Not sure who you refer to by saying “they”.
You are not forced to sell software for Mac only using app store. The same goes for installation of the software.
SteamOS is an open ecosystem. It’s built on Linux. Steam is the default store, but you can install anything.
iOS is a closed ecosystem. I’d prefer it to be open, but Apple has always been up-front about the rules of the game for their platform, so all of the investment everyone has made in iOS has been with full knowledge of this.
PC is different for one critical reason: PC is not Microsoft’s to control; the PC market today is the cumulative result of billions of dollars of investment by PC manufacturers, by Intel, NVIDIA, and AMD, by game developers of all sizes, and by application makers serving hundreds of specialized markets. It would be unfair for Microsoft to use its PC operating system monopoly (see United States v. Microsoft Corp. - Wikipedia) to steal the fruits of the whole PC industry’s labor, by tying a distribution service to Windows and giving it unfair advantages over other distribution services like Steam, Good Old Games, and Epic’s own website and launcher.
As a “Digital Artist” the single biggest problem we face as artists is and has all ways been who controls the ways and means of creation that is fit for distribution as a product to be sold in what would be considered a free market place. A so called universal platform, in the case of Microsoft, would/could mean that Microsoft would/could own the the roads and highways needed to bring digital content to market.
A perspective is to think of points of distribution like Steam as being a means to transport goods to the brick and mortar stores where you buy products over the counter and the transport company pays the hidden costs.
The buzz word though is not hidden in the word Universal but glossing over the fact that Universal in the world of the Internet is an attack on Internet Neutrality.
As a creator of content as a product there is the risk of additional hidden costs to make use of so called Universal ways and means that favors companies that can afford the up front costs as compared to Epic’s effort to only benefit financially if your efforts are successful “after” it’s delivered to market and in the process leveling the playing field.
It is open source but is it open?
Android isn’t heavely influenced by Google? Would it be any different if Steam became bigger?
How is closing the market upfront any better?
About the investment part, are you saying that one of your current main target operating system will became obsolete in favour of a new platform that you don’t support yet and you would have to invest a lot of money in order to support that too?
Cause I would get it if that’s the case.
Nobody is forcing you to install windows on a PC! (btw what about if I want to install IOS on a PC?)
There is a difference between a default option and not being able to install any other alternative.
I can’t really undestand why is totally accepted to bash an operating system instead of just contribute to an alternative. Especially now that they are adding massive contribution to the open source world and all their framework are going multiplatform too.
It’s like Internet Explorer, europe made them remove it as the default option in windows 8 (which was a correct choice) but they didn’t say anything about the mobile world. I still cannot remove safari from my Iphone bar!
There never been any problems for YEARS with Microsoft and they always been the worst as for closed system. Then apple came by and not a word. Google monopolized android and it was ok.
Now that it is affecting your own business you are suddenly discover how bad they are! They are the same as before.
I’m sorry, I’m sure that you are a great guy but it’s totally ok to bash Microsoft, but I don’t think you are really honest about why it matters to you.
There is no hidden cost, it’s 30% on sale/purchase, like every other marketplace and you don’t pay anything upfront.
It’s a new platform, the problem is that it is probably their new PREFERRED platform, and is of course more expensive than the previous.
But you know what? if you don’t like it, just don’t buy anything from their store.
The problem is that you CAN’T in ANY marketplace sell an app at a different price depending on the marketplace, which means that you cannot avoid the 30% cost just by making your app 30% more expensive,
it means that they do not need to provide you a better service at cheaper cost, since either you accept that or you loose every potencial customers.
now THIS is what we should be fighting for, let me place the same app in different marketplace with different price and THAN we can talk about platform choices, cause right now there are none.
MixiHoro: SteamOS is open, in that its default settings allow installing arbitrary software; see SteamOS - Wikipedia. I’m not sure I understand your point about operating systems. Epic isn’t capable of building an OS to compete with Windows, or turning Linux into a viable Windows replacement for the hundreds of millions of ordinary PC consumers. Laws exist to regulate monopolies because the argument “if you don’t like our railroad, go build your own” isn’t economically feasible.
Windows remaining open matters deeply to Epic because we’ve been building software and distributing it directly to users on PC for 25 years. PC remaining open is vital to our business and our livelihood, so we’re not going to contribute to a Microsoft effort that could close it down and force all commerce to be intermediated by Microsoft.
