TennoGen and Cross Platform Save

[[DE]Taylor]

Hi Tenno,

With Cross Platform Save approaching, we want to address any questions our players may have about how their TennoGen items will be used across accounts. This forum post serves as a complete overview of how the TennoGen Program will work with Cross Platform Save, for both players and artists interested in this content!

For those looking for a TL;DR of how things work now, we have added it at the bottom under its own header for easy reference. 

THE CONTEXT: 

TennoGen items are community-made creations made accessible to use via the SteamWorkshop. Once an item is accepted, players can acquire it in one of two ways, depending on the platform you play on. 

• PC Players purchase TennoGen for real money through the Steam Workshop directly in-game or via our TennoGen Store using their linked Steam account.
  • 30% of each sale goes directly to the Artists who made the item.
• Non-PC Players (PlayStation, Xbox, Nintendo Switch, iOS) Players purchase eligible TennoGen via the in-game Market for Platinum
  • Digital Extremes pays Artists a one-time sum as part of the Transfer process to Consoles.

Since TennoGen launched on Consoles in 2016 we have shared the incredible work of our Artists with non-PC Tenno, while also ensuring that their PC sales were not impacted. As of 2023, over 400 items exist within the TennoGen program, the majority of which have been licensed for Console use.

With Cross-Save, we need to redefine how these purchases work to maintain the integrity of this program -- a program which has operated in a pre-cross-save world for almost 8 years now. 

APPROACHING CROSS PLATFORM SAVE:

When defining how TennoGen would work with Cross Platform Save, we worked off of these two tenets:

• We do not want to impact TennoGen sales on PC and will do our best to ensure that Artist income is as unaffected as possible.
• We want to respect the fact that many Console Tenno have TennoGen they have owned for years.

After many, many discussions, we landed on a decision that manifests itself in two parts.

Firstly, all TennoGen purchased before 2pm ET on November 24th will be able to use via Cross Platform Save on any (licensed) Platform. 

If you have pieces you know and love, they will come with you if you qualify to merge your accounts. 
(if purchased before that cut-off date, of course!)

Secondly, all TennoGen purchased after 2pm ET on November 24th will be either PC- or Console-Locked.

• Steam PC Purchases can be used on the PC version of Warframe only. 
• Non-PC (Console & iOS) Purchases can be used via Cross Platform Save on any (licensed) Non-PC platform. 

We explored a variety of options before coming to this outcome, but we felt this was the most feasible way to ensure that Artist income on PC was not impacted, while also respecting the years of history that our Console Tenno have with their TennoGen. 

To ensure that all future TennoGen transactions are informed purchases, players should already see a new pop-up message outlining how their purchase will work with Cross Platform save:

Purchasing on PC

Known issue: this copy alludes to PC gifting, which is not possible via Steam. We will update this copy with Whispers in the Wall’s release to remove all mention of gifting. 

Purchasing on Console & iOS

To be clear, this new Cross Platform Save pop-up message was turned on at 2 p.m. ET today to ensure it was active the moment the cut-off happened -- this ensures that players are made aware of how their new TennoGen will work with Cross Platform Save before they purchase. 

A part of why we have slowed down on TennoGen in the latter half of 2023 was to ensure that both Artists and the community had an educated understanding of how TennoGen works with Cross Platform Save before we moved forward with more releases and sales events. With that said, we hope this post has offered more insight into how Cross Platform Save will work with this program, and we look forward to a TennoGen-filled 2024!

---

TL;DR:

• TennoGen Purchases before Nov 24 at 2pm ET will Cross Platform Save to any platform if you qualify to Merge
• TennoGen Purchases after Nov 24 at 2pm ET will Cross Platform Save differently depending on where you bought it
• Steam PC purchases are locked to PC
• Non-PC purchases are locked to all (licensed) Non-PC platforms
• Reasons for this system: 
  • We do not want to impact Artist income (they earn 30% of their PC sales)
  • We want to respect historical console purchases 
• Cross Platform Save Eligibility Message is live on all platforms NOW for all TennoGen items to help players make informed purchases

---

What is a licensed Platform?
A licensed Platform is a Non-PC platform (Consoles & Mobile) on which we have acquired the rights to use the TennoGen item. Not all TennoGen are available on all platforms, so players may notice that their favourite item can be used on PlayStation, but not on the Nintendo Switch or iOS, for example. 

Why is the cut-off date for TennoGen purchases so early?
We decided on this cut-off date to prevent players from intentionally stocking up on Platinum-purchased TennoGen to transfer their PC accounts. We know that there are players who can freely spend Platinum but can’t do the same with real money, and we understand why a player may have been planning to take that route. It’s vital to us that our TennoGen Artists retain their income from PC sales, and this policy operates with that goal in mind. 

Why don’t Steam PC purchases also give you access to the items on Non-PC Platforms?
We explored this option, but it, unfortunately, is not an avenue that is available to us. 

