'Fortnite' is an allegedly very popular game, the biggest thing since sliced bread. This is going to be distributed without the app being in the app store, not sure if that is just Android, but you get the idea. If the app (or game) is as big as 'Fortnite' then people will just seek it out and get it from source. The app store can be completely bypassed. For everything else then the 30% app store publisher fee is the…
It's just Android though. On iOS you don't really have a choice of distributing outside the App Store, whether you are fortnite or even facebook.
Doesn't Valve take 30% from games on Steam? But they're complaining Apple taking 30% is too much? I also don't really think the Apple/Google fee is that unreasonable. Considering the resources, tools, marketplaces, tutorials, payment processing, all the other All dev stuff they provide in general. Yes if your app goes big, they make a lot of money. But for every big app there's something like 9 that fail completely (…
Steam does not sell me a locked down hardware platform preventing me from buying the software directly from the publisher. Nor does Steam force me to buy DLC through Steam, I am free to buy the DLC directly from the publisher. Steam gets a cut of what I buy from Steam and I am not locked into buying from Steam in order to make my PC useful. Apple sells me a locked down hardware platform that requires me to go through…
They add value by creating a product that has massive scale, reach, usability and quality. They add value by having branded stores that fix the device for you. They add value by developing stable software that gets updated regularly. If you don’t like the product, don’t buy one, it’s that simple. Go buy a cheap Chinese knockoff that doesn’t have developer support for millions of apps, has lousy quality control, if it breaks you’re shit out of luck. It costs 1/10 the price of an iphone, but the experience is lousy. I value my iphone because it adds more value to my life than it costs to buy, and the company that makes it is entitled to charge whatever they want for it. Apple makes money because they add value and I see no reason why a company that adds value to the marketplace should not turn a profit.
I dislike App Stores and not because of fees. I feel they have made the discovery of good software harder, and reduced the average quality and safety of software that is available, the exact opposite of what they claim is the benefit of an app store.
Having the single portal where you search for things, leads to immense gaming of the system by bad actors. You search for "Chess game" and the good ones are not to be found. Instead you get 100 ad infested, crap. It is a race to the bottom. Everything ends up "free' with ads or dlc or privacy invasion tactics to make money.
Doesn't Valve take 30% from games on Steam? But they're complaining Apple taking 30% is too much? I also don't really think the Apple/Google fee is that unreasonable. Considering the resources, tools, marketplaces, tutorials, payment processing, all the other All dev stuff they provide in general. Yes if your app goes big, they make a lot of money. But for every big app there's something like 9 that fail completely (…
The problem is it's clearly a monopoly (or duopoly). How did they settle on 30%? Why did Apple and Google come to the same 30% number - is that a coincidence? They could easily provide the same service for less than 1/3 of the cost, but the percent never budges because it doesn't have to. There's zero competitive pressure. In fact they could move it up to 60% if they want to with nothing stopping them. Some people ha…
"Why did Apple and Google come to the same 30% number - is that a coincidence?"
Doesn't Valve take 30% from games on Steam? But they're complaining Apple taking 30% is too much? I also don't really think the Apple/Google fee is that unreasonable. Considering the resources, tools, marketplaces, tutorials, payment processing, all the other All dev stuff they provide in general. Yes if your app goes big, they make a lot of money. But for every big app there's something like 9 that fail completely (…
People keep saying Apple adds no value but bringing millions of paying customers and a trusted storefront does in fact have lots of value for most apps. This is exactly the value Steam brings on PC. Being locked down or not is a red herring to the value argument, people sell on Steam because of simple math: the millions of additional paying customers outweighs the commission Valve demands.
Valve takes 30% of direct sales through steam but allows developers to generate and sell separately steam keys where they get a 0% cut, as I understand it. For instance when you buy a game on humble bundle and get a steam key for it, valve makes nothing off that transaction. Unless Apple and google start allowing sales outside their stores I don’t think steam is comparable.
Google Play and the Apple App Store are completely different beasts. Unless you jailbreak your iOS device, there is no way to install apps outside the App Store. On Android, you can install entirely separate stores, like the Amazon one, and several OSS-focused stores.
>Unless you jailbreak your iOS device, there is no way to install apps outside the App Store
And between PWA and WebAssembly, it is going to be even more difficult in the future to force developers to use the store when they can access most of the functionalities they need without paying a penny or having to bend in front a capricious app review policy.
Doesn't Valve take 30% from games on Steam? But they're complaining Apple taking 30% is too much? I also don't really think the Apple/Google fee is that unreasonable. Considering the resources, tools, marketplaces, tutorials, payment processing, all the other All dev stuff they provide in general. Yes if your app goes big, they make a lot of money. But for every big app there's something like 9 that fail completely (…
I've noticed this trend in the game industry. Any game company that is large enough will work on their own launcher (look at Blizzard, Epic Games, EA, etc.)
Maybe Apple and Google should be paying app makers instead considering how much more valuable their phones become BECAUSE of apps. If there was perfect competition between more than two OS makers, I'd predict the charge would be closer to 0. Without it, we can only stab into the air to guess what the real clearing price would be.