Epic Games 首席执行官蒂姆·斯威尼 (Tim Sweeney) 对苹果、中国和“元宇宙”的看法

The Epic Games CEO has been mounting a relentless attack on Apple, after the tech giant kicked his company's hugely popular video game Fortnite off the App Store. Apple said at the time that Epic flouted rules on digital payments by establishing its own system.

Epic sued Apple in response, kicking off a highly public trial. Apple has argued that its rigid payments system exists to protect the security and privacy of its developers and customers, and that it's only a small part of the video game market — and therefore has no monopoly.

Sweeney sees things differently. Companies like Apple (AAPL) and Google (GOOGL), he argues, wield enormous power over the app market. Their control prevents consumers and companies from choosing how they do business.

The case is still working its way through US courts, but in September a judge ruled that Apple could no longer prohibit app developers from directing users to payment options outside its App Store. Still, the judge stopped short of calling Apple a monopoly, and the company has barred Fortnite from its devices until the legal battle finishes, which could delay the game's return to iPhones by several years.

CNN Business caught up with Sweeney in Seoul, where he was attending the Global Conference for Mobile Application Ecosystem Fairness — an event hosted by South Korean lawmaker Jo Seounglae. The country recently enacted a law that allows app developers to use alternative payment systems.

We asked Sweeney questions about that law, as well as his ongoing fight with Apple, Fortnite's failed foray into China and his thoughts on the "metaverse," the virtual world Facebook (FB) sees as its future. Our Q&A has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.

South Korea recently passed a bill banning mandatory in-app purchases and ordering tech companies to allow alternative payments. What did you think?

I was very happy to see that Korea was taking the leadership role, initially. Korea is one of the leading technology powerhouses in the world, with Samsung (SSNLF) and all the great game developers around Korea. It's great to see Korea really defending developers, including all the Korean developers against these bad practices [by] Apple and Google.

How much business and revenue has Epic Games lost as a result of getting kicked off Apple's ecosystem?

Fortnite had made hundreds of millions of dollars, and with Fortnite being off of iOS, it's losing that much now. But fortunately, Fortnite is also successful on personal computers and game consoles. So the business continues to be strong, despite being off of iOS.

But it just shows how much power Apple wields and is able to completely eliminate a game's existence on iOS. No platform company should have that power, right? Consumers should be free to install software. And developers should be free to create software, and the platform company should never stand in between them.

Do you have any regrets about how the legal battles with Apple and Google have played out?

We always knew it would be a slow and complex case. Both Apple and Epic realized from the beginning that whatever happened within the District Court ... the decision would be appealed to the Ninth Circuit Court in the United States, and, if possible, to the United States Supreme Court, to ultimately make the decision. And so, it was inevitable that this would take many years.

Do you have anything to say to the people who have influence over this issue in the United States?

Ultimately, this is a battle for consumer rights. Though the disputes are mostly between companies and governments, it's about the right of a smartphone owner to be able to install software from sources of their choosing, and to do business directly with developers without the platform company adding taxes and fees to every transaction. ... It's about the basic freedom of everybody to do business together directly if they choose.

I think it's the most important fight for digital rights in the industry right now. Because more and more of our lives are moving online and becoming digital — all of our digital interactions are increasingly controlled by Google and Apple.

If we allow the world's two most powerful corporations to control our online lives, it'll become a force that's more powerful than the government itself.

Epic spent a long time working on Fortnite's launch in China, but it didn't happen. Was that time and effort worth it?

I'm glad we tried. There's always been a lot of uncertainty about the future of US-China relations, and unfortunately, they've been strained for the past few years. And we just didn't see a realistic likelihood of being able to receive approval to launch in China. So we gave up trying, but I think it was a good effort.

The team did a wonderful job, and I wish there had been a way, but I think there's just going to be a long period in which there's a separation between consumer services inside China and globally.

What is the "metaverse" to you?

