire year?

I don't mind Metro being on Epic game store, I mind it being only there and nowhere else for an entire year. If it was up to me the game should be available on every videogame shop, be it Epic, Steam, GOG, Humble store, itch.io... Same goes for your Netflix example btw. I don't want all the movies and series exclusively on Netflix, but also on Netflix, among other similar services like Amazon Prime or Hulu to name a few.

So on one hand we have the usual greedy consumer hating publisher and on the other hand we have a moronic dev who shouldn't be allowed to talk directly to customers. The customer loses, the dev loses, the game loses. So in the end everyone loses except for 2 big publishers. What else is new?

Due to infection called Fortnite that my kids are suffering from, I have Epic Store...but have no intention of geting Metro if there is always online policy in place.