Fortnite is one of the most popular games in the world and yet, it seems to be locked in its own ecosystem. Although it can be played on mobile devices, it is heavily restricted to appear on them. And while its home is on computers, it also seems to have many issues reaching outside of the Epic store itself. Although, no matter what the CEO of the company says, perhaps all of this is not always the fault of others.
In an interview with The Verge, Epic CEO Tim Sweeney was asked why Fortnite was not coming to the Steam Deck. Especially considering that they had even gone to court to get their game to appear on mobile devices without any interference from Google. Sweeney’s response has been concise, but not clear: “if we only had a few more programmers… I wish they had tens of millions of users, at which point it would make sense to support it”. A spurious argument that, moreover, is as easy to dismantle as almost everything Sweeney says in the interview.
On one hand, it states that it is a human problem. They don’t have enough programmers. The reality is that, only during 2023, Epic has laid off 830 employees. Around 16% of its workforce. If they hadn’t laid them off, it doesn’t seem like not having enough programmers could be a problem.
On the other hand, he claims that the problem is the installed base of Steam Decks. While he does not give a clear answer to the question, which in itself shows that he is not interested in answering, what he wants to convey here is that Fortnite is not profitable on Steam Deck because it would be very expensive to develop. Which has already been proven to be a lie. First, because both Valve and Epic stated in November 2021 that Epic’s proprietary anti-cheat should be something easy to solve. Second, because even if they don’t want to release Fortnite on Steam, third-party applications allow you to install the Epic Games Launcher on the Steam Deck. Demonstrating that they don’t do it for other kinds of interests.
What are those interests? Tim Sweeney wants to be the Caesar instead of the Caesar. His problem is that he doesn’t want to publish his games on the competition’s store. Which is legitimate, but it makes it absurd, and deeply insulting, that he answers in that way. Because the answer is clear. Fortnite is not possible on Steam Deck because that would make Valve’s device more attractive, and that is something that Tim Sweeney, and his interest in replacing Steam with the Epic Games Store as the ultimate game store, cannot allow.
And sometimes, the most convoluted answers are the most revealing ones.
