Epic, complain to whoever you want. Fight for every last bit of possible revenue, every real dollar from every imaginary video game outfit and emote. But for God’s love, don’t ask me to care anymore.
It’s been four years since Epic willfully violated the terms of the Apple App Store on iOS and the Google Play Store on Android, immediately suing Apple and Google for the right to flog Fortnite V-bucks without paying the 30 percent discount.
And Epic won, at least in some versions of its various lawsuits: Apple beat it in the US, but had to open the iOS platform to third-party stores in Europe in response to the Digital Markets Actand Epic got the US federal courts to declare Google a monopoly on the Android platform. The consequences of this are still ongoing.
But beating two of the biggest companies in the world to sell game skins to children apparently wasn’t enough of a victory for Epic and CEO Tim Sweeney. Today, Epic announced another lawsuit against Google and Samsung, this time for making side-loading Android games too difficult. It is claimed that “Samsung’s recent implementation of the Auto Blocker feature was deliberately developed in collaboration with Google.”
Autoblocker is a security feature on Samsung phones that activates when you try to install an unverified APK file. It can be disabled in the settings menu to load third-party programs, something that has always been possible on Android phones. Epic’s public post announcing the lawsuit says it takes “21 steps” to disable the setting, an extremely generous interpretation of the process of downloading the official Epic Games Store app and ultimately opening it.
Epic calls the lawsuit “exceptionally burdensome” and says Google and Samsung are engaging in “coordinated illegal anticompetitive conduct.” Nice damn sadness.
Look, I’m not a corporate flag exempt person. Google and Samsung (and Apple, why the hell not) are huge international mega-corps that often engage in practices that are completely malicious, and to use a more relevant and non-specific term: illegal. I work for a company owned by a huge private equity firm, and a quick search will tell you that company isn’t exactly squeaky clean either.
But it’s not like Epic is an underdog fighting for our inalienable right to buy skins on the digital marketplace of our choice. Epic made $6 billion in 2022, the vast majority of which came from microtransactions Fortnite. Epic licenses the Unreal engine to game developers around the world, requiring a five percent cut on any game that generates $3,000 in revenue every three months. That is gainnot gain – if a $20 Steam game sells 50 copies a month, it pays Epic $50 a month, $600 a year.
None of that is bad or wrong. Epic provides a service and charges fees for it. Basic stuff, and not dishonest or, ahem, burdensome. I don’t even object to Epic suing other companies. They’re all fighting each other to get every dollar they can in markets worth hundreds of billions. That’s not “right,” “fair,” or “natural” in some overly Randian sense. It’s business. It’s inevitable.
No, what I can’t stand is Epic’s holier-than-thou attitude. It began a PR campaign targeting its own players – the vast majority of whom are children – once it broke the rules and was deliberately kicked out of Apple and Google’s digital stores. It evoked Apple’s own 1984 ad as a rallying cry for freedom, which may be the most cynical and tone-deaf thing I’ve ever seen in the gaming industry. And that’s an industry that once told me I was about to become a game manager’s non-consensual sex partner.
Here I would like to point out that whether or not you think Apple, Google and Samsung’s 30 percent microtransactions are a pain, it is the same percentage that Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo charge for digital purchases on their consoles. And for some reason I couldn’t possibly speculate on, Epic has declined to sue the administrators of players’ keys on the Xbox, PlayStation, and Switch. Platforms where loading third party game stores would be next to impossible.
Epic engages in deliberate manipulation of the court of public opinion first, and the court second. The constant public statements and animations of video games invite you and your children to take sides in a battle that is not and never will be yours.
It’s exhausting, just like TV networks and cable providers send ads to viewers telling them to call their opponents and “demand” the opposing side give them more money. It’s a corporate pissing contest, and framing it as anything less than that is an insult to intelligence… which may be why Epic is primarily targeting children with its messaging.
Yesterday Tim Sweeney said: “We want our children to grow up in a world that is better than this.” In 2022, Epic was forced to pay $520 million for manipulating children into buying Fortnite V-bucks and violating their privacy. Tim, forgive me if your words ring hollow. Or better yet, don’t do that – forgiveness from a billionaire gaming exec isn’t something I really need.
