Yes that’s a very good point.
You’re right of course. People intuitively think that once you buy something you can do whatever you want with it, i.e. go ahead and paint / resell your patio set. But software is licensed, not an owned good.
If Epic won, the entire digital economy would collapse. Netflix wouldn’t control the rights to its platform, and Pornhub could force them to accept all their content. Disney+ too :). Amazon would disappear, as Walmart could force them to sell their products.
Dragging Apple and Google down serves them in many other ways.
The fuck you talking about?
That’s smart of Epic to hire good lawyers. But my take is Epic is hoping for legislative - not judicial - intervention. Their grounds for the lawsuit are dubious. Even if they won it would take years. They’re trying to stir up discontent with the public and get the EU and US government to act on the anti-trust investigations already going on.
Sweeney obviously does not care how the result gets achieved, as long as it gets achieved.
I agree, they want the government to step in, I am just saying, they have a chance here.
The question is, what is really best for consumers, not for this or that company. I find the situation rather complicated, myself. I mean, I can see a definite market for a walled garden that people voluntarily buy into, in exchange for various safeguards. I can see how, when that garden gets really big, other people want to be in on the action as well. What I don’t necessarily see is how making it impossible to create walls as it were actually benefits consumers. They’re already agreeing to pay a premium (in less selection if nothing else) in exchange for a service (curation and firewalls or whatever)… It seems the only upside to consumers might be lower prices for in-app purchases, but consumers can already get that by getting their games from a non-exclusive platform in most cases.
tl;dr, I’m sure what Epic wants is good for their stockholders. I am not sure it is good for anyone else.
Seems like a pretty good prediction to me.
Still, it will help everyone who has to suffer the pizzo to apple/google if that gets broken up.
Yep, I am all for Apple being forced to make changes. I think Epic’s demands are over the top, but I am hoping they meet in the middle and it makes the store better for consumers… I just wish it was Spotify suing them, they have a much better case.
Epic isn’t public, and Sweeney clearly doesn’t give a flying fuck what his investors think. They would never have permitted him to cut Fortnite out of both appstores. He is the majority holder and he does whatever he wants to do. If they don’t like it they can sit and spin.
Well, then I could rephrase it as “it’s good for Sweeney, but is it good for consumers?” I guess.I really do not know, as I have a hard time being sympathetic to any of these companies.
Epic will lose an incredible amount of money over this. Best case scenario, regulators come in and open up the appstores a year from now. If it goes to courts, it will take many years to go through appeals. So why is is good for Sweeney?
Point blank, this was not a reasoned business decision. It will not bear fruit in the short or medium term. Perhaps it will pan out in the long term, but his company will lose a shitton of money in the meantime, and by the time it’s resolved, Fortnite may not be the flavor of the month anymore. Like I said earlier in the thread, will Fortnite be evergreen like Minecraft? Will it still be incredibly popular in 10 years? I doubt that very much.
And that end result, if he wins, is to open up the ecosystems. It doesn’t give Epic an advantage on iOS or Android, it just allows them to compete on a level playing field with Apple, Google, Valve, GOG, Humble, everybody else. There will be a Google Play Store on iOS the same day Apple opens it up. And for that level playing field, he sacrificed Fortnite on iOS and Android. His cash cow, the sort of successful product that often comes only once in a lifetime.
People have this hatred for Epic. I never understood it, and I don’t want to rehash the epic store thread here, but try to think about what Epic and Sweeney have to gain-- and what they already lost, by taking this stand.
It’s also a great big marketing push. They got the attention of people who had no clue what Fortnite was. They are getting free press all over the place.
Also, as had been stated they are hoping Apple bends to the users, look at the video, it’s a call to arms.
People who dislike Epic have told you why a hundred times, the argument just goes in circles.
You’re grasping at straws. Fortnite doesn’t exactly need a marketing push, it has 350 million players. That’s more than the entire population of the US.
They are not hoping Apple changes their mind. They know damn well Apple will never change their mind. There is no world where that happens. Apple will need to be forced to change its policies by either regulators or the courts. Google too.
I didn’t actually ever know what it was exactly before this week. Now I have seen a bunch of videos of it’s game play because of this. (I still don’t get it, it looked horrible.) I would bet there are people out there like me are now giving it a try.
You may not be the target audience-- and neither am I, although I do keep up on general gaming culture so I knew all about it. Kids are doing fortnite dances on tiktok. It’s incredibly popular, really hit the cultural zeitgeist.
So what was the point of the video @stusser? I don’t get it. If it’s not marketing or a call to arms to get user pressure on Apple, why do it? It was funny, but juvenile.
I don’t agree… i think it’s more a gambling position. He’s pretty much the guy that won the lottery and instead of retiring to lake Tahoe and enjoying the fruits of his luck in Vegas is willing to toss all his money into a start up competitor to the equivalent of Microsoft or Exxon. He knows the Fortnite revenue will dry up, eventually, and he’s using the few years he has to literally try and take a bite of everything and anything within reach. That’s not a 10% / year Berkshire Hathaway type, he’s willing to risk it all on his one last chance to make Epic Games more than a one trick pony.
I mean look who he’s taking on - Valve, Unity, Crytec, bought Rocket League dev, bought facial mapping startup, Apple, Google., gets investment from Sony, Tencent, ect. It’s nuts. He’s going all in with every spin of the wheel. It’s not a reasoned decision from a profitability point of view. It’s a business decision of someone making a moonshot to grab marketshare in an industry that’s solidified around a few big, ultra wealthy, corporate players, someone not content to come in a comfortable second or third.