If Artist Income is so important, why are you allowing historical Console purchases to transfer to PC? 
In short, compromise. Two statements can be true at the same time, even if they seem contradictory: we don’t want to impact PC sales, and we respect that many Console Tenno have owned TennoGen items for years. We didn’t feel comfortable as Devs asking players to suddenly buy these items again, especially the creations that they’ve been using for a long time. 

With the new Cross Platform Save pop-up message for purchases, our goal is to ensure that players are aware of the new platform restrictions before deciding to buy. For the seven years of Console (and PC!) transactions before Nov 24, that pop-up did not exist, and therefore we decided the restrictions should not apply. 

Will my pre-cutoff PC Purchases transfer to Console?
Yes! Much of this forum post focused on the Console to PC merge, but Steam PC TennoGen purchased before November 24 at 2 p.m. ET will be eligible for full Cross Platform Save (on licensed platforms). 

[Lored]

Congratulations to all PC players who were hoping to purchase TennoGen for Platinum.

Спойлер

Sarcasm

 

[Voltage]

42 minutes ago, [DE]Taylor said:

• TennoGen Purchases before Nov 24 at 2pm ET will Cross Platform Save to any platform
• TennoGen Purchases after Nov 24 at 2pm ET will Cross Platform Save differently depending on where you bought it

Why couldn't players have been informed about this prior so there could be some kind of feedback discussion?

EDIT: I read the FAQ. What I meant was why there needs to be an "early adopter" bonus for cross-save. It defeats the entire point of having cross-save.

Edited November 24, 2023 by Voltage

[--N--]

1 minute ago, Voltage said:

Why couldn't players have been informed about this prior?

It's in the FAQ:

We decided on this cut-off date to prevent players from intentionally stocking up on Platinum-purchased TennoGen to transfer their PC accounts. We know that there are players who can freely spend Platinum but can’t do the same with real money, and we understand why a player may have been planning to take that route. It’s vital to us that our TennoGen Artists retain their income from PC sales, and this policy operates with that goal in mind. 

[Voltage]

Just now, --N-- said:

It's in the FAQ:

We decided on this cut-off date to prevent players from intentionally stocking up on Platinum-purchased TennoGen to transfer their PC accounts. We know that there are players who can freely spend Platinum but can’t do the same with real money, and we understand why a player may have been planning to take that route. It’s vital to us that our TennoGen Artists retain their income from PC sales, and this policy operates with that goal in mind. 

Oh I read the FAQ. I just think it's really disingenuous to give no heads up and then use this FAQ as their "transparency". Cross-save with time limited accessibility is a big yikes and ruins the entire point of the transfer to begin with. "Getting in early" bonuses for this milestone feature defeats the entire point of adding it to begin with.

[KIREEK]

Well, atleast you guys didn't kill tennogen on PC, because that was indeed the issue with cross save.

The compromises are decent, altough today IS the 24th, if you gave a heads up i believe users would likely make use of the time to buy stuff on steam, i think you guys missed an opportunity, not only to gain some revenue, but also revenue for the artists.

 

EDIT:

I do understand that the same behavior would be done on the consoles (for plat), but this is one of those few times where i see a game company being afraid that users would spend money on PC and Premium currency on console.
Normally game companies WANT players to spend and purchase microtransations.

Edited November 27, 2023 by KIREEK

[Wykz]

When we gonna get new tennogen items?

[(PSN)Lucid_Conscious]

thats neat

[HoloShaii]

They keep talking about treating the artists right with Tennogen in the stream, meanwhile DE is the SOLE COMPANY in control of paying the artists! DE, You can make a calculation based on platinum spent on tennogen and pay the artists fairly either way! This is not a paying the artists issue, this is a "wanting to make more money off of PC players" issue. I hate the fact that you guys virtue signal about this being about paying the artists fairly even though you can pay them fairly no matter if the tennogen is bought with the steam wallet or with platinum, YOU have the payments in control.

Really freaking lame DE, very disappointed in how you have double standards for specific platforms, screwing the players over in the process.

[(XBOX)AchilDeed]

1 hour ago, Voltage said:

Oh I read the FAQ. I just think it's really disingenuous to give no heads up and then use this FAQ as their "transparency". Cross-save with time limited accessibility is a big yikes and ruins the entire point of the transfer to begin with. "Getting in early" bonuses for this milestone feature defeats the entire point of adding it to begin with.

Cross save is not time limited. You can merge accounts made before the cut off whenever you like after it launches, you just can't spam make new accounts after the cut off and expect to be able to merge them. 

[Cloverskull]

1 hour ago, Voltage said:

Why couldn't players have been informed about this prior so there could be some kind of feedback discussion?

EDIT: I read the FAQ. What I meant was why there needs to be an "early adopter" bonus for cross-save. It defeats the entire point of having cross-save.

So people don't abuse the system. Pretty simple.

[(PSN)MJ-Cena7]

from what i see is that the items i have now on my ps4 can go to pc if i already had a pc account that i can merge with ?

what if i create a new pc account when cross save lunch can i have the items that i have now on p4 to go there on pc ??

