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Epic direct payment on mobile

epicgames.com

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Re: Epic direct payment on mobile

#191

Post by NeutronStar »

gutnor wrote: post #168
Wowfunhappy wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All Apple has to do to fix this is allow sideloading. They don't need to change the App Store's rules—they can make them more stringent, actually—and you can set up your child's phone to block non-App-Store installations. Heck, Epic would probably cave and accept the cost to keep Fortnite in the App Store; they tried to go around Google Play, and it seemingly didn't work out.

The problem with that is that it is all or nothing. The milder approach I had in mind was that apps require you to register an account outside the app (like amazon) but the purchase is initiated inside the app and outside Apple api. At the beginning that will be easy to simply not register and not use games that require registration. But well, micro-transaction started that way and nowadays all the major player do it…

> The problem with that is that it is all or nothing.

Unlike current Apple policies?

Re: Epic direct payment on mobile

#192

Post by guitarbill »

Jellyd wrote: post #181
cloudking wrote: post #47

Maybe the Apple cut is too high, but I don't think it's unreasonable for them to take some cut. They are providing the distribution platform to get your app to millions of users, it's not free for them to provide that service. They have their own server, bandwidth and employee costs too.

by this logic the ISP should also get a cut, which is ridic

you're already paying ISPs effectively a monthly subscription for the bandwidth, employees, and Apple is no doubt also paying ISPs for their outbound traffic. so absolutely not.

Re: Epic direct payment on mobile

#193

Post by Sargos »

cloudking wrote: post #47

Maybe the Apple cut is too high, but I don't think it's unreasonable for them to take some cut. They are providing the distribution platform to get your app to millions of users, it's not free for them to provide that service. They have their own server, bandwidth and employee costs too.

"providing the distribution platform" is an extremely charitable way of saying "forcing developers to relinquish control of their software to Apple and pay a tax for the privilege". Apple is not the good guy here. They are using their monopoly to impose unfair rules and extract rent from all of the software half of the people in the world want to use.

Re: Epic direct payment on mobile

#194

Post by rurounijones »

MattRix wrote: post #133
rurounijones wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to be moving the goalposts here. > Epic has no "walled garden". Epic is explicitly a walled garden regarding the games it has paid to be exclusive within that walled gardren (Permanently or temporarily). > The PC is an open platform. An iPhone is not. You are conflating hardware / software here. PC hardware is an open platform. The software is running on it is not necessarily. You could be running Linux or W…

That is not what a walled garden is. If the developers have a choice of where to sell their software, and choose to make it exclusive, that is totally fine! It's their software, they can choose how it is sold. It's only a walled garden if there is no other option to distribute your games but with that company... so either an enforced monopoly (Apple) or de-facto monopoly (Steam, but this is arguable).

Replied to sibling comment in a bit more detail but I think we are looking at it form different viewpoints. "customers" vs "developers"

Re: Epic direct payment on mobile

#195

Post by tadzik_ »

u10 wrote: post #28
superkuh wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, another monopolist trying to fill their garden. Epic is literally buying the companies behind long established games, removing game support for alternative OSes, and eventually only allowing access from "the epic store". No matter who wins between Epic and Apple human people lose. They're both walled garden monopolists.

For a monopolist they provide pretty compelling terms compared to Steam. If anything they are a healthy competitor to Steam, not only for developers but for consumers as well.

> a healthy competitor to Steam, not only for developers but for consumers as well

I'm not sure I agree here.

As a consumer, competition is good for me if I either get something I didn't already, or if I get the same but cheaper. EGS provides neither: it has less features than its competitors, and the prices are either the same, or the games are exclusives, making comparisons impossible. Exceptions, like Outer Worlds, cost exactly the same on Microsoft Store as it does on Epic Store.

The consumer gets nothing. They just get another meaningless alternative, another scavenger for their attention, loyalty and wallets.

Re: Epic direct payment on mobile

#196

Post by fenomas »

sawaruna wrote: post #174
fenomas wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm asking if they will allow people to buy digital PC titles on EGS via direct purchase to the developer People can already buy PC titles anywhere they like. EGS, direct purchase, steam, GOG, twitch, whatever. There's nothing to allow.

