[maeln]

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.

[setzer22]

> 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!

[onion2k]

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).

[parasubvert]

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.

[belltaco]

How is there no difference between just installing a launcher vs throwing out your entire phone and apps?

[speeder]

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.

[gsich]

I don't think you know what bribe means.

[gruez]

>Epic literally bribed devs to do deals that went back on promises

By that logic, I'm literally "bribing" the grocer every week to get groceries

[speeder]

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.