I agree with you on many points. But it’s not that I worry about a new marketplace, I worry about the fact that already existing closed marketplace are not seeing as a problem!
btw you seems so much a great guy and I know that I’m quite an *** on forums, how can you still be polite is a mistery to me.
I hope I will be able to offer you a beer in the future.
Cut and paste
As I said it’s not about buying products but about the “possibility” of creating a so called Universal anything that can be tailored to meet the best interests of any given company as bandwidth being sold like any other form of commodity like Orange Juice, Oil, or Wheat that can effect the return rates of digital products being brought to market. I’m not suggesting that Microsoft is evil by nature but by nature they are required by law to act in the best interest of the company and in turn and in turn in the best interests of those who invest in Microsoft stock
And yes there are hidden costs both up front as well as after sale.
As for portals like Steam that delivers “content” they by themselves do not effect the “ecosystem” no more than your choice of fruit or vegetable stands along the highway but if you own the road to and from the stands and apply an unfair toll then someone has to pay the added costs and worst.
It’s not about application as to end user use but rather the treatment of bandwidth as a commodity to be sold on wall street and suffer the same from the same abuses that historically we should all know by now.
What kind of auto-updates are you talking about? I’m not receiving any update. Just disable it.
On Windows 10 Pro you can set to delay major updates. Basically let normal users beta test first. Security updates are mandatory for everyone though as far as I know, and that’s probably a good thing.
Well said. But you know? He can do that. Because he owns Unreal as Microsoft owns Windows. I understand him as I understand Microsoft 
I didn’t delay. Just disabled them. If I decide to update there are options to chose what to download and what to install and when. Security updates is not downloaded by Windows itself. It’s Windows Defender - build-in antivirus. And yes, it can only be deferred.
Edit: Sorry, I confused with windows 7. It’s been months since I last updated my Windows 10. Looks like we don’t have option to chose updates in windows 10. We can only delay 
The forced updates on Windows 10 deeply concerns me personally, because I cannot elect to skip or revert an update that potentially breaks my system. On my Windows Vista machine I once received an update that conflicted with my audio card drivers - it took over three weeks to get an update that fixed that issue.
I turned off updates. OS is working stable. I don’t know what they’re updating 
You can’t turn of updates in various editions which is why people are talking about it being an issue. Also updates turned of means no updates to security, stability, etc issues even if you cant notice anything.
I know you can’t in home edition. But home edition is for ordinary user. Which is why updates can’t be disabled. Because if you don’t have enough experience or knowledge, you can’t easily handle the situation when OS crashes or some unexpected trouble comes from the dark side of the force. It may be easy to you. With updates always enabled Microsoft can promise the most consistent experience as much as they can provide (at least they think so).
If updates cause new troubles, that’s the different situation which is really bad. If you’re experienced user and can’t choose which updates to install, that’s another situation which is not good.
Security updates to Windows Defender and Microsoft Security Essentials (this one is for Windows 7) are the same. I’m downloading them manually. Because I have several PCs and don’t want them to waste my bandwidth.
Yeah well the original issue was that Microsoft could push UWP or etc. changes/updates to users and make disadvantage to others. Many of end users as in gamers are using these forced update editions.
It’s not just Home edition. I have one Windows 10 PC in the house, it’s 10 Pro, and just like home can only defer updates, not disable. And then there’s whole, we’re not going to tell you what these updates are deal… Nope. Not for me. I’ll be sticking to my Linux boxes.
As for those bringing up SteamOS, the only thing closed about it is Steam itself. Everything else is built from open source. Valve is also taking contributions from the community, which couldn’t be done without being open. Comparing SteamOS only shows ignorance of what SteamOS is and how it’s built.
@Tim, you make good arguments, but when can we Linux users finally become the “first-class members of the family” we were promised? Seems we’re more the red-headed step-children…
As soon as linux has considerably more market share I imagine. With 1.5% or so here’s no way any software company can ever treat it as more than just a nice to have.
I guess you mean any software company besides Aspyr, or Feral Interactive, etc… ? Seeing as how those companies have been around for a while, and porting to lesser used OSes is their bread n butter, yeah, I can completely see how unprofitable it is.
Edit to add that you seem to be missing the point here. This is about developing on Linux, not for Linux. The numbers are even smaller, just as the number of Windows developers is smaller than their user base. From Epic’s POV it shouldn’t be that big a deal, as they make their money from devs using the engine and releasing successful products. Opening the engine up to more devs, means more potential for future profit. Just a handful of successful devs that might have used another engine completely, could make the whole effort worthwhile.