I wonder, is moneyhatting that different from being a publisher a giving money to a dev to develop a game and then releasing it on your (the Publisher's) store? Because people don't have a problem with the latter, while the former seems to be the ORIGINAL SIN.
I mean, yes, it's different, but I would say isn't that huge of a difference than most people seem to consider.
In both cases a company is paying with money to the developer, which use it to compensate the cost incurred for the development of said game. In case of a publisher the funding is 100% or close to 100% so their game will be theirs and it will be in their store 'forever' exclusive, and in Epic case, the moneyhat is surely a partial amount (in comparison with the total development cost) so the exclusive is also partial (one year). It seems almost fair.
It may seem totally different, but once the money is the bank account of the developer, well, there isn't a lot of difference. It's all money to pay salaries and the office and etc.
The obvious difference, I guess, is that the publisher money is more explicitly to pay for the development, that's why it's given at the start of it, while the moneyhat comes later, so it isn't really paying for the development! However, I think that in the end, as I say there isn't that big of a difference, it's still money and it's still a game company, the money will serve at the end of the day to pay for the company expenses, be the post release support of the game, be the development of their next game, whatever.
