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KLAMarine said: "If a group of people today built an explosive device that was much more devastating than a nuke, and a certain Country was willing to pay for the rights to a key factor in that tech that was necessary for it to work fully as intended, but wouldn't exclude other Countries from getting most of the tech, and that group knew that certain Country was going build many devices and use them to hold the rest of the world hostage with their time advantage, who would be more at fault? The group that created it and sold it, or the certain Country who used a type of leverage to gain an advantage over it's rivals? Epic is the device maker and PS is the certain Country." >I don't see the need for this metaphor but I'll play along: the country that used its leverage to impose its anti-consumer will and abduct any accounts that associated with them is at fault. |
The need is to point out it's the device makers that are at fault, even if they have been given false information leading them wanting to cause chaos. If they didn't seek out all information available and analyze it properly and come to the conclusion that the info they were given is wrong and they shouldn't do it, it's their fault. If they were forced to do it, with their lives at stake, that's tougher, but knowing the potential outcome of something like this, agreeing to do it would be extremely selfish.
I think it's pretty fair to say Epic wasn't forced to make Fortnite or a battle royale mode or was looking for chaos and wanted everyone to enjoy the game. That would be the main goal, because happy gamers usually means more money, to a certain extent. They do not have the ability to get that game to those gamers without going through hardware providers though. I'm sure when they found out what PS expected that they most likely didn't want to have to go that route, but they did anyway, probably because if they didn't agree, they would be leaving out 60 million gamers and growing.
By agreeing to the terms, they were given the opportunity to get the game into those 60+ million gamers hands, even though it might anger a few million gamers later on. They simply ran the numbers and were easily able to decide that for the greater good, they should work with PS. If they hadn't, both the PS gamers and Epic income would greatly suffer. It was a win win. They could have chosen to side with MS and Nin, eventually, but what if they lost that battle? What if PS4 just kept chugging along like it is now anyway? PS stock fell a couple percent lately, and it could be for many reasons, but let's assume it's due to the controversy. It made that back up in no time and is now at a 10 year high. This would have made things very very tough for Fortnite back then, and could have meant PUBG dominating it far beyond what it is now. How good would that have been for Epic and the gaming community?
When people get married, they aren't perfect for each other in every way and things don't always go exactly to plan. You need them and they need you. Sometimes you disagree and get nowhere, sometimes you both agree, and sometimes both need to compromise for the greater good so both are as happy as possible. Even with children, married couples don't always agree on what's best for the kids and sometimes have to back down for the overall good of the child as well as the relationship. Does it also hurt everyone slightly at times and into the future? Yes, but that's because life is super complicated and far from perfect. Most try their best to do as little damage as possible while also not screwing themselves over.
Business relationships aren't much different. Everyone has certain needs and if you want to do what's best for the majority, sometimes you have to compromise, as long as everyone wins as much as possible. That's also why PS is no doubt being very careful about how they are handling cross accounts and cross play. If they give in too much, and make it clear they have no back bone, there's a good chance that their new found relationship with MS and Nin, could mean one of them see's this weakness and uses it to walk all over PS. This happens in some relationships and can destroy them, or just leaves one of the individuals extremely depressed.
SNY requires PS to remain making significant profits for the overall company to thrive and if that changes, SNY will suffer, which leads to PS suffering, which leads to their customers suffering. MS does not require XB at all. If XB was sold off or simply folded tomorrow, it wouldn't matter to MS one bit. Heck, their stock might actually rise if they sold XB since many of their investors aren't exactly thrilled about that portion of the company. This all leads to the compromises that are happening in the industry today, like the Fortnite controversy. Right here and right now, it seems like a horrible thing, but in the grand scheme it's not that big of a deal and given time, it's likely PS can figure out a way to allow CP.
What I will point out, is that by constantly bringing up stuff like cross accounts and cross play, over and over, will lead to things staying exactly the same. PS will not change this while the controversy is in people's recent memory. If they are going to allow it, it's going to happen when the dust has long settled, and they can make it look like it was 100% their idea and 100% for the gamers. They will not allow MS and Nin to claim a PR victory from it. You can almost bet they will follow that up with something new to draw in customers to make up for the losses, that is also 'anti consumer' because they will be the only one's who have it. That's just how things work though.