It is real time 3D entertainment experiences that are social. It's you and your friends together in a 3D world, having fun in lots of different ways. You can be playing games like Fortnite Battle Royale, you can be going to concerts, you can be dancing, or you can just be standing around and chatting. It's all the sorts of social interactions we can have in real time 3D together with our group of friends.

What kind of future do you envision in the metaverse? Is it really going to be a game changer, like the internet was when it was introduced?

I think it will take a decade or more to really get to the end point, but I think that is happening. And it will be a better online experience than we're having today. It will succeed because it's better.

The metaverse doesn't require fancy new hardware. It doesn't require all that reality hardware or [virtual reality] or things that haven't been invented yet. You can get online and start experiencing this right now.

The next step of this metaverse evolution is to open up broader experiences to bring in the next billion users.

What are some of the biggest hurdles to making it happen?

The metaverse isn't going to be created by one company. It will be created by millions of developers each building out their part of it.

Another challenge is building the economy. In order to have millions of developers building for the metaverse, you need to have a business where they can make as much or more money from that effort, developing software to support their businesses.

We need to win the fight against platform monopolies, because Apple and Google currently have rules in place to prevent the metaverse from existing on the Google Play Store and on iOS. They have rules that prevent web browsers from existing — you're only allowed to use their web browser.

They don't allow commerce to be done directly with users. They don't allow code to be run on your local device if it hasn't been reviewed by Apple and Google. The metaverse needs to support all of these things, so we really need to win this battle to open up platforms before the metaverse can truly exist.

-- Rishi Iyengar and Jill Disis contributed to this report.

Correction: A previous version of this story misstated the month when a judge issued a ruling in Epic's case against Apple.

Epic Games 首席执行官蒂姆·斯威尼 (Tim Sweeney) 对苹果、中国和“元宇宙”的看法

在这家科技巨头将其公司广受欢迎的视频游戏 Fortnite 从 App Store 下架后，这位 Epic Games 首席执行官一直对苹果公司发起无情的攻击。苹果当时表示，Epic 通过建立自己的系统无视数字支付规则。

作为回应，Epic 起诉苹果，启动了一项高度公开的审判。苹果公司辩称，其严格的支付系统的存在是为了保护开发者和客户的安全和隐私，而且它只是视频游戏市场的一小部分——因此没有垄断。

斯威尼对事物的看法不同。他认为，苹果 (AAPL) 和谷歌 (GOOGL) 等公司在应用程序市场上拥有巨大的影响力。他们的控制使消费者和公司无法选择他们的经营方式。

此案仍在美国法院审理中，但在 9 月，一名法官裁定，苹果不能再禁止应用开发商将用户引导至其 App Store 之外的支付选项。尽管如此，法官并没有将苹果称为垄断企业，并且该公司已禁止 Fortnite 使用其设备，直到法律纠纷结束，这可能会使该游戏回归 iPhone 的时间推迟数年。

CNN Business 在首尔采访了 Sweeney，他在那里参加了由韩国议员 Jo Seounglae​​ 主办的全球移动应用生态系统公平会议。该国最近颁布了一项法律，允许应用程序开发人员使用替代支付系统。

我们向 Sweeney 询问了有关该法律的问题，以及他与 Apple 的持续斗争、Fortnite 进军中国的失败以及他对 Facebook (FB) 视为其未来的虚拟世界“metaverse”的看法。为了清晰起见，我们对问答进行了精简和轻微编辑。

韩国最近通过了一项法案，禁止强制性应用内购买，并要求科技公司允许替代支付。你觉得呢？

我很高兴看到韩国最初担任领导角色。韩国是世界领先的技术强国之一，拥有三星 (SSNLF) 和韩国各地的所有优秀游戏开发商。很高兴看到韩国真正为开发者辩护，包括所有韩国开发者反对苹果和谷歌的这些不良做法。

Epic Games 被踢出 Apple 的生态系统后，损失了多少业务和收入？

Fortnite 已经赚了数亿美元，随着 Fortnite 脱离 iOS，它现在损失惨重。但幸运的是，Fortnite 在个人电脑和游戏机上也取得了成功。因此，尽管脱离了 iOS，但业务仍然强劲。

