Yeah these practices are even more common on Android due to it being less restrictive for publishing apps than on Apple.

I'm a fan of this open-source mentality that Google have as their mantra, and It's definitely the way forward, it's just unfortunate that so many people are willing to take advantage of it and ruin it's truer capabilities, as well as making it impossible to find truly good apps when so many people, mainly casual dolts, download these terrible games and cheap knock offs of other games/apps, constantly putting them to the top of the free games list.

On that note I would argue that the Simpsons Tapped Out IS a free game, because it is possible to earn "Donuts" in the game to buy things. You can buy donuts to speed up the process of getting these items, but you don't generally need them to play the game in its entirety, and there are constant additions on a monthly basis of new free buildings and themed events that give donuts away in abundance.

That is a F2P model done correctly, I play for about 30 mins every day or two, and I've never paid a penny. And I've gotten plenty of donuts over the last year or two to "buy" things I wanted, while happily passing over things I didn't want.

There are however, plenty of games in a similar vain, that are much much worse in their practices and pricing.

Don't you guys ever just get sick of tapping or swiping?

You realize there are REAL controllers out there to play better games right ?

He expects the digital equivalent of opening up his own store inside of a Walmart or Target. It's absurd.

And he feels absolutely entitled to it, in a too-big-to-fail sense - because Unreal Engine is used by so many developers, banning Epic would hurt those developers relying on their tech, which would be super unfair to the developers.

Thank goodness you are there to defend the small guys Google and Apple. You're so brave, Christopher!

They are only losing money because Steam has a stranglehold on the market.

It's a play to attempt to win over the market so they can then realign pricing with what Steam has in the long run. The problem is they are doing only that and not actually building a better software supported platform on PC. Essentially, they're throwing money at the problem, not actually trying to compete by providing better service.

They've been open about how they so openly violate the terms of the platforms they distribute on.

They spent over a billion on legal battles, and also had significant layoffs. Maybe they should cater to their employees first before forcing governments to add more regulations for industries governments just do not understand. The EU DMA - Apple's policies and lawyers have made a mockery of it every step of the way.

And back when they openly and proudly violated Apple's policies, they tried using Fortnite to coerce its players (including children) to rally against Apple's 30% fee.

Which is the same 30% fee console makers apply, but Epic has no problem with that! Epic isn't fighting for you, they're fighting for themselves and don't mind siphoning the money they get from Unreal, even if it results in layoffs.

They have some good semi-giveaways.