Epic CEO: Sony is the Only Platform Holder that Requires Epic to Pay Compensation for Crossplay - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 02 October 2021 / 5,564 Views
Court documents from the Epic Games v. Apple case earlier revealed how much Sony was against adding cross-platform play to multiplatform games on the PlayStation 4. Once Sony allowed crossplay on the PS4 that require publishers to pay Sony a royalty fee.
Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney in testimony said that Sony is the only platform holder that requires Epic Games to play compensation for crossplay.
"In certain circumstances, Epic will have to pay additional revenue to Sony," said Sweeney. "If somebody were primarily playing on PlayStation, but paying on iPhone then this might trigger compensation."
Epic Games had to agree to pay the royalty fees in order to enable crossplay in Fortnite on the PS4.
Other leaked court documents include an internal Xbox review of The Last of Us Part II that was done by the Xbox Portfolio Team and that Dead Island 2 and Saints Row 5 will be exclusive to the Epic Games Store.
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel dedicated to gaming Let's Plays and tutorials. You can contact the author at wdangelo@vgchartz.com or on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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Not a good look
I get people don't like the way this looks but I honestly love it. As cross play becomes more and more common people are really going to understand what the issue is and it's PC players. They cheat on a massive level and I don't think console players really understand how bad this can mess up their online games. I only use my gaming PC for PVE online games and single player games. Trying to play anything competitive is a waste of time.
I mean I don't know what you play. If you have a bash on Counterstrike ranked, Halo MCC, or Gears 5 as I often do, you won't run into any cheaters. In my experience PC gaming is not as you describe and competitive games thrive on PC. The numbers bear this out.
Warzone, Rainbow six siege, and Valorant are filled with them. I don't play the other games you listed but I already looked up tons of people complaining about the hacking in counter strike. I know competitive games thrive on PC that was never my point. The hacking issue is my point. FTP are the worst because people can just keep creating new accounts without having to worry about buying the game again.
Yeah fair I have never tried Warzone or Valorant, and also haven't run into any cheaters on Tom Clancy's, but I have heard people complaining about Warzone hackers everywhere. Maybe you'd consider a refinement to your position, so that you don't say something like "they cheat on a massive level" or "trying to play anything competitive is a waste of time". Especially in view of the fact that it's to be balanced against people who get to actually play with their friends.
First paragraph doesn't even say how much is consoles, just that it also extend.
Second one is very specific to a peripheral while on PC they have even more ways of cheating/hacking from what I know.
Yes I know about this stuff to but on PC it's way worse. I've seen people shoot through walls that are fortified in Rainbow six, I've seen people track my head through a mountain until it eventually pops out and they shoot me. One time in Battlefield this guy was sniping me from the other side of the map at a spawn point. I love PC gaming above all else but the hacking is unreal on that system. I wish there was a way they could stop it all even if they have to place the whole game inside a console like VM. Would kill performance I'm sure but maybe one day it will be possible. Then again I'm sure hackers will find a way around that anyways. PC is just to open.
The success of the 8th gen really got the Sony's head.
Anti consumer sony "PlayStation for payers"
eeerrr as far as we know the players weren't paying anything extra, epic had to pay (are prices on PSN higher than on Xbox or Switch?)
When things like this happen, the chances are that in the end it's the consumers that pay. That's not necessarily the case with Epic, but it's certainly a risk in general.
Sure there is a risk. But unless we can see price difference between stores or any sensible price increase after crossplay it can't be said that there was any price paid by the customer. But yes if Sony kept the extra charge Epic had to pay it (not that it was a problem as they even increased their partnership and Sony owning Epic shares).
The simple fact that the greatest asset that Playstation or any platform has is it gamers and it's simply saying you want to treat the platform that we built up like a dam that you can freely access to divert that water down stream so a bunch of competing irrigators can make use of it . come back when you can answer this question does our dam wall look like it's painted red with a hammer and sickle logo.
It makes sense. Though I think it says a lot about the value of crossplay that epic is still willing to pay for it.
Yep for Epic it probably had a lot of value to have a single pool (even more because that could increase the userbase on the smaller side).
Wasn't this on the report of yesterday? And they are the only one that charge because they are the one that lose more from the crossplay. Just like why Apple wasn't allowing Epic to do what they wanted to do. Right or wrong in this case is irrelevant, it is just how it is.
Last year, Epic Games intentionally broke Apple's rules by putting its own payment processing system in the iPhone version of Fortnite, bypassing Apple's 30% fee and giving players a V-bucks discount. Sony saw this coming a mile away, and put this into their contract with Epic in order to make sure Sony could still get it's rightful 30% cut.
This is why Sony didn't want crossplay. Because it allows publishers and developers to dodge the 30% royalty fee that console makers are entitled to.
I hope Epic loses this legal battle, because it could have serious ramifications for console makers. Modern consoles are often sold at a huge loss, with the intent of making the money back from software revenue. Consoles often use those 3rd party royalty fees to subsidize the price of the console. Without those 3rd party royalty fees you can expect the price of game consoles to go up.
Most companies, including epic, would still play ball on consoles. They get promotion through the console makers. You cut out paying the 30% and suddenly they aren't included in trailers, the store pages, etc. Even if there was an alternative on consoles, they wouldn't cross that line... yet.
But the prices going up? Like they already did for consoles and games? So no need to worry about that.
Apple/google make portable computers that billions of people have. Epic is basically saying there's no reason to pay the money to apple and google since they don't provide any service in return. It would be the equivalent of epic paying microsoft a few for windows transactions. They don't provide any sort of benefit. It's just the dominant platform for pc.
Consoles even with the increase in price are still sold at loss.
Sony sucks.
You damn right you're paying Sony a fee for this. As the industry leader with the largest player base cross play only benefits Sony's competition. Now Sony's a bad guy for protecting their business interests ... Man whatever miss me that bs
people go crazy about sony getting cash from epic
but no one bats an eye when xbox wont let u play free online multiplayer games without live GOLD haha
this is a two way street deal, epic agreed so whos sooking about this now
