He doesn't force anybody to use the Epic Store. Unless you want to play Fortinite (which is made and published by Epic Games) or games that have an exclusivity contract with the Epic Store.
This is much, much different than the position of Apple or Google. They don't have to pass an exclusivity contract with anybody since they have a de-facto monopoly on their device. Want you game to be playable on iPhone ? You need to pay Apple rate, you can't just decide to go an publish your game on steam or any other platform.
Nobody is complaining that you can't have iTune on another platform. But for third-party developer, it means that you have no choice but to agree with Apple and Google rates.
Granted, the situation with Google is a bit different since you can technically install another store, but remember that Microsoft was forced to stop pre-installing IE on Windows and offer user a choice of browser. I hardly see how this is any different than the current situation of Apple / Google.
> He doesn't force anybody to use the Epic Store. Unless you want to play Fortinite (which is made and published by Epic Games) or games that have an exclusivity contract with the Epic Store.
So you're not forced, except when you are... I think the GP meant people is forced to use their store to play certain games. Games not developed by Epic, which were meant to be released in other stores and operating systems. You can choose not to play those games. Many people do in fact just that. But that was not the point.
Of course Tim Sweeney does not force random people at gunpoint to use their store. That's never going to be the case because there's laws forbidding him!
There's clearly a difference between a company having exclusive control over how people access a particular game on a particular platform (eg Fortnite on Windows) and a company having control over how people access all software on a platform (eg everything on iOS and Apple).
I don’t think there’s that much of a difference, unless you want to legally classify a platform differently. Today no such legal classification exists.
The problem is exactly those exclusivity contracts and how they were made.
Epic literally bribed devs to do deals that went back on promises, people are not just upset about exclusivity, they are upset about exclusivity of stuff they PAID FOR on other platforms, there were kickstarted games, games pre-sold for Steam, etc... that suddenly became Epic exclusive, and devs went and explicitly said they wouldn't even return the money.
It became an obvious pattern, whenever a game "became" Epic Exclusive, someone would be screwed by it, it is why people are so mad at Epic.
And before someone says that this is their way to compete... well, yes, a crappy one, their store suck, doesn't provide basic features, has no reviews for example, has a ton of dark patterns, it is super hard to get rid of your account or fix your account and so on.
Depends. You bought your groceries there? You paid their price.
You offered extra money to the grocer to sell to you something that was already sold to someone else that had already paid? I would count that as a bribe, and yes, it is a corrupt thing to do.
Epic is literally paying people to go back on their word, or in some jurisdictions, literally commit a crime by not delivering on purpose something that was paid for, in some places that is called interference, in others it is called fraud.
You can just install all game stores on Windows and there is no downside to doing so, and no real difference between installing the Epic store and purchasing a game there and buying the game on the game publisher's website.
Also currently Steam has a dominant position and 30% cut, and if the Epic store succeeds it will result in a more competitive situation with at least two game stores probably taking a 5-15% cut, which is a drastic improvement for everyone except for Valve, which makes Steam.
Same thing on mobile if Epic succeeds in the antitrust lawsuit with Google/Apple stores instead of Steam.
How does that benefit me, Joe Customer? I’m not getting a lower price by going to EGS. I’m just getting more friction in finding a game I want to play.
There are now more store-wide sales available ("Fall Sales" and whatnot). While at the developer's choice a game may have the same retail and sale price at different stores, since the sale dates are different, I the consumer am more likely to find and buy the game at the lower sale price. If you the consumer only want to purchase from one store it is still your choice to wait (just like timed exclusives).
Others have complained about Steam's lack of curation causing discoverability problems. It was at the height of this controversy that Epic launched their store promising better curation. Again, this helps consumers because not all consumers are alike. Some consumers do not want arbitrary moral decisions to block game availability, while others want this so that they do not have to wade through "garbage". Others, still, want to make that decision for all consumers.
I get free games from EGS, just like I got free games from Amazon App Store. For the same reason that the Amazon App Store exists, I can also get open source apps from F-Droid, including apps like Newpipe that aren't allowed on the primary app store on the device.
Do you wish that the Mac App Store were the only way to get apps on your Mac?
Free games are a marketing practice, nothing more. It's not a sustainable business practice, and it's paid for by Epic's exploitative Fortnight lootboxes. The "free games" will become part of a paid monthly subscription (or just go away entirely) when Epic feels like they have the audience they need.
And me? The value those free games might provide me is not worth the cost - being marketed to by a company whose values are quite the opposite of my own.
> Free games are a marketing practice, nothing more.
It's a marketing practice that would not happen without competing stores. The end result is user benefit.
> it's paid for by Epic's exploitative Fortnight lootboxes
Why does it matter to me how it's paid for? Does not allowing competing stores change where Epic or Amazon get their money? The end result is that I benefit from Epic and Amazon getting to compete.
> being marketed to by a company whose values are quite the opposite of my own.
I find Apple's values to be opposite to my own (selling low privacy devices and lying about it, preventing me from doing general computing on my devices, etc.). With competition, I would at least have a choice of finding an app distributer like F-Droid whose values are closer to mine were I to be stuck with an iOS device.
You still haven't answered the question about whether you would prefer if your Mac didn't allow you to install apps outside of it's app store.
If the game store takes a lower cut, then either games will cost less, or they will be better because at least some of the game developers will choose to use the extra money to pay more employees to work on the game.
Also, if there are more stores it's less likely that entire categories of games will be unavailable to you (or available but worse due to reduced budgets) due to all game stores having rules banning them, and in general game stores are less likely to be able to enact policies that serve them at your expense.
They don't. The prices, between MTX and multiple release versions, have gone up if anything.
> they will be better
Pretty close to unuantifiable. What quantification we have, critic scores, aren't showing any movement in the ~decade since Steam got competition (Origin, GoG, etc).
The only benefit seems to be for the shareholders and corporate executives thus far.
That’s not inconsistent. Users can choose to use the Epic store or not. If they choose not to use it, they can’t buy games from that store, just like I can’t buy Trader Joe’s food if I decide to not use the TJ’s store.
Exactly, people are having a hissy fit over exclusive content that has no further price than downloading a free store app. It's like whingeing about driving to another store to get the brand of ice cream that you like. I have no problem with that as long as the device manufacturer doesn't limit me to a single store. Preferably I'd like to be able to choose any store or independent content. More choices, more freedom, more competition.
It is in fact those three things. Different stores compete with each other providing different value, both users and devs having the freedom to choose to support one or the other (or all) based on their personal criteria.
It's up to the developers whether they want to sign an exclusive-deal with Epic (and of course up to Epic to offer one, because it turns out this is a very sweet deal which takes a lot of risk out of a game project, and especially independent developers would be foolish not to accept it).
Apart from Epic there are many other distribution opportunities on the PC platform. This is not the case on iOS. You either make a deal with Apple - and a very lousy deal at that, or you're not on iOS (the same problem exists on game consoles).
This is much, much different than the position of Apple or Google. They don't have to pass an exclusivity contract with anybody since they have a de-facto monopoly on their device. Want you game to be playable on iPhone ? You need to pay Apple rate, you can't just decide to go an publish your game on steam or any other platform.
Nobody is complaining that you can't have iTune on another platform. But for third-party developer, it means that you have no choice but to agree with Apple and Google rates. Granted, the situation with Google is a bit different since you can technically install another store, but remember that Microsoft was forced to stop pre-installing IE on Windows and offer user a choice of browser. I hardly see how this is any different than the current situation of Apple / Google.