{"id":3254,"date":"2020-08-14T19:54:27","date_gmt":"2020-08-14T19:54:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thefinanceghost.com\/?p=3254"},"modified":"2020-08-14T19:54:27","modified_gmt":"2020-08-14T19:54:27","slug":"an-epic-battle-with-apple-and-google","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thefinanceghost.com\/index.php\/2020\/08\/14\/an-epic-battle-with-apple-and-google\/","title":{"rendered":"An Epic battle with Apple (and Google)"},"content":{"rendered":"

G<\/span>aming has become an incredibly lucrative industry. I\u2019m not talking about slot machines; this is the world of mobile, PC and console games.<\/p>\n

Fortnite <\/em>has more than 350 million registered players. To put that in context, there are around 330 million people in the United States.<\/p>\n

Epic Games is the publisher of Fortnite <\/em>and is worth $17.3bn after its latest round of funding, which added nearly $1.8bn to the corporate coffers. They will need the money, because they\u2019ve decided to take the fight to the most valuable company in the world (Apple) and fellow tech giant Google.<\/p>\n

Chinese company Tencent owns 40% of Epic Games and is having its own battles with the Americans over the banning of WeChat. However, this decision to take on Apple and Google appears to have been led by Tim Sweeney, the controlling shareholder of Epic.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s as American as a chilli hotdog and is worth over $5bn in his own right.<\/p>\n

[the_ad id=”3223″]<\/p>\n

Removed from the app stores<\/h4>\n

If you are an Apple user, you cannot currently download Fortnite<\/em>. If you are on Android, you can only download it somewhere other than the Play Store. This is because Epic Games poked the bears by deliberately encouraging players to pay it directly (and enjoy a 20% discount) instead of buying gaming extras through the app stores (which take a 30% commission on sales).<\/p>\n

This is in direct contravention of app store policies.<\/p>\n

Epic Games would obviously be better off as the discount is less than the commission. Players also win, spending 20% less on their favourite game. The losers, of course, would be Apple and Google.<\/p>\n

App store ecosystems are already being scrutinised<\/h4>\n

The app store policies that prohibit payment circumvention are at the centre of major competition authority investigations.<\/p>\n

Spotify is brawling with the tech giant in Europe, resulting in the European competition authorities investigating Apple\u2019s policies. It\u2019s interesting to hear the views of Spotify\u2019s Chief Legal Officer, Horacio Gutierrez:<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the heart of our case is the fact that Apple acts as the stadium owner, referee and player, and tilts the playing field in favour of its own services.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

The American antitrust (competition) authorities are all over these tech companies, addressing concerns that it has become near-impossible for any company to compete with the leading tech firms. The argument is that they have almost become too powerful for the public good.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s war \u2013 the non-virtual type<\/h4>\n

Fortnite <\/em>is a battle game, but the action pales in comparison to this corporate clash. Fortnite <\/em>is David and Apple is Goliath. The fight with Google is interesting too, but far less juicy than with Apple.<\/p>\n

Epic, in a stroke of genius, is hitting Apple where it hurts: the court of public opinion.<\/p>\n

This was a coordinated move. Within an hour of Apple removing Fortnite <\/em>from the app store, a 62-page lawsuit was filed in Federal court by Epic Games. Even the world\u2019s best lawyers can\u2019t work that quickly.<\/p>\n

The lawsuit doesn\u2019t mince its words, either: \u201cApple has become what it once railed against: the behemoth seeking to control markets, block competition, and stifle innovation.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

On top of this, Epic Games fired up the PR machine and unleashed an onslaught on Twitter. #FreeFortnite<\/em> became a top trend, thanks to a brilliant video that mimics Apple\u2019s iconic 1984 advert about oppression from IBM.<\/p>\n

From a public relations perspective, this is intensely powerful stuff.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Where to from here?<\/h4>\n

The problem is that Apple can\u2019t just give in to Epic and neither can Google. These companies generate significant revenues from their app stores and it represents a powerful annuity underpin to the rest of the business (devices in the case of Apple and ad revenue in the case of Google).<\/p>\n

If things don\u2019t get sorted out, new phone buyers will have to decide whether having an iPhone or Fortnite <\/em>is more important. That might sound silly to you, but Fortnite is huge among the younger generation.<\/p>\n

Epic is certainly taking a risk here and I can\u2019t help but wonder whether investors in the latest funding round knew about this plan. It feels like Epic raised cash knowing fully that this fight was coming.<\/p>\n

Tim Sweeney, the founder of Epic Games, is 50 years old. He is fabulously wealthy. He clearly wants to make his mark on the tech world one more time by reducing the power in the hands of the app store owners.<\/p>\n

Tim is a visionary. He\u2019s willing to put it all on the line. The last time Apple dealt with someone like that, his name was Steve Jobs and he was on Apple\u2019s side.<\/p>\n

I have much higher financial exposure to Apple and Alphabet (Google) than I do to Tencent (indirectly via Prosus). Financially, I want Apple and Google to win and protect their businesses. They created the app infrastructure by investing many billions of Dollars and that can’t just be ignored here.<\/p>\n

But, there\u2019s always something romantic about the underdog. This will be a fascinating story to follow.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Eliminating opponents? Sometimes, life imitates art, rather than the other way around. It’s the most modern example we have of a Battle Royale.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Gaming has become an incredibly lucrative industry. I\u2019m not talking about slot machines; this is the world of mobile, PC and console games. Fortnite has more than 350 million registered players. To put that in context, there are around 330 million people in the United States. Epic Games is the publisher of Fortnite and is worth $17.3bn after its latest …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3256,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[282,248,284,283,281,249,203],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thefinanceghost.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3254"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thefinanceghost.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thefinanceghost.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thefinanceghost.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thefinanceghost.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3254"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thefinanceghost.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3254\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thefinanceghost.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thefinanceghost.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3254"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thefinanceghost.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3254"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thefinanceghost.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3254"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}