I don't agree with the FTC's conclusion on that case, and while it doesn't reflect positively on Epic, its not nearly as negative as the myriad of things other gaming companies do on the regular (lootboxes being a big one, which are still very common in Activision, EA, & Valve games, among others). Epic is one of the good ones; that doesn't mean they always do good things.
Maybe if your only comparison is Activision and EA. When you consider all the dark patterns Fortnite employs to encourage logging playtime and making purchases, they're only separated from those others by degrees. Stacked up against developers that largely avoid those patterns (FromSoft, Nintendo, CDPR, etc), Epic is most certainly closer to the "bad" side of the spectrum.
Yeah, I have no idea how GP thinks Epic is the gold standard. There are way better developers with extremely successful games that don't have this bullshit: Naughty Dog (Last of Us, Uncharted), FromSoft (mentioned, Elden Ring), Portkey Games (Hogwarts Legacy), Guerrilla Games (Horizon), Insomniac (Spider-Man), Santa Monica Studios (God of War), Sucker Punch (Ghost of Tsushima), Rockstar (Red Dead Redemption, Grand Theft Auto[0]) and many others. Epic is near the bottom of the list, not the top.
[0] The online has micro-transactions but even if it didn't exist, the single player experience is well worth the money alone and is on par with all the others.
> I have no idea how GP thinks Epic is the gold standard.
Where, exactly, did you read "gold standard"? No one said that. No one hinted to that. The words stated were "great company" and "one of the good ones".
Hogwarts Legacy certainly looks good, but the mobile game hogwarts mystery(or something like that) by the same studio was full of dark patterns and also devoid of actual gameplay.
But you just listed companies that aren't even comparable; they're at entirely different market capitalizations. FromSoft and CDPR are babies compared to Xbox, Sony, Nintendo, Activision, EA, and Epic. FromSoft has a rough valuation (its hard, because they're owned by Kadokawa) of maybe the low nine figures. CDPR is larger, in the low billions. Epic is like $40 billion. Activision, clearly, around $85B. EA, around $35B. And Microsoft/Sony, obviously, a lot, lot more.
Team Cherry and concernedape are also extremely amazing and ethical developers. But they aren't peers to the companies we're talking about. Its easy to be ethical when you're small. Its laudable to maintain a sense of those ethics when you're large, even if the absolute measure isn't a perfect score.
Nintendo is far scummier than you let on; they're among the scummiest video game companies on the planet. It just doesn't come through in their fantastic and "pure" gaming experiences; but the fights their legal team chooses to engage in are ugly, despicable, and very unique among gaming companies.
Then what you meant to say is that it's a good business, not a good [video game] company. Good video game companies make good video games, of which there are many others. Epic, Activision, and EA have high valuations because their games are filled with micro-transactions, not because their games are superior to others. This is good for investors but not consumers (who your original comment was championing).
> Team Cherry and concernedape are also extremely amazing and ethical developers.
Team Cherry produced a great game. I wouldn't be willing to call them a good company or a good team; their track record shows as plainly as you could possibly wish that they are terrible at developing games.
I have a tough time coming down to hard on free to play Fortnite. You can spend more. They incentivize you to spend more. That's been a staple in fashion for a long time.
But at the same time I think there's something cool about being able to hop in without shelling out $60. And getting updates and new content for years.
Their target demographic is kids whose brains haven't developed yet and are unable to resist buying shiny digital things with their parents' credit cards and Epic makes sure to add as little resistance as possible. It's no surprise they wanted to add their own payment system to Fornite on iOS: Apple's has too much friction and parental controls to prevent abuse like this. The commission Apple collected was just a drop in the big bucket they were after.
From the FTC blog post:
>The FTC alleges that with millions of consumers’ credit cards conveniently in hand, Epic failed to adequately explain its billing practices to customers and designed its interface in ways that led to unauthorized charges. You’ll want to read the complaint for details, but here are a few of the dark patterns the company allegedly used.
>According to the complaint, Epic set up its payment system so that it saved by default the credit card that was associated with the account. That meant that kids could buy V-Bucks – the virtual currency necessary to make in-game purchases – with the simple press of a button. No separate cardholder consent was required.
Scum. Glad Apple booted them from the App Store and the courts sided with Apple.
I wonder when the FTC is going to crack down on mobile gaming for this reason. Google and Apple profit tremendously from various companies targeting vulnerable demographics in their games.
No, it's not. It does the exact same shit that Activision does except it targets an even younger more vulnerable demographic. Did you forget about this? https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/blog/2022/12/245-milli...