Is Epic Games’ Founder Tim Sweeney an Anti-Consumer Hypocrite?
Epic Games has been under a lot of fire because of the Metro exclusivity deal and while people on the internet believe it was a wrong move, Epic Games’ Founder Tim Sweeney thinks that’s not the case.
From the above tweet, it seems that Sweeney thinks it is okay to compete for developers and throw money at them to stop them from selling their game elsewhere. He also says that Valve lost the competition when in reality Valve never even knew there was one in terms of securing exclusive publishing rights for a game that was advertised to launch on their platform.
If you paid attention to the Metro Exodus debacle, you will be familiar with the fact that the devs, 4A Games had no say in the exclusivity deal and it was the publisher who made that deal. That is the complete opposite of what he’s saying in the tweet below in which he talks about how “devs should be free to use stores of their choosing”. He makes it very clear that he’s criticizing “curtailing users” and not exclusives when in reality the exclusivity deal has curtailed users to forcefully use his platform to buy the game.
All this twitter backlash came after Twitter user @TheDarkLordTAKu tweeted a PCGamer interview article from 2016 in which Sweeney bashed Microsoft for their Universal Windows Platform Initiative by saying “they are working to turn today’s open PC ecosystem into a closed, Microsoft-controlled distribution and commerce monopoly“.
He even goes on to say “[The Windows Store is] curtailing users’ freedom to install full-featured PC software, and subverting the rights of developers and publishers to maintain a direct relationship with their customers.”
That’s not the end though. In 2017 Sweeney had the following to say in an interview with PCGamer:
“The thing that I feel is incredibly important for the future of the industry is that the PC platform remains open, so that any user without any friction can install applications from any developer, and ensure that no company, Microsoft or anybody else, can insert themselves by force as the universal middleman, and force developers to sell through them instead of selling directly to customers. “
Epic Games is paying developers to exclusively sell their games on their store and acting as the middleman so he has literally gone against everything he said. And this isn’t something he said a decade ago when things were different, this was just 2 years ago.
Instead of competing for customers, Sweeney and Epic Games think they should compete for developers instead. He preached about how the PC platform should remain an open one yet his store is the one that caused a whole debacle because of how it is the opposite of that.
Take what you want out of this but to me, it feels like he’s an anti-consumer hypocrite who thinks he’s doing the PC world a favour by competing against Steam and buying out devs.
If you’d like to read the full interviews or want a full thread on more of his antics, check the links below.
Tim Sweeney Reddit Thread
Looking for more news? Click here to catch up with the latest in the world of videogames and eSports and while you’re at it, why not become a member of the GamingMonk community to partake in discussions, tournaments and so much more.
Feb 25, 2019
