Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney of Apple, Google, China and the ‘metaverse’
South Korea recently passed a bill banning mandatory in-app purchases and requiring tech companies to allow alternative payments. What do you think?
How much revenue and revenue did Epic Games lose due to being excluded from the Apple ecosystem?
Fortnite has made hundreds of millions of dollars, and with Fortnite not on iOS, it’s losing a lot now. But fortunately, Fortnite was also successful on PCs and consoles. So the business continues to thrive, even without iOS.
But it just shows how much power Apple can use and can completely eliminate the existence of an iOS game. No platform company should have that power, right? Consumers should get free software installed. And developers should be free to create software, and the platform company should never stand between them.
Do you regret how the legal battle between Apple and Google went?
We always knew it would be a slow and complicated case. Both Apple and Epic have recognized from the outset that whatever happens in the District Court… the decision will be appealed to the Ninth Circuit Court in the United States, and if possible, to the Supreme Court. United States, to make the final decision. . And so this will inevitably last for many years.
Do you have something to say to the people who influence this issue in the US?
Ultimately, this is a fight for the benefit of the consumer. Although the disputes are mainly between companies and governments, smartphone owners have the right to install software from sources of their choice and do business directly with developers without The platform company charges additional taxes and fees for every transaction. … It’s about people’s basic freedom to do business together directly if they want to.
I think it’s the most important fight for digital rights in the industry right now. As more and more of our lives move online and become digital – all of our digital interactions are increasingly controlled by Google and Apple.
If we allow the world’s two most powerful corporations to control our online lives, it will become a force even stronger than the government.
Epic spent a long time working on the launch of Fortnite in China, but that didn’t happen. Is that time and effort worth it?
The team did a great job and I wish there was a way, but I think there will be a long time where there will be a separation between consumer services in China and globally.
What is “Metaverse” to you?
It’s a social real-time 3D entertainment experience. It’s you and your friends together in a 3D world, having fun in different ways. You can play games like Fortnite Battle Royale, you can go to a concert, you can dance, or you can just stand around and chat. Those are all kinds of social interactions that we can have in 3D real time with our group of friends.
How do you envision the future in the metaverse? Was it really a game changer, like the Internet when it was introduced?
I think it will take a decade or more to really get to the bottom, but I think it’s happening. And that would be a better online experience than we have today. It will work because it’s better.
Metaverse does not require novel hardware. It doesn’t require all that actual hardware or [virtual reality] or things that haven’t been invented yet. You can go online and start experiencing this right now.
The next step of this metaverse evolution is to open up broader experiences to bring to the next billion users.
What is a number? afterward The biggest barrier to making it happen?
Metaverse will not be created by one company. It will be created by millions of developers, each developer building a part of it.
Another challenge is building the economy. To have the millions of developers building for the metaverse, you need to have a business that they can make as much or more of the effort as, developing software to support their business.
We need to win the war against platform monopolies, because Apple and Google now have rules to prevent reverse behavior on the Google Play Store and on iOS. They have web browser containment rules in place – you’re only allowed to use their web browser.
They do not allow commerce to be made directly with the user. They don’t allow code to run on your local device if it hasn’t been reviewed by Apple and Google. Metaverse needs to support all of this, so we really need to win this battle to open up the platforms before the metaverse can truly exist.
– Rishi Iyengar and Jill Disis contributed to this report.