Epic vs. Google Trial Verdict, a Win for All Developers

austin-cheney 2 years ago | |

Its all the same evil. The name of the game is vendor lock-in to a consolidated platform, also known as a walled garden. Google gives a lot away for free as well. When you access these applications are the applications the products or are you the product? To me that determines where the evil occurs as it drives motivation.

klipklop 2 years ago | | |

While not ideal, I’ll take several walled gardens over having only Google’s garden.

lern_too_spel 2 years ago | | |

All corporations are motivated by profit. What matters is if the way the corporation chases profits happens to align with my interests. It does for Epic in the cases I mentioned. For Google, it aligns maybe 20% of the time. For Apple, basically never.

sbuk 2 years ago | | |

Targeting kids with micropayments aligns to your interests?

lern_too_spel 2 years ago | | |

Is that one of the cases I mentioned?

Epic didn't target kids for micropayments. They optimized their microtransaction flow without properly accounting for how it would affect kids playing the game and took remediation steps after the lawsuit was filed. https://www.epicgames.com/site/en-US/news/epic-ftc-settlemen...

Apple settled a similar lawsuit.

ryao 2 years ago | |

Their CEO compared using Linux to moving to Canada (which historically was done to avoid military drafts). Not only did he insult an entire country, but he also implied that supporting Linux was the act of a coward.

lern_too_spel 2 years ago | | |

No, he said moving to Linux because Windows took away some existing rights is like moving to Canada because the US modified existing rights. Both are things that can be changed if enough people complain. Moving to Canada or using Linux because you prefer it in general is a different thing. https://twitter.com/TimSweeneyEpic/status/964284402741149698

That tweet has no effect on whether the company's actions benefit me or not.

owlbite 2 years ago | |

As far as I can see Epic doesn't have a problem with Apple/Google/Steam's business model. They have a problem with not being Apple/Google/Steam themselves.

throwawa14223 2 years ago | |

At least among my friend group they are hated for poaching games and turning them into exclusives.

dgellow 2 years ago | | |

They offer better deals to developers for limited time exclusivity. That’s such a non issue: benefits indie studios, and makes the PC gaming fields a little bit more competitive.

rcxdude 2 years ago | | |

And adds to the glut of storefronts and launchers PC gamers need to have installed. I don't think there's any issue with providing a competitor to steam, but in practice it's not 'oh, I can switch to epic game store', it's now 'because epic has paid these developers some money, I need to go to them if I want that game'. This, in combination with a lack of feature parity with steam, is why people resented epic. If they hadn't basically pulled several games off of steam when they launched I think they would have caught a lot less flak from the community.

(console exclusives, are of course this but much worse, but at least there's some decent amount of effort involved in a port which means it's not just exclusivity deals that make a game only available on one console, as opposed to an almost entirely artificial limitation)

RealStickman_ 2 years ago | | |

I compared launch price across Steam and Epic for a few games a while ago both cost the same.

Why would I choose Epic and loose

- Linux support - social features - the workshop - (mostly) having a single launcher

They also pulled a few games off Steam just before launch after they'd already been advertised there.

dgellow 2 years ago | | |

I’m actually playing games from the epic game store on my steam deck. Linux support is from proton, it’s not tied to steam.

> They also pulled a few games off Steam just before launch after they'd already been advertised there.

They offered a better deal to developers for a limited-time exclusivity. It’s not like epic is pulling things out from steam, publishers and developers decided to go with the exclusivity offer.

lern_too_spel 2 years ago | | |

Third party clients flatten that mole hill.

Edit: like legendary

upon_drumhead 2 years ago | | |

What do you mean by third party clients? GOG Galaxy? Steam?

mirashii 2 years ago | | |

More likely things like https://heroicgameslauncher.com/

supriyo-biswas 2 years ago | |

The “good fight” in this case is nothing but an attempt to “commoditize your complement”[1].

[1] https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2002/06/12/strategy-letter-v/