What’s Epic’s real game with Apple?
Epic continues to escalate their fight with Apple. This week, they joined the Coalition for App Fairness. A group of companies and organizations who seek to “preserve consumer choice and [create] a level playing field for app and game developers that rely on app stores and the most popular gatekeeper platforms.” Members of the coalition include Proton Technologies, Deezer, the European Publishers Council, and Spotify.
Tim Sweeney is trying his darndest to frame this as a David vs Goliath battle. Heck, he even evoked Apple’s infamous “1984” commercial to pretty much shove that right into your eye holes. In reality though, it’s like watching a fight between Thanos and Cthulhu. An inconceivable elder god facing off against a titanic supervillain. I’ll leave it up to you to decide who’s who.
Frankly, I’d buy Epic’s claim that they’re doing this for the greater good about as much as I could buy the Dallas Cowboys. These are the same people that rakes in two billion dollars a year selling silly consumes and questionable loot boxes to eight-year-olds. I get that the company has contributed a great deal to the industry in the form of the Unreal Engine, but let’s not pretend for a moment they’re the good guys here.
Epic isn’t going to do anything unless there’s financial incentive for them. That incentive being that they want all of that sweet, sweet microtransaction money.
iOS players account for about half of Fortnight’s revenues. Apple’s sitting there like Smaug on his pile of gold, and Sweeney wants to make off with it like a cheeky little hobbit. When we’re talking a 30% cut on hundreds of millions, that’s certainly not loose change in the couch cushions. Unless you’re Warren Buffet.
However, there’s a part of me wonders if this isn’t the whole story. Chinese megacorp, and all around purveyor of supervillainy, Tencent owns a substantial 40% share in Epic Games. As I pointed out in a recent bit of news analysis, the company has direct ties to the Chinese Communist Party, with its founder currently serving as a member of the authoritarian regime’s legislative body. When the CCP isn’t committing cultural genocide or harvesting organs from political prisoners, they do like a bit of the ol’ industrial espionage against their Second Cold War rivals, the Americans.
The United States government recently took a stand against another Chinese tech conglomerate, Huawei. The company has been accused of spying on Western tech firms and organizations. Which triggered US officials issue regulations against them earlier this year. This includes limiting access to American IP, such as Google’s popular Android OS.
With Google and Apple being the world’s largest smartphone platforms, you almost wonder whether the CCP is using its affiliated companies to get revenge for that. To sow a bit of chaos and distraction among American tech firms. I mean, it’s just the sort of passive-aggressive thing the would do. Of course, I’m pulling that completely out my ass, with no proof whatsoever. But it’s still fun to think about. These sort of spats between companies can rarely be taken at face value. There’s always ulterior motives at play.
Feature image via The Insouciant Stitcher
