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Epic direct payment on mobile

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Re: Epic direct payment on mobile

#261

Post by justwalt »

notamy wrote: post #90
Reedx wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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". What are the examples where that happened? They rarely buy game companies. With Psyonix they are making Rocket League free to play and won't be able to download it on Steam, but will still be on a bunch of platforms.

Rocket League; if I remember correctly the Linux support was dropped and it was intended to no longer be on Steam. Unsure where it stands now as it's been a while since I actively followed that game.

It will be playable but not purchasable on Steam starting on the 31st of this month.

Re: Epic direct payment on mobile

#262

Post by ihumanable »

theli0nheart wrote: post #9

This puts Apple in a very tough spot. Last week, Tim Cook was questioned in an antitrust hearing re: Apple's anticompetitive practices (along with Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, and Sundar Pichai). The spotlight is already pointing right at them, so any move they make here is going to be noticed by lawmakers. If they remove Fortnite from the App Store, Apple will probably be seen as the bad guy. After all, Epic is not…

I agree with most of your statement, but I have a question about this bit

> After all, Epic is not taking anything off the top here;

Apple and Google take 30% and they are giving a 20% discount if you pay directly, so isn't there a 10% difference that they would be taking "off the top"?

Or am I missing something?

Re: Epic direct payment on mobile

#263

Post by tomp »

pb7 wrote: post #226
Fargren wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I want an ecosystem that works and I can rely on including knowing that little to no one can side load a malicious application onto the device. I don't understand this, can you explain why? As long as you don't sideload on your own phone, why would having the option be a problem?

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.

TikTok already scrapes whatever they want. How does Apple’s review process help?

Also, sideloading doesn’t necessarily mean there’s no access controls or permissions on iOS any more. Though Apple might have to step up security and fixore bugs.

Re: Epic direct payment on mobile

#264

Post by bentcorner »

seszett wrote: post #259
danudey wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...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…

Is what you're describing common on Android though? Among the Android users I know, nobody seems to ever have installed an app outside of Google Play, and in my case there are only a handful of apps that I have installed outside of Google Play or F-Droid, and they are alpha quality FOSS apps that were only distributed from GitHub. It's not clear to me that what you're describing is actually a problem that happens.

This isn't a problem on Android, at least from what I can see. IMO at the small scale the benefits of the play store (payment processing, discoverability, bandwidth, hosting) outweigh anything you could gain by offering your apk for direct download somewhere else.

Plus, even if you try to deploy malware you still need to get through the regular permission dialogs and other bits of Android security. I have no idea how easy/hard this is but I would be surprised if iOS performs substantially worse here.

Re: Epic direct payment on mobile

#265

Post by Cu3PO42 »

ihumanable wrote: post #262
theli0nheart wrote: post #9

This puts Apple in a very tough spot. Last week, Tim Cook was questioned in an antitrust hearing re: Apple's anticompetitive practices (along with Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, and Sundar Pichai). The spotlight is already pointing right at them, so any move they make here is going to be noticed by lawmakers. If they remove Fortnite from the App Store, Apple will probably be seen as the bad guy. After all, Epic is not…

I agree with most of your statement, but I have a question about this bit > After all, Epic is not taking anything off the top here; Apple and Google take 30% and they are giving a 20% discount if you pay directly, so isn't there a 10% difference that they would be taking "off the top"? Or am I missing something?

That 30% includes payment processing. Taking into account the probably relatively high chargeback rate (I'm thinking of kids using their parents' card), that might make up for 5% or more. So they may be taking a little off the top, but not a ludicrous amount.

Re: Epic direct payment on mobile

#266

Post by dageshi »

ihumanable wrote: post #262
theli0nheart wrote: post #9

This puts Apple in a very tough spot. Last week, Tim Cook was questioned in an antitrust hearing re: Apple's anticompetitive practices (along with Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, and Sundar Pichai). The spotlight is already pointing right at them, so any move they make here is going to be noticed by lawmakers. If they remove Fortnite from the App Store, Apple will probably be seen as the bad guy. After all, Epic is not…

I agree with most of your statement, but I have a question about this bit > After all, Epic is not taking anything off the top here; Apple and Google take 30% and they are giving a 20% discount if you pay directly, so isn't there a 10% difference that they would be taking "off the top"? Or am I missing something?

I think it would be a rough percentage that covers credit card fees in most circumstances. Perhaps they are making some small percentage but it's probably closer to 5%?

Re: Epic direct payment on mobile

#267

Post by dageshi »

spanhandler wrote: post #257
dannyw wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 nice to have one part of my life where I don't have to figure out who to ask for a refund if things go sideways, wonder how much of a hassle that'll be, and don't even have to think about whether a transaction is reasonably safe. Do I want that to be my entire life? No. But I'm very, very happy not to have to wade through a shady bazaar to pay for commercial software on my phone and tablet. I've got enough stres…

You can have competition or you can have simple, you can't have both.

Re: Epic direct payment on mobile

#268

Post by binthere »

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…

As a customer, if the game I'm about to buy was able to be polished because of additional funding/saving, I'm interested in the game being exclusive.

As a customer, if the game company has better chances of surviving paying their employees a decent wage, making quality games that I can enjoy, I'm interested in the game being exclusive.

As a customer, if the market could have more store options other than Steam so prices can be more competitive and developers can choose better deals, I'm interested in games being exclusive.

Also as a customer I can decide to just not play the game because of exclusivity and move on.

Why is Mario not on Steam? Why is The Last of Us or Uncharted not on PC? Yeah it sucks games are not ubiquitous but it's not always in the best interest of game developers to distribute their games everywhere and I think it should be perfectly understandable from the point of view of customers.

Also, from the point of view of Epic, I guess it's expected they want something in return for funding projects.

I don't get the anger people direct towards Epic when in fact they are doing a good thing for the market that very few companies would have the power to do.

Re: Epic direct payment on mobile

#269

Post by jaegerpicker »

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.

It's not antitrust or a monopoly. I can play fortnite on a metric shit-ton of devices. Apple isn't blocking them from a market, it isn't price fixing. When you develop for Apple you sign an agreement to pay for the service the App Store provides. You might not like the price but using a bad reading of the law to get your way is bad for everyone.

Re: Epic direct payment on mobile

#270

Post by dageshi »

jsnell wrote: post #45
actuator wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Edit: It seems like Play Store has a category restriction on Games without exceptions. Google doesn