Marketing In The News
I chose to write about the current conflict and litigation involving Apple and Epic Game which are discussed in the article, “Apple says Epic's Fortnite lawsuit is a marketing stunt to revive 'flagging interest' in the game”. This is a contentious situation where Epic Games is seeking to have Apple loosen regulation on their app store, while apple claims this is a marketing tactic intended to help revive the game Fortnite which has been slowly losing popularity. I personally find this very interesting because Apple is a company that I follow very closely and I have some experience with the products of Epic Games as well.
The basic setup for this situation is that Epic Games places their products/games for sale on the IOS app store which is a platform created and owned by Apple. Apple has been criticized quite a bit in the past for how high the percentage of revenue they charge creators on their platform is. They even had an antitrust suit and had to appear before congress within the last year involving a similar issue. As Fortnite, arguably one of the most popular games ever, has been been failing to create as much revenue as they once had, Epic Games decided to wire in game purchases through a source other than what Apple allows in their terms and conditions. Apple responded by banning Fortnite from the app store. Epic Games then filed a lawsuit against Apple which is where we find ourselves today. Epic Games is claiming that Apple is over-regulating their platform and it is using their position of power to make money unfairly. Apple claims that Epic Games is taking advantage of the recent anti-trust suit and attempting to market Fortnite at Apple's expense as sales fall.
Since Epic Games is the company that is using this for marketing purposes, I will talk about their value proposition. They offer customers well made games that are innovative and fun. They make many different types of games in order to appeal to a broader market.
The reason I chose this article is because it specifically describes the alleged plan that Epic Games had to use this law suit as a media marketing strategy. According to the article, “Epic allegedly planned with its lawyers and public relations firm for months as an effort to draw more attention to Fortnite last year”. This means they intentionally took advantage of Apple, who’s platform they used, in order to help bring Fortnite back into the public eye. The reason they chose to do this seems clear. They were facing the challenge of losing revenue from their most profitable game and got desperate.
This is a very unique marketing approach because it is extremely non-traditional. Instead of coming our with a new update, running ads, and bringing in more users, they decided to create a dramatic and high profile case which would bring attention to their product. I think that this approach to marketing is not only backhanded but also very risky. If Apple’s allegations are proven true in a court of law, Epic Games could face serious repercussions. This seems like an immoral way to do business and I would personally feel embarrassed to be the CEO of Epic Games and fall back to a deceptive form of marketing.
After doing this assignment I feel like I have a better understanding of the situation around this law suit. I also feel better equipped to analysis the strategies that certain companies use to market their products.
References:
Comments
Post a Comment