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Comment by Ivoirians | Hacker News Reader

This is going to be a fascinating PR war. Apple was probably caught by surprise with how immediately public Epic was willing to take this.

But besides the fun of that wonderful drama unfolding over the next months/years, I actually feel like this could be catastrophic for Apple's image. Epic has an underestimated amount of influence and clout over the Gen Z crowd, and by aggressively rallying teenage gamers against Apple, I think anti-Apple sentiment could become popular (or viral) where it basically was nonexistent before (outside of some techie/developer circles).

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I don't think Epic has that much influence. If I were Apple's PR team, I think I'd just completely ignore them. Treat them as utterly and completely irrelevant.

Personally I think Apple's 30% cut is ridiculous and the fact that there is zero market pressure on that them to price it appropriately should mean something. But at the same time I'm not sure Epic has any legal leg to stand on.

And that is exactly why you are not Apple's PR team. I understand your POW and I would have shared it also if not for the kids in the house where you can actually see how dominating Epic is. There is a whole sub-culture around Fortnite, it expands from just playing a simple game on your iPad to being a way of communication on TikTok (e.g. dance moves). And you bet that when those little kids start whining to their parents, some noise will be generated.

I have honestly nothing more to say, except well played Fortnite! Perfect execution.

I play Fortnite and my kids play Fortnite and I still don't think it's that dominating. Kids have plenty of outlets and Fortnite is one of many. But even if I agree what, exactly, is Apple going to be able to say or do? What response could they possibly have that would placate children?

It's better to not fuel the flames.

Fortnite is very popular and this together with other companies jumping in on it has the potential to bring the tech monopoly discussion even further into the mainstream discourse. Epic is big enough for that and I think that's the battle they're trying to fight, not a legal one.

I don't think any other companies are going to jump on board. How many other companies have their own payment processing that will incorporate into their apps just to be banned? If nobody else is banned then they not really in the fight like Epic is.

Epic, in my opinion, can only briefly bring this into mainstream discourse. Maybe we'll hear about next week in mainstream media and then it will be forgotten. If this starts a whole movement, that's something else entirely, but I don't see many other companies willing to risk their business for this. Epic is mostly unique in that it's both big enough to do this fight but small enough not to get special treatment like Amazon.

What are youths going to do? Stop buying Apple and start buying Android, which has also banned Fortnite?

On the other hand I suspect Boomers and Gen X are the ones actually purchasing the devices Gen Z own, not least of all for the many “family” features/restrictions. Enough parents have either had or heard of crazy games-related credit card charges they could view this positively.

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