While I wouldn’t accuse him of having the intelligence to make a “calculated move” – he has an extensive history of making decisions based on how it might make him look in the eyes of his suckers naive gamers. If you remember the beginning of his beef with Google and Apple – Epic prepared an entire 80-page lawsuit and an animated short film before intentionally breaking ToS, positioning themselves as the messiah that will save the gamers from the evil corporations.
He obviously has something to gain from voicing a dissenting opinion. Remain skeptical, question everything.
The literal only reason people think he’s an asshole is because PC gamers got all butt hurt about Epic trying to use exclusive games to get their store off the ground and compete with Steam / consoles.
On the other side of that, he has repeatedly called out Microsoft, Apple, Google, et al for their monopolistic gatekeeping practices, and has spent Epic’s Fortnite fortune intentionally launching massively expensive legal campaigns to get these monopolies broken up, have anti-trust law changed, and set legal precedents that they can’t be so abusive.
Every PC gamer on Reddit and Lemmy praising Gabe Newell and shitting on Tim Sweeney, are quite frankly, insanely ill-informed at best, and flat out single-issue idiots at worst.
which is ironically the most monopolistic and anti-consumer OS right now.
Really? Because
a) Windows is objectively less monopolistic and anti-competitive than iOS and Android
b) and it is pretty much equal to MacOS in this regard.
Them supporting Windows isn’t a matter of boosting the most anti-competitive OS, but following the easiest path, which is one of supporting anti-competitive OSes.
And yeah, overall, I would also prefer Epic to better support Linux. I’m hoping that Proton might convince them it’s a low enough lift to do but I’m not exactly holding my breath.
iOS is still much worse than Android in terms of “walled garden” practices but Google has been slowly inching over that way, what with the recent crackdown on sideloading apps.
In that regard I think both Epic and Valve are trying to advance the industry in different ways: Steam trying to break PC gaming from Windows, and the EGS trying to free up restrictive mobile app store policies. We really should be able to directly buy and play mobile games from whatever storefront we choose, not being limited to Google Play or the App Store.
Since Valve and Epic are both for-profit companies, the advancements are largely for profit’s sake of course. I agree that we should take wins where we can secure them, but always be vigilant for how a company might turn the tables once they have the upper hand and try to mitigate that. We’ve seen the same anti-consumer practices happen many times over in the PC hardware market, such as with AMD v Intel or AMD v Nvidia, where a given company pushes for an open standard only when they are the underdog.
The list of companies not sucking the gross orange ding dong is getting mighty small. I was not expecting Epic to be on that list.
Tencent owns epic and was just put on a list of Chinese military companies which is probably bad for him
That did surprise me as well. I might need to readjust my opinion of him.
While I wouldn’t accuse him of having the intelligence to make a “calculated move” – he has an extensive history of making decisions based on how it might make him look in the eyes of
his suckersnaive gamers. If you remember the beginning of his beef with Google and Apple – Epic prepared an entire 80-page lawsuit and an animated short film before intentionally breaking ToS, positioning themselves as the messiah that will save the gamers from the evil corporations.He obviously has something to gain from voicing a dissenting opinion. Remain skeptical, question everything.
This should not be surprising to anyone.
The literal only reason people think he’s an asshole is because PC gamers got all butt hurt about Epic trying to use exclusive games to get their store off the ground and compete with Steam / consoles.
On the other side of that, he has repeatedly called out Microsoft, Apple, Google, et al for their monopolistic gatekeeping practices, and has spent Epic’s Fortnite fortune intentionally launching massively expensive legal campaigns to get these monopolies broken up, have anti-trust law changed, and set legal precedents that they can’t be so abusive.
Every PC gamer on Reddit and Lemmy praising Gabe Newell and shitting on Tim Sweeney, are quite frankly, insanely ill-informed at best, and flat out single-issue idiots at worst.
I wouldn’t dislike Tim Sweeney so much if he didn’t write off Linux so much.
He’s diehard on primarily having the Epic Games Store support Windows, which is ironically the most monopolistic and anti-consumer OS right now.
(minor edit to acknowledge Windows isn’t the only platform since the EGS is also available on Mac)
Really? Because
a) Windows is objectively less monopolistic and anti-competitive than iOS and Android
b) and it is pretty much equal to MacOS in this regard.
Them supporting Windows isn’t a matter of boosting the most anti-competitive OS, but following the easiest path, which is one of supporting anti-competitive OSes.
And yeah, overall, I would also prefer Epic to better support Linux. I’m hoping that Proton might convince them it’s a low enough lift to do but I’m not exactly holding my breath.
Desktop OSes, my bad.
iOS is still much worse than Android in terms of “walled garden” practices but Google has been slowly inching over that way, what with the recent crackdown on sideloading apps.
While the main quote I can find is like 6 years old at this point, Tim Sweeney directly compared Linux to a US citizen moving to Canada when they don’t like the political landscape. I’m sure his opinions have become more nuanced since then, but it’s still imo just needlessly antagonistic.
In that regard I think both Epic and Valve are trying to advance the industry in different ways: Steam trying to break PC gaming from Windows, and the EGS trying to free up restrictive mobile app store policies. We really should be able to directly buy and play mobile games from whatever storefront we choose, not being limited to Google Play or the App Store.
Since Valve and Epic are both for-profit companies, the advancements are largely for profit’s sake of course. I agree that we should take wins where we can secure them, but always be vigilant for how a company might turn the tables once they have the upper hand and try to mitigate that. We’ve seen the same anti-consumer practices happen many times over in the PC hardware market, such as with AMD v Intel or AMD v Nvidia, where a given company pushes for an open standard only when they are the underdog.