People its treating this as if the consumer has no options. When you buy a console you know which exclusives you can play in each console and you. When you buy a phone you know if you want an open system or a closed system, even if you are not entirely happy with your choice because you are missing out some features. This drives the competition between companies to offer better thing to convince the consumer to chose them. Also it allows companies to operate their companies as they want. If Google and Apple are the companies they are know it’s because the consumers chose them and help them become what they are.

If Epic wins the legal battle this is going to have ripple effect and it wont help the consumer as much as people think. Epic build their own game store to compete against steam, and the prices of game in steam are the same as in Epic, if you don’t take consider sales. So even if they are charging less the consumer hasn’t seen any benefit from it.

Right now its not that people doesn’t have enough option to choose, actually the problem is the opposite that you have so many options that its hard to figure out crappy and unsafe options from good options and people are being scammed and ripped off because off that, with little liability by the companies.

The more I read about this, the more I think Epic is in the wrong, which is amazing because they are opposing Google and Apple. Seriously, when was the last time you heard something positive and/or consumer friendly from either company? How do you make Apple look reasonable?

Cant really call those offical can you aside those from the phonemanufacturer 

They are in the wrong, because we all know they are just about making more money, just like all the other big fish, but they want the big fish to play by their rules and make them an exception to making more money, by having them lower their barriers. It's insane how people can even think this is a good fight or one for charitable reasons, this is purely for their own benefit.

When Google and Apple, two vastly different companies with different mindsets and goals band together towards one company, you know something big is going down. They likely know Epic has their whole network ideal, as well as payment processing plans, and I'd hazard a guess that they don't like that, because it'd involve them having to bend to Epic's way of doing things, and we all know that when it comes to crossplay, Epic likes to be the one to be in control.

I foresee Epic having a very difficult time in court on this one. Especially against Google since they previously sold this game for Android outside of Google Play, and then decided to bring it into Google Play.

One of the largest antitrust cases of the 21st century, which nearly saw Microsoft split into two separate companies centered around Microsoft making it too difficult and cumbersome to download and/or use another internet browser. Abusing the power of defaults can certainly be grounds for a lawsuit, even if users aren't actually forced to use that default. Of course, Google has a better argument than Apple in that other options at least exist, but that doesn't absolve them from anti-competetive behaviour.

Brilliant take... I mean, I'm biased because it's basically the same conclusion as my post, though FAR more coherent and less anti-capitalist! =P

To be fair to Jim, he does go into anti-capitalism, just doesn't dive into the mechanics that explain why these corporations are driven by greed - just acknowledges the axiom that they ARE greedy to absolute ends.

The main point is that Epic is sleazy for mobilizing a campaign to get naive gamers to do battle against Apple for them so that one mega rich corporation can get a bit more money than another mega rich corporation, and it has nothing to do with the benefit for consumers because capitalism maintains that corporations will try as hard as they can to get as much money out of the consumer base as they can. He notes how they already had their "Nine-teen-eighty-Fortnight" campaign ready to go moments after Apple's response - indicating that they knew what the result would be and pre-planned it in a way to make them (Epic) look like the victim in order to manipulate its players into protesting on their behalf.

Don't be duped and manipulated by Epic.

Breaking news: two large soulless companies want more money and will do anything to get it! Tune in now!

Apple removed Fortnite from the App Store and has informed Epic that on Friday, August 28 Apple will terminate all their developer accounts and cut Epic off from iOS and Mac development tools.

Apple removed Fortnite from the App Store and has informed Epic that on Friday, August 28 Apple will terminate all our developer accounts and cut Epic off from iOS and Mac development tools. We are asking the court to stop this retaliation. Details here: https://t.co/3br1EHmyd8

— Epic Games Newsroom (@EpicNewsroom) August 17, 2020

Epic says that included in the tools that Apple will revoke is the Unreal Engine that hundreds of third party developers use. "Apple’s actions will irreparably damage Epic’s reputation among Fortnite users and be catastrophic for the future of the separate Unreal Engine business"

— Rod Breslau (@Slasher) August 17, 2020

This is Epics faceturn, loving it!! this only proves they were spot on with their previous diss