Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney, whose company makes Fortnite and tools for other developers, including Unreal Engine, called Apple and Google as “gangster businesses” involved in illegal practices while talking at a Combinator on Wednesday. The executive also emphasized that the practices of large technology companies directly influenced his own business, fearful of users to install Epic’s Games Store software and prevent EPIC from attracting developers to its offers.
Specifically, Epic Games has played a major role in the fight against Big Tech monopolies in recent years.
The company sued both Apple and Google
For monopoly practices for their respective applications stores. Epic won its case with Google but not with Apple. However, the court demanded that Apple open in greater competition by forcing a change to the rules of the App Store. The court said that application developers should now be able to connect to other market mechanisms other than their own. (Unfortunately for application developers, Epic is still fighting with Apple in the courts for this change, claiming that Apple has violated the court ruling by allowing developers to process their own payments, but only with a small, 3% reduction in commission, which is not worth it.
On the stage, Sweeney again called on the big technology companies for their practices and their “malicious compliance” with court rulings.
“The sad truth is that Apple and Google are no longer good, companies that keep the law,” Sweeney said. “They have run, in many ways, as gangster businesses that will do what they think they can escape. If they believe the fine will be cheaper than lost revenue from illegal practice, they always continue the illegal practice and pay the fine.”
The executive of the game pointed out how technology’s practices hurt his business.
For example, when Android users are trying to install the Epic Games Store on their smartphone, Google warns them that the software comes from an “unknown source” and can damage their device. This “Schare screen”, as Sweeney calls it, is intended to warn users about the risk of non -game app installation. But it says the screen results in 50-60% of users who leave their attempt to install the software.
A similar rate of rejection is found in iOS. In Europe, the Epic Games store is allowed thanks to new regulations, but Apple has a warning to users trying to install it. Again, this leads to 50-60%rejection rates, Sweeney said.
It calls on the use of these screens “self-reflection of the manual”, noting that companies are “moving away with it”.
“The crime pays for large technology companies,” he said. “Obviously, we should not expect that it will change until it becomes much more intense, much more intense,” he told the public.
In addition, the Fortnite Exec said that due to friction and related fees with third -party applications stores on iOS, no major toy developer was willing to distribute games through the Epic Game Store. Instead of the usual 30%fee, Apple reduces the fee, but collects a “basic technology fee” 50 cents per installation annually for any application with more than 1 million downloads.
“Unless your application is extremely high gross per user, any free game game is heavily discouraged by it,” Sweeney explained. “It’s very expensive for them. Apple will bankrupt them if they did that.”
He noted that the Epic Games Store on iOS managed to attract some back-catalog games. Meanwhile, the store will open to developer submissions later this year, which Sweeney hopes to boost the list further in both Android and iOS.
