A couple of my kids used to play it and talk about it all the time. That’s not been the case for a while now, so I assumed they might be seeing the writing on the wall. Just like with music, people get bored of doing or listening to the same thing over and over.
Not exactly the same thing, but an interesting story of a brand getting a retailer to bend to consumer pressure:
I remember 20+ years ago, back when I was working for a plastic products manufacturer and I sold product to Walmart. I heard a story of Walmart going to the suppliers who had most of the business at the register - that is the products that you could find at each register, like batteries, chewing gum, lip balm, etc., to say that they had to effectively pay for their spot in the store since Walmart realized it was such valuable space. One company who had one of the top selling items, Carmex, refused to abide. So Walmart pulled their items off the shelf at each register in all their stores - which was still a significant 1500+ stores back then.
It wasn’t more than 2 weeks of Walmart getting consumer complaints of not having the product available at the register, that they had to put it back in and not charge the company. That was an almost unheard of thing, but the company that manufactured Carmex knew what would happen and took the chance that they would come out on top.
It’s an example of a big retailer bending rules for some suppliers, much like Apple bent the rules for Amazon, because they knew that getting something with a big volume brand is better than nothing. I think Apple is smart to not cave with Epic, because as you note, Fortnite won’t be popular forever. Remember when Angry Birds was all the rage? There are probably dozens of examples of apps that have come and gone and I can’t even remember most of the names - that’s how memorable they are...not.
