Can think of worse.

Has Sony released a statement on the situation yet?

It'd be interesting to know their stance given they have a minority stake in Epic.

But that never happens, it's always like the former.

https://wccftech.com/google-follows-apple-and-removes-fortnite-from-the-google-play-store/

Excuse me while I just

I'm gonna have to repeat myself alot of times, but here goes: Epic knows they are breaching Apples ToS. They also did this knowing this would happen, and were prepared to go to court. They will obviously not argue that they are not breaching Apples ToS - they will argue that Apples ToS are illegal. They are also obviously aware of the EU's anti-trust investigation into Apple's practices, and they will certainly help as much as they can with info, but that case is the EU vs Apple, not EU + other companies vs Apple.

To be clear, I don't know where this lawsuit will go, but it's not as simple as "Epic breached Apple's ToS, they are legally in the wrong".

Of course it's about money. You of all people should know and shouldn't really care. It IS about money for Epic, but if Apple was forced to allow competing storefronts on iOS, it would still be good for consumers

If Apple would allow you to download apps from other sources it would be fine. Microtransactions for downloads through the app store? Apple gets their cut. If you wanna publish your app elsewhere and not pay Apple (but also not get the visibility from being on the App store, that should be fine. If people buy games through PS Store or Xbox Store, sure microtransactions should also go through there, and they could get their cut. But why shouldn't other storefronts be allowed on consoles? It's completely arbitrary and the only reason to be against it is through force of habit or some strange financial loyalty to console makers.

See my previous reply to you. Breaching the ToS is unimportant if the ToS are illegal.

It's fine to not allow content on your store if it violates the rules. The problem is that Apple won't allow you to make your own store (with your own rules) either. The physical analogy would be if you want to sell something, but Apple doesn't allow you to sell it from their physical locations. Okay, fine, I'll make my own shop you think. But Apple also owns all the real-estate there is and won't allow you to make a shop anywhere.

Yeah, I imagined this would happen as well.

That’s a fantasy land you’re describing. The price of a commodity to the consumer is dependent on the max profitability of the producer, not its cost to manufacture. You literally have to get governments to step in to regulate markets to make it anything but, and corporations fight this tooth and nail - even buying political speech to fight for their right to screw their customers as hard as the market allows. This is especially true for industries with low intrinsic value relative to the cost - such as data, 50 USD for something that literally costs pennies? This includes live services where the justification for a product’s existence is generally based on the size of corporate ROIs it benefits to the corporation as a whole, not whether or not it’s profitable.

In other words, this contention Epic has is NOT motivated by the price to the consumer, but their cut of the revenue share on Apple and Google platforms. In the wider scope of things, Epic is not going to suddenly become benevolent toward its consumer base simply because they’ve increased their ROIs, this violates the basic nature of Liberal economics that’s been true since before it was outlined in Wealth of Nations and Das Kapital. Benevolence such as “player first” is all marketing and appearance, the corporations spend up to billions of dollars a year to push out positivity toward their brand. I can’t imagine a CEO being hired for their benevolent nature - they are hired for one reason, maximization of ROIs to the shareholders; and this probably includes you, as I doubt the main thing you look for in your statements is how companies treat their consumers, it’s how much money you’ve made on your investments.

We have a whole system set up to remove the guilt disincentive to investors. It’s a system that basically creates a psychopathic collective entity without its participants realizing their greed or hypocrisy. The only thing about consumers investors care about are what the they (the consumers) are willing to pay - and the investors don’t even have to be aware of that to drive it. Think of it this way, its likely true that you don’t look much deeper into your investments beyond the ROI statements. You might, out of curiosity find a way to see what entities you’re invested in, but I doubt you’d go any further than that - to dig into secondary and tertiary levels of investment because what really matters is the bottom line: money made. The advocates for investors hire boards to ensure corporations maximize their profits, and the market determines the secondary and tertiary sources those products come from. This economic culture is so ingrained in our society that we’ve literally fought wars over it, killed millions, justified the destruction of vast amounts of our own planet, and even justified near-slavery conditions around third world. All of this while allowing the investors to criticize these situations as harshly as they want and ignore the fact that they’re the ones driving the massacres, the near-slavery, and destruction of the planet. And that’s no hyperbole, that’s the depth of the system.

In the end, this it breaks down to some capitalists vs. other capitalists. The interests of the consumers are not the interests of Epic, Google, or Apple - their investors only care about the bottom line.

It’s interesting how you only seem to be blaming Apple for this and praise Google despite identical actions. You believe Epic has consumer rights in mind and ignore the fact that they are the ones guilty of this breakdown of service. I am guessing your anti-Apple sentiment is a result of being pro-Android. You feel this way because you’ve bought into the marketing.

If Epic, or anyone, was interested in you having cheaper games, their products would be SIGNIFICANTLY cheaper than they currently are. The proof is that the cost to be on the platform is a percentage, not a flat rate, and Epic already makes substantial profits.

This has nothing to do with the consumer and won’t result in cheaper games under any outcome.

Pretty good take I would say, especially in regards to the dumb-as-fudge '1984' reference.

It was inevitable that this would happen. Both companies are now just going to tag team against Epic, because well, Epic has been going around hitting every one of them, demanding they adhere to their bullshit, and now both are tired of it. 

Post of the year right here!