Tim Sweeney Calls for Single, Universal App Store
Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney has today renewed his attack on Apple and called for a single, universal app store that works across all platforms (via Bloomberg).
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Sweeney added that Epic Games is working with developers and service providers to create a system to allow users to “to buy software in one place, knowing that they’d have it on all devices and all platforms.”
Sweeney isn’t just talking about Apple and Google there, he’s talking about all console makers. My bet all along has been that Tim Sweeney wants the Epic Games Store to become the Amazon of software, and that ambition necessarily goes beyond Android and iOS.
Previously:
Update (2021-11-17): Thomas Clement:
Single app store that works across all platforms?
Maybe we could try this thing called the Internet that has web pages on it.
Update (2021-11-26): John Gruber (tweet):
I’ve been arguing all along that, if victorious in their lawsuits against Apple and Google’s mobile app console platforms, Epic would surely turn its sights on Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft’s game console platforms, using their win over Apple and Google as precedent. When pressed on this — why Epic was going after the iOS and Android app stores, but not the Switch, PlayStation, and Xbox game stores (and in fact, gave those game console stores a 20 percent discount after launching their seemingly ill-fated jihad against Apple and Google) — Sweeney has previously given a hand-wavy justification about game console platforms being acceptable because the hardware itself isn’t profitable.
I’ve (and a few others) have been saying this all along - Epic is no champion of the indie; they just wanted to expand their relativly new PC game store (a shitty Steam wannabe) to all platforms to A) save $$ to platform fees B) take a cut of our indie money.
Counter point: it doesn’t actually matter. I didn’t support Epic because I like them or think they are benevolent, I support them because they might just be big enough to get Apple to fix their egregious App Store policies.
It’s been repeated ad nauseam based on a badly-phrased quote, but this ‘single app store’ idea isn’t about Epic owning ‘The one and only App Store’, it’s about Epic’s App Store (alongside the others), spanning multiple platforms, meaning users don’t need to buy again — like Steam
I’ve said all along - including in emails to Apple and Google executives produced in the litigation - that Epic wants to offer a software store on iOS and Android. Fortnite was the first game to support ownership of items across all 7 platforms.
So, as I’ve said in many interviews, we want a customer to be able to buy software once and own it on all of their devices. Wouldn’t this be better than the status quo where a user buying a paid cross-platform app across iOS, Android, and PC has to pay for it three times?
Epic’s own store supports purchases made on multiple other PC stores with no fee to Epic. Wouldn’t it be awesome if all platforms agreed to honor purchases made on other platforms? Epic is eager to support this with all willing partners.
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That Ambition clashes with the quality of the Epic Games Store app storefront. That thing is a piece of garbage. It’s not integrated into the system for things like password entry, eats up CPU like you wouldn’t believe, etc.
Say what you will about Amazon, but they had the customer experience down.
The solution to a monopoly is not to have a monopoly.
As I have only Macs and iPhones why should I care about Android?
"The solution to a monopoly is not to have a monopoly."
He's not suggesting that the Epic store would be a monopoly, he's suggesting that it purchases in the store would work across platforms. Some stores already do this, if I buy a game on the Xbox, I can often also play it on Windows.
It's really nice and consumer-friendly, so I'm not sure why people are up in arms about it here.
"As I have only Macs and iPhones why should I care about Android?"
It removes a barrier for switching, which is only good for you, even if you don't plan on switching right now. Anything that removes platform lock-in is good.
As a father of Minecraft playing kids I would love to see a Buy once, install everywhere solution.
This would make more sense as an open standard than a monopolist store by the way.
So, his "solution" to Apple having a monopoly over app sales is to create an even bigger monopoly that covers all platforms. With his own company in charge of it, I assume.
Somehow, I don't think his intentions are completely honorable here.