The Washington Post had a stab at it ever the weekend claiming that Epic is making a big risky PR move. It claims that the Epic is just as evil as Apple and its moves are scaring developers off and quotes a small German developer who has scrapped games they were building for the iPhone because “this whole argument between Apple and Epic makes it hard to predict what happens next”.
The developer said that he understands Apple for banning Epic because of its contracts.
“On the other hand, blocking Epic completely from the Apple Developer Tools means they’re willingly accepting a lot of collateral damage”, he said. “Seeing everything from the antitrust perspective … the outright blocking of game streaming by Apple, all the closed-room deals Apple did and has done in the past with big companies concerning App Store guidelines … none of this was fair at any point.”
It quotes other developers who are suddenly finding their games out of production because they use the Unreal Engine.
Then comes the kicker. One of the developers attacks Epic because its Epic Games Store is a “closed store” and not every developer can get on the Epic Games Store.
Developers wishing to be included in the recent launcher Epic Games marketplace must apply and be approved by the game publisher, just as Apple approves applications for its App Store.
“Epic is also a closed garden. And while I appreciate Epic saying that they’re trying to help small developers get more money, but wonders if this fight is necessary now, especially since “Fortnite” has made the company billions of dollars a year.”
“It’s nice that a big juggernaut like Epic is saying they’re fighting for the little guys, but also they want to make more money”, the developer said.
So the central argument is that Epic is not the underdog it is just another evil, anti-competitive corporation which wants to make a pile of cash from exploiting small developers. The danger of that particular narrative, which does not appear to hold water, is that it does not stop you looking at the other evil, anti-competitive corporation which wants to make a pile of cash from exploiting small developers. In fact, it gives you a side-by-side comparison. If Epic is closed, Apple is fortified, if Epic controls those using its software, Apple locks in developers in a way that makes them think “is this really worth my while?”
It is the nature of the beast for corporations to be evil, but one thing we have noticed is that the scale of evil is usually marked by a lack of a sense of humour. The less humour, the more evil. At the moment Epic is offering an Evil Apple skin as a prize in a competition while Jobs’ Mob is cutting Epic’s developers.
