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Is what Epic Games doing with their exclusivity deals legal? It's one thing if they pay a developer to exclusively release on their store, but they are paying

by dx87 7y ago

Is what Epic Games doing with their exclusivity deals legal? It's one thing if they pay a developer to exclusively release on their store, but they are paying developers not to release on Steam, even though it's fine for them to put their game on other stores, like the Windows Store, Humble Bundle, etc. That seems super non-competitive, like if Google paid Microsoft to prevent users from installing Firefox, even if though there aren't any technical limitations preventing it.

da_chicken 7y ago
The same thing is happening with NetFlix. There are no FRAND rules for this sort of thing, as far as I'm aware. If Congress weren't... well, Congress... they might look at this sort of thing. Exclusivity arrangements certainly seem like potential trust issues, but Steam is a de facto monopoly, as is Amazon, and NetFlix is the clear leader in it's domain.
- user5994461 7y ago
  There are rules about that. NetFlix funds their own shows so they're typically not forced to make them available. In practice, it's mostly a US only company and they relicense most of the productions to other networks around the world. For example, NetFlix France is a joke, you couldn't watch any netflix shows because they're not available, they sublicensed to canal (the main paid TV service) with exclusively and are left unable to serve their own TV shows. The Epic Store (and Steam) are global. That's more than 200 jurisdictions with different rules on anti competitive behavior. They are preventing competition globally and systematically, this has to be breaking some rules somewhere.
  - dx87 7y ago
    That's what I was thinking, it reminds me of the recent EU case where Google got fined for saying that if a phone manufacturer wanted to sell Android with Google integrations (Play Store, Search, etc.), they couldn't also sell Android phones without Google integrations.
  - h3throw 7y ago
    Way OT, but, I'm interested in why you and the parent comment are writing Netflix with a capital "F" as NetFlix. I've not seen this in any of their branding or collateral before. Is there a specific reason for it?
    - gspetr 7y ago
      Years of writing camelCase code have taken their toll. At least they have for me. Either that or there is some (justifiable) brand confusion, as there are brands/companies spelled like that: "iPhone", "eBay", "FedEx", "DreamWorks", "HarperCollins", etc.
      - user5994461 7y ago
        Not familiar with the service for the aforementioned reason, the catalogue is a joke here. That spelling seemed more likely to me given all the companies written like that.
- eridius 7y ago
  In general, you cannot commit antitrust violations against the monopoly player (well, unless you're abusing your monopoly position in a related market, but in that case it's the market where you have the monopoly that gives you the ability to commit the antitrust violations). That said, the DoJ has in more recent times taken the opinion that anything that lowers prices for consumers is implicitly good and anything that raises prices is implicitly bad and used this as the basis for leveraging antitrust complaints against companies that were not in fact the monopoly. In particular I'm thinking about how the monopoly player in ebooks (Amazon) successfully convinced the DoJ to sue the brand new entrant (Apple) because what Apple was doing was causing problems for Amazon's strategy of artificially pricing books lower than they should be in a fair market (even though what Amazon was doing is literally a monopolistic tactic intended to cement a monopoly and prevent anyone from competing, which leads to raising prices down the road once you're sure the competition is gone, i.e. Amazon successfully convinced the DoJ to use antitrust laws to help Amazon cement their monopoly). But since Epic isn't raising prices for games, that doesn't really apply here.

by dx87 7y ago

da_chicken 7y ago

The same thing is happening with NetFlix. There are no FRAND rules for this sort of thing, as far as I'm aware. If Congress weren't... well, Congress... they might look at this sort of thing. Exclusivity arrangements certainly seem like potential trust issues, but Steam is a de facto monopoly, as is Amazon, and NetFlix is the clear leader in it's domain.

user5994461 7y ago
There are rules about that. NetFlix funds their own shows so they're typically not forced to make them available. In practice, it's mostly a US only company and they relicense most of the productions to other networks around the world. For example, NetFlix France is a joke, you couldn't watch any netflix shows because they're not available, they sublicensed to canal (the main paid TV service) with exclusively and are left unable to serve their own TV shows. The Epic Store (and Steam) are global. That's more than 200 jurisdictions with different rules on anti competitive behavior. They are preventing competition globally and systematically, this has to be breaking some rules somewhere.
- dx87 7y ago
  That's what I was thinking, it reminds me of the recent EU case where Google got fined for saying that if a phone manufacturer wanted to sell Android with Google integrations (Play Store, Search, etc.), they couldn't also sell Android phones without Google integrations.
- h3throw 7y ago
  Way OT, but, I'm interested in why you and the parent comment are writing Netflix with a capital "F" as NetFlix. I've not seen this in any of their branding or collateral before. Is there a specific reason for it?
  - gspetr 7y ago
    Years of writing camelCase code have taken their toll. At least they have for me. Either that or there is some (justifiable) brand confusion, as there are brands/companies spelled like that: "iPhone", "eBay", "FedEx", "DreamWorks", "HarperCollins", etc.
    - user5994461 7y ago
      Not familiar with the service for the aforementioned reason, the catalogue is a joke here. That spelling seemed more likely to me given all the companies written like that.
eridius 7y ago
In general, you cannot commit antitrust violations against the monopoly player (well, unless you're abusing your monopoly position in a related market, but in that case it's the market where you have the monopoly that gives you the ability to commit the antitrust violations). That said, the DoJ has in more recent times taken the opinion that anything that lowers prices for consumers is implicitly good and anything that raises prices is implicitly bad and used this as the basis for leveraging antitrust complaints against companies that were not in fact the monopoly. In particular I'm thinking about how the monopoly player in ebooks (Amazon) successfully convinced the DoJ to sue the brand new entrant (Apple) because what Apple was doing was causing problems for Amazon's strategy of artificially pricing books lower than they should be in a fair market (even though what Amazon was doing is literally a monopolistic tactic intended to cement a monopoly and prevent anyone from competing, which leads to raising prices down the road once you're sure the competition is gone, i.e. Amazon successfully convinced the DoJ to use antitrust laws to help Amazon cement their monopoly). But since Epic isn't raising prices for games, that doesn't really apply here.