Epic Games Began Planning Antitrust Lawsuit Against Apple Two Years Ago With 'Project Liberty'

[Arsenikdote]

As you say, control is a priority for the Chinese and hand in hand with that is economic dominance. China targets a industry by orchestrating technology transfers and weakening the non-Chinese competitors through espionage, subsidies, and basically any lever they can pull legal/illegal, fair or not. Anything to get the production in China, then monetize it and leverage soft power with it later.

If they can weaken Apple's value proposition, essentially breaking the walled garden, using the US legal system, that is a long run win for Chinese handset makers as Apple will then have the same morass of security and compatibility issues associated with more open app stores. I am simply raising the possibility that the lawsuit is best understood in the broader strategic context. Epic/Tencent knows it is a long shot, but to weaken Apple would support Chinese strategic economic goals. In this context, lawyers are cheap and they probably get points with the CCP leadership for doing it.

Yeah you are cutting with a double edged sword though. If the App Store opens up as you want, then the inherent security of the devices are compromised which would weaken communications and security for any nefarious activities. That seems fairly short sighted for an entity you are ascribing such massive intelligence and planning attributes. It would not be in their best interest to weaken the one entity than can unsure their continued secure communications at a global scale. Remember, if the situation you are describing is taking place, there are a lot of humans in the US that are participating and have to communicate by circumventing government surveillance and also have to be able to have a device be secured if they were ever caught. No other option for that if Apple goes away. It would be tripping over a dollar to pick up a penny. Why take down Apple when they can just work with them?

 

[Ethosik]

At the end of the day, either Epic wins or iOS/iPadOS/MacOS stay irrelevant as a gaming platform. Gamers will just play Fortnite on PC, Android, consoles, etc.

There are more games than Fortnite....I play plenty of games on iOS - like Stardew Valley for example.

 

[Ethosik]

I wonder how people would react if Microsoft closed down windows and made it so everything had to be installed through the Microsoft app store. No steam, no epic, no itunes allowed. Only web apps. Would everyone here be pulling for Microsoft?

Take a look at Windows 10 S. People keep bringing this up but Microsoft is actually doing this NOW. And we got this for my Grandma (our entire family is so sick of dealing with malware that this was the correct decision. GUESS WHAT - NO MALWARE NOW!!!!!)

 

[Abazigal]

At the end of the day, either Epic wins or iOS/iPadOS/MacOS stay irrelevant as a gaming platform. Gamers will just play Fortnite on PC, Android, consoles, etc.

So be it.

 

[Seoras]

Tell that to the (many) who have decided to fight two-front wars throughout history....there is always a loser and quite often it is the original instigator of hostilities. But the Great Mike Tyson summed it up best: 'Everyone has a plan...until that first punch to the face'.....

I've been thinking more about this and it occurred to me later that Sweeney may just be playing a rich mans game. Epic isn't a public listed company, it's privately held. Therefore he doesn't have to answer to too many.
When you are already worth more money than either you or the next few generations after you can spend in a (luxurious) life time do you really care if you lose a few 100 million $'s in a fight to potentially gain billions more and more kudos to your already over inflated ego.

 

[quarkysg]

I've been thinking more about this and it occurred to me later that Sweeney may just be playing a rich mans game. Epic isn't a public listed company, it's privately held. Therefore he doesn't have to answer to too many.
When you are already worth more money than either you or the next few generations after you can spend in a (luxurious) life time do you really care if you lose a few 100 million $'s in a fight to potentially gain billions more and more kudos to your already over inflated ego.

I think he has to answer to his investors though.

 

[Seoras]

I think he has to answer to his investors though.

Sweeney has >50% so he's in the same situation as Zuckerberg, he can effectively do as he pleases without fear of replacement since he has the controlling share of the votes.

Tencent has 40%.
Perhaps there's a bigger game at play here, to encourage Tencent to sell off its share in Epic or perhaps China doesn't like the idea of a computer platform (iOS) which puts personal privacy front and center. Western Governments are too stupid and navel gazing to do anything other than let it play out and let someone else take the blame for the loss of such a platform.

I think we can all agree that there's things that don't make a lot of sense in this feud.