There are video games that handle satire well. There is the sprawling meta-textual commentary of a game like The Stanley Parablefor example, if high-folume fierce like Asymmetric’s West of Loathing. We can even play games like that Borderlands en Grand Theft Auto on this list, titles who venture large, if not necessarily artistic, into a variety of cultural subjects and playful tropics. And then there are the people at Epic Games who have decided to escalating their ongoing feud with Apple last night by literally jamming a big, mean, shuffle from Apple in their very popular video match Fortnite.
This comes in the wake of Epic’s other big attempt at subtle, poignant humor last week, when it released a video heavily suggested that, by demanding a cut in the game’s profits in return for it, to be obtained through his digital storefront, Apple acted in a manner similar to George Orwell’s Ingsoc government 1984, a ruling class that responds to independent thought by climbing a cage full of raging rats on a man’s head. (Which would actually provide a nice kickass Fortnite costume, now that we think about it.)
But clearly, that swipes at Apple’s own literary pretensions was too subtle as Epic Games has now announced that it is hosting the #FreeFortnite Cup event, mobilizing its hordes of tween lawyers to jump up, shoot each other and just generally celebrate “the last days of the whole Fortnite the ability of the community to play together. (Also: Call Apple a bunch to be such big ol ‘meanies.)
There is no clear winner in the halfethical battle is waged between the two companies, both of which in principle simply argue about how they distribute their disposable income to their players. But in terms of which side is being small as fucking, we absolutely must give the crown to Epic, which not only does everything in its power to portray Apple as a bunch of big average bullies, but has even lost merchandise with parody versions of the company’s business. That’s nothing to say about the skin of “Tart Tycoon”, which removes it with the event, which is literally just a very angry apple man who is so crazy that you still get to play Fortnite, Braxton. Don’t want to hop on Twitter, Braxton? Wouldn’t you like to tell Apple how mean it is to you and your video game friend?
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