>People can already buy PC titles anywhere they like. EGS, direct purchase, steam, GOG, twitch, whatever. There's nothing to allow. This is unrelated to them supporting their 'direct pay to developers' stance on their own storefront. And no, people can't 'buy PC titles anywhere they like' as every game is not multiplatform / storefront.

> This is unrelated to them supporting their 'direct pay to developers' stance on their own storefront.

Then they already do what you're asking for. Games on EGS can have direct payments and EGS doesn't take a cut.

> And no, people can't 'buy PC titles anywhere they like' as every game is not multiplatform / storefront.

People can buy PC titles anywhere the developer chooses to sell them. Kind of assumed that last bit went without saying.

Re: Epic direct payment on mobile

#197

Post by mrguyorama »

qppo wrote: post #166
tadzik_ wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And they've done far more for gaming over the past decade than Valve, which hasn't been able to successfully innovate in the last two Uhm, what? Epic has delivered Unreal Engine 4 – good for them. They've also released a successful battle royale, piggybacking off of other developers' success and rolled out a crappy store/launcher, a straight downgrade from every single competitor, that they actively force on people…

I mean we can debate this until the cows come home, but Unreal is much more significant to the development of new gaming (and recently, other) content than anything Valve has ever done. Valve is a middleman, Epic creates values. For example, there's no VR for them to "push" without companies like Epic giving out engines to develop VR content for free. Personally this statement: > a straight downgrade from every singl…

>Origin, Epic, etc are all pieces of software that "just work." I can browse my library, buy new games, and launch them just fine

Try to buy more than one game at a time on EGS

Re: Epic direct payment on mobile

#198

Post by minhazm »

celticninja wrote: post #175
alexeldeib wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the original article, this also sidesteps google play.

I don't think that Google has the same requirements as apple, vis a vis, all payments need to go through apple app store, which includes subscriptions or coin purchases.

They both have very similar policies. Why do you think Epic took Fortnite off of the Play store in the first place?

Re: Epic direct payment on mobile

#199

Post by Wowfunhappy »

meheleventyone wrote: post #153
Wowfunhappy wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Still, it does create a bit of a contradiction. We don't know what Sony and Microsoft charge, but we can reasonably assume it isn't zero, and it's also probably more than whatever Epic pays for their internal payment processing. Epic could still turn around and say "well, the price would be even lower if not for Sony and Microsoft," but I'm not sure how much they want to piss off the console manufacturers, who—all th…

AFAIK Sweeney isn’t against stores taking a cut he just sees the 30% as egregious. V-Bucks whilst costing nothing to create are exchanged for things that did cost money to create and as a means to fund the existence of the game itself.

> V-Bucks whilst costing nothing to create are exchanged for things that did cost money to create and as a means to fund the existence of the game itself.

Right, but the only scarcity of the "good" is that which Epic creates. If more people have V-Bucks, then current skins are less exclusive and become less valuable. I don't think the cost of V-Bucks has an impact on consumer buying power, except in the most pedantic sense.

I don't mean to imply that The Emperor Has No Clothes; the less revenue Epic gives to Apple, the more revenue Epic has to improve Fortnite for their customers. Rather, I think this all speaks to the paucity of the US's current antitrust standard. As long as Facebook is "free", they can be as anti-competitive as they like, and prices will not increase. But consumers pay in other ways—with their data, with their eyeballs, and by missing out on products that never had the chance to exist.

Re: Epic direct payment on mobile

#200

Post by asdfasgasdgasdg »

askafriend wrote: post #117
asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Considering the discount provided on console stores is 20% and not 30%, I think Epic probably agrees. It looks like the consoles are probably taking ~10-15% cuts compared to Apple's 30%, and Epic doesn't see this as worth challenging at the current time.

Consoles and marketplaces like Steam take 30% of digital game sales.

If that is true, how do you explain that they are not implementing this new payment option on those platforms?
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