但它只是显示了 Apple 拥有多大的力量，并且能够在 iOS 上完全消除游戏的存在。没有平台公司应该有这种权力，对吧？消费者应该可以自由安装软件。开发人员应该可以自由地创建软件，平台公司不应该夹在他们中间。

您对与苹果和谷歌的法律纠纷如何进行有任何遗憾吗？

我们一直都知道这将是一个缓慢而复杂的案例。 Apple 和 Epic 从一开始就意识到，无论在地方法院内部发生了什么……该决定都会上诉到美国第九巡回法院，如果可能，还会上诉到美国最高法院，最终做出决定.所以，这需要很多年是不可避免的。

您对美国在这个问题上有影响的人有什么想说的吗？

归根结底，这是一场消费者权益之战。虽然纠纷主要发生在公司和政府之间，但它是关于智能手机所有者能够从他们选择的来源安装软件，并直接与开发者开展业务的权利，而无需平台公司为每笔交易增加税费。 ...这是关于每个人都可以选择直接一起做生意的基本自由。

我认为这是目前行业中最重要的数字权利斗争。因为我们的生活越来越多地转向在线并变得数字化——我们所有的数字交互越来越多地被谷歌和苹果控制。

如果我们让世界上最强大的两家公司控制我们的在线生活，它将成为一股比政府本身更强大的力量。

Epic 花了很长时间致力于 Fortnite 在中国的发布，但它没有发生。那些时间和精力值得吗？

我很高兴我们尝试过。美中关系的未来一直存在很多不确定性，不幸的是，过去几年他们一直处于紧张状态。我们只是没有看到能够获得在中国发出批准的现实可能性。所以我们放弃了尝试，但我认为这是一次很好的努力。

该团队做得非常出色，我希望有一种方法，但我认为在很长一段时间内，中国国内和全球的消费者服务之间会出现分离。

对你来说“元宇宙”是什么？

它是具有社交性的实时 3D 娱乐体验。是您和您的朋友一起在 3D 世界中以多种不同方式获得乐趣。你可以玩 Fortnite Battle Royale 之类的游戏，你可以去听音乐会，你可以跳舞，或者你可以只是站着聊天。这是我们可以与我们的朋友群进行实时 3D 的各种社交互动。

你在元宇宙中设想了什么样的未来？它真的会改变游戏规则吗，就像互联网刚推出时那样？

我认为真正达到终点需要十年或更长时间，但我认为这正在发生。这将是比我们今天更好的在线体验。它会成功，因为它更好。

元节不需要花哨的新硬件。它不需要所有的现实硬件或 [虚拟现实] 或尚未发明的东西。您可以立即上网并开始体验。

元节演进的下一步是开放更广泛的体验，以吸引下一个十亿用户。

实现它的最大障碍是什么？

元节不会由一家公司创建。它将由数百万开发人员创建，每个开发人员都构建自己的一部分。

另一个挑战是建设经济。为了让数以百万计的开发人员为 Metaverse 构建，你需要有一个业务，他们可以从这项工作中赚取尽可能多或更多的钱，开发软件来支持他们的业务。

我们需要赢得与平台垄断的斗争，因为 Apple 和 Google 目前已经制定了规则，以防止在 Google Play 商店和 iOS 上存在元节。他们有阻止网络浏览器存在的规则——你只能使用他们的网络浏览器。

他们不允许直接与用户进行交易。如果代码未经 Apple 和 Google 审查，他们不允许在您的本地设备上运行代码。 Metaverse 需要支持所有这些东西，所以我们真的需要在Metaverse 真正存在之前赢得这场开放平台的战斗。

-- Rishi Iyengar 和 Jill Disis 为本报告做出了贡献。

更正：这个故事的先前版本错误地陈述了法官对 Epic 对 Apple 的案件作出裁决的月份。