Epic Games starts Battle Royale with Samsung, Google over app store practices Epic Games has launched another lawsuit in pursuit of its goal of selling its apps direct rather than through platform owners' app stores – this time placing Samsung in its sights. A complaint [PDF] filed on Monday points out that Google's Play store is installed on most of the world's Android smartphones other than those sold …
...If Epic Games wanted to expand it's market share instead of making money through litigation they would have native support for Linux, SmackOS, and any other OS you can think of. They do have any such support. In My Not So Humble Opinion they are looking for a settle agreement with concessions.
Rather than just downvote this comment it's probably worth explaining why it's nonsense, and this from someone who has supported native Linux gaming for 25 years (as a creator) and exclusively runs a Linux rig now:
Epic have no real need to expand their market share by about 1%, which is the realistic maximum size of the Linux gaming market, at a cost to them that will most likely actually exceed any profits they might have made on that 1%.
“This is a meritless lawsuit. Android device makers are free to take their own steps to keep their users safe and secure”
Hold on, Google. Aren't you the same company that lost in court to Epic's claim that you were garden-walling your app store to ensure insane revenue ?
And now, because you lost, you are saying that phone makers are free ?
I note that you did not say that phone makers can accept any app store. No. You just said they're free to ensure their user's safety.
Somehow, I feel that that is a strawman argument.
I hate Epic & Google - but was confused that Epic won against Google a while ago as it is easy to sideload on typical android devices - my android* has quite a few sideloaded apps and it was not that difficult to add the apps, just a few security nags to deal with.
* Unfortunately (neither appealing!) its really a choice of Google or Apple on phones (ignoring more obscure OSes as not really an option) & android gives me more control over my device than on an iPhone
Epic,
When are you going to realise you are a gateway provider too. All the people buying skins etc for the likes of fortnight that can only be brought through the game.
The developers T&C’s last time I read them (started and gave up) were not all that great and obviously more focused on how Epic makes lots of money.
We need someone who develops a lot to bit back and state they want to self distribute, no store fees etc.
I’m sure they will come back with something along the lines of ‘we can’t do that, it wouldn’t be safe or a level playing field for the consumer’ (rolls eyes)
While you're having fun poking at Tim Sweeney it should be made clear to you that Epic does *not* mandate that purchases are made through EGS - it is purely a convenience. And Epic have actively supported entirely novel mechanisms to manage purchases - eg. digital blockchain stuff (for better or worse - the point is it's not like Apple or Steam or Google where such things are *explicitly banned*)
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