Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Epic direct payment on mobile

epicgames.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

241–250 of 371 posts

Re: Epic direct payment on mobile

#241

Post by dfee »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #227
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You have to enable it explicitly for any app you want to sideload from Problem is e.g. Facebook will immediately require side loading so they can install all manner of spyware that wouldn’t make it through the App Store’s vetting process.

No they won't. Facebook is in the Play Store on Android, and they used the Windows 10 Store up until they abandoned their desktop client. They want the largest user-base possible, which means they want finding and installing their app to be as frictionless as possible.

Here’s a link to the Onavo app from Facebook https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onavo#Privacy_concerns

Re: Epic direct payment on mobile

#242

Post by [deleted] »

axlee wrote: post #236
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…

> The other elephant in the room, IMO, is that V-Bucks don't actually cost Epic anything. They're just bits, and Epic could set the price to whatever they want without much consequence. Can't you argue this about any software? A copy of an expensive, downloadable software is always "just bits", and the marginal cost of selling one more copy is ridiculously low, but that doesn't mean the software itself is free. In or…

[deleted]

Re: Epic direct payment on mobile

#243

Post by marta_morena_25 »

dannyw wrote: post #232
spanhandler wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a user, I'm torn. I want to see enough pressure put on Apple that their app store cut is reduced, and ideally (though somewhat unrelated to this) the store experience for users improves. But I definitely don't want to see more stores or payment methods for digital goods on my i-devices.

I have no problems paying through a wide variety of payment processors on the web: Shopify, Stripe, PayPal, Braintree, Amazon, whatever. What’s the concern? All cards are zero liability, and you should be checking your statements anyway due to fraud risks.

It's not. That only applies to the US & Canada. In a lot of other countries it can be extremely difficult to impossible to do something in case of credit card fraud.

Besides that, entering card info is a chore. Same as I don't want to signup for every app (which is solved by apple login mostly), I don't want to enter payment info for every app (and update it whenever the card expires lol).

Re: Epic direct payment on mobile

#244

Post by DivisionSol »

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).

Developers have a choice when it comes to Apple as well. They make their software, and they chose to sell it on Android and iOS devices. Is it just because Apple is “big” and has cultivated themselves a valuable customer base the reason they are now... mandatory? No one is forcing you to release on iOS.

Re: Epic direct payment on mobile

#245

Post by easton »

danudey wrote: post #240
aweb wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry but I'm not sure you understand how sideloading works on Android. You have to enable it explicitly for any app you want to sideload from (eg. your browser for a downloaded app, or an alternative app store like F-Droid). Afterwards, every app installation still needs to be manually approved and thus cannot be done hidden in the background. Seems pretty safe to me while still allowing more freedom to power users.

...and then a ton of apps decide "screw the app store, I'm going solo!" and people start enabling sideloading so they can try those apps, then sideloading becomes normalized and malware starts to spread without Apple having the ability to prevent it. Users who have issues with apps start hitting up Apple's support lines, and they start getting pissed off when Apple says "Sorry we can't help you, go talk to the develo…

I mean, that hasn’t been a terrible problem on macOS. Require doing a csrutil style procedure to disable code signing requirements, and that’d be enough to scare off 99 percent of people. By default, only allow App Store and Apple registered developers (or even just the App Store).

Re: Epic direct payment on mobile

#246

Post by pb7 »

Fargren wrote: post #235
pb7 wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Presumably because app developers might choose not to go through the curated App Store route and in turn, cut corners or do shady things just because they can. Imagine if Tik Tok was only available to side load -- they'll scrape whatever they want/can and teens aren't going to risk FOMOing for that alone.

I don't think that would happen. You can sideload into Android but as far as I know no one sideloads Tik Tok, you just get it through the store. I'm not saying it can't happen, but I just don't see it as a reason for not owning a device that allows sideloading (unless you mean that one could oppose sideloading in principle and boycott devices that allow it?)

Well yeah, there's no current reason to sideload it because it's available on the store. But imagine they wanted to do something that Google wouldn't allow -- now they can do that thing and offer the app for sideloading only.

If the US ban reasons are valid and Google is forced to remove it from the store for those reasons, then sideloading TikTok would be this exact situation I'm describing.

--

Let me restate it like this. Company A wants access to iOS app market. Their app does X, Y, and Z. Z is frowned upon but X and Y are pretty valuable. In a world with no rules (i.e. sideloading), they'll do X, Y, and Z and consumers will have to put up with Z. In a world with rules (i.e. App Store), they will have to omit Z even though it's good for business because that's the only way they can do business in X and Y.

Re: Epic direct payment on mobile

#247

Post by fenomas »

rurounijones wrote: post #186
fenomas wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Epic is explicitly a walled garden regarding the games it has paid to be exclusive That's not what walled garden means. PC game developers can sell their games any number of ways - if they choose one way instead of others that's up to them. For iOS there's no choice - either you sell through Apple or you don't support iOS. Hence "walled garden". In short: if you have to pay people to come into your garden, it's not…

aha, I think we are coming at the term "walled garden" from opposite ends. For a developer I agree with you, it is not a walled garden, they can sell games however they want, epic is one option who happen to be the only one that pays, out of all the stores, 3rd parties for exclusivity. For a customer it is a walled garden for those exclusive games in that I cannot play those games without having to install and sign-u…

I understand your position, but that's not what the term means. A walled garden is when one party controls the media or distribution of content on a given platform. If you make a PC game, EGS has no control at all over how you distribute it. If you then decide to sell it exclusively through them, that doesn't make them a walled garden - you had control of how your game got distributed, not them.

Re: Epic direct payment on mobile

#248

Post by legohead »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #221
legohead wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple has to move against Epic here. If they are acting fairly with all developers (which was one of the questions to Tim Cook), then letting this be would be showing favoritism towards Epic. Or...make a sudden update to their TOS

If they take Fortnite down though, it's an open and shut antitrust case: Because even our broken antitrust law in the US understands consumers getting higher prices because of monopolies. This is why Epic is so loudly showcasing the price savings of bypassing Apple. If Apple takes down Fortnite here, the DOJ takes down the App Store.

I think Apple's argument would be it's industry standard. Steam, Apple, Google all do this. Even the Epic store takes a cut, although much lower, but that's a case in Apple's favor (market competition).

Re: Epic direct payment on mobile

#250

Post by Semaphor »

crispyporkbites wrote: post #238
dpcan wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Apple removes Fortnite from the app store, it'll become a class action lawsuit in my opinion. Kids have spent hundreds, maybe thousands, of dollars on vbucks on their phones. If you just take that away..... you owe some people some money.

If it’s deleted from the App Store it will still be on their phones. Either way I don’t think there’s a legal precedent for a class action

> If it’s deleted from the App Store it will still be on their phones.

But you won’t be able to update any more (unless that is via side-channel? I don’t know how mobile games work), which, for a multiplayer game, is as good as deleting it.

Post reply on HN