[Farkonchik]

О, я читал FAQ. Я просто думаю, что действительно неискренне не предупреждать, а затем использовать этот FAQ в качестве "прозрачности". Кросс-сохранение с ограниченным доступом по времени - это большая проблема, которая изначально сводит на нет весь смысл перехода. Бонусы "За раннее начало" для этой важной функции сводят на нет весь смысл ее добавления.

[RouxcarnagePrime]

Does the same item will be added or replaced. Lets say I've got Nekros on console and I've got it on pc will I have the choice wich to choose or will it just add it?

 

[(NSW)Wookie2104]

I was hoping to buy a cool tennogen from PC, but man this is a bit underwhelming, i wish that at some point some items from PC tennogen are also available for Console

[(XBOX)Void ShadowVS]

What date is it If you want to merge your Xbox account with your switch account.

[xBloodySin]

If the issue is not harming the creators' income on PC, why not make it so things purchased on PC for real cash are available everywhere, while those bought on consoles are console-exclusive? This change just ensured I won't buy any more Tennogen (after owning a lot of them on PC). I refuse to support the artists AND have to buy it again if I want to play my account on a console. Congrats.

[AnActualFrog]

11 minutes ago, KIREEK said:

if you gave a heads up i believe users would likely make use of the time to buy stuff on steam, i think you guys missed an opportunity, not only to gain some revenue, but also revenue for the artists.

Lots of folks would have also JUST used console plat to buy Tennogen knowing they'll get it merged over to their PC accounts, which is the larger concern.

Console payouts to the artists are likely very different than PC payouts because licensing through each companies store is a nightmare. DE might have done this to prevent folks from loading up on Tennogen via console plat because it probably ends up worse for the Tennogen artists since microsoft/sony/nintendo are taking a cut of the sale. I'm unsure how Valve handles it through steam, but in the past, they're usually the less abbraisive ones about it.

 

 

Edited November 24, 2023 by AnActualFrog

[Ginshu]

Yeah, announcing the cut-off and then announcing that the cut-off is today is not the best look. Saying, idk, "you have until the end of this weekend" would've been better. And I'm saying this as a person who doesn't have a console account and who's never bought TennoGen for plat but rather for cash via Steam.

It's nice that at least some items will be able to be used on every platform, though.

Edited November 24, 2023 by Ginshu

[[DE]Taylor]

1 minute ago, (PSN)MJ-Cena7 said:

from what i see is that the items i have now on my ps4 can go to pc if i already had a pc account that i can merge with ?

what if i create a new pc account when cross save lunch can i have the items that i have now on p4 to go there on pc ??

Any TennoGen items you have purchased before November 24 at 2pm ET will be eligible to use within the Cross Platform Save system. :) This includes Linking, so long as your main Linked account is the one with the eligible TennoGen items on it!

[Voltage]

4 minutes ago, Cloverskull said:

So people don't abuse the system. Pretty simple.

What exactly would be "abused" by having a bit of a window to make purchases? The absolute worst case scenario is you have a bunch of people spending money. I'm only disagreeing with the fashion of this announcement, not the compromise that had to be made. It was known since they first launched TennoGen on console that differing the system from Steam would create this issue for potential cross-save.

[(PSN)MJ-Cena7]

58 minutes ago, [DE]Taylor said:

Any TennoGen items you have purchased before November 24 at 2pm ET will be eligible to use within the Cross Platform Save system. :) This includes Linking, so long as your main Linked account is the one with the eligible TennoGen items on it!

great to know that clarifies it, so its linking or merging just the purchase date is what matters 

thanks

but next question is what about old items that are yet to ported to console will those be just never there ? 

Edited November 24, 2023 by (PSN)MJ-Cena7

[[DE]Taylor]

1 minute ago, xBloodySin said:

If the issue is not harming the creators' income on PC, why not make it so things purchased on PC for real cash are available everywhere, while those bought on consoles are console-exclusive? This change just ensured I won't buy any more Tennogen (after owning a lot of them on PC). I refuse to support the artists AND have to buy it again if I want to play my account on a console. Congrats.

This is answered in our questions section. That sounds like an ideal solution, but it is not something we are able to do unfortunately. 

Quote

Why don’t Steam PC purchases also give you the console version of the item?
We explored this option, but it, unfortunately, is not an avenue that is available to us. 

[(NSW)ShallanSoulcaster]

what happens if I only have a NSW account, but have planned to only play on PC after cross save becomes available.

I can't merge, because that would require two accounts.

The Dev stream mentioned a "link" option, but it was woefully underexplained (I feel), is this the replacement for people like me who only have a console account but still want to make PC their main account? so I would be able to "merge"/link to basically a phantom PC account making me able to use the Tennogen I bought on NSW on PC!?

Is my interpretation correct? The FAQ unfortunately didn't explain this situation at all (at the time of writing this post).

[nerfinator6]

1 hour ago, [DE]Taylor said:

Steam PC Purchases can be used on the PC version of Warframe only. 

But why though? Console doesn't have every tennogen item, why not just restrict purchasing it to PC but make it usable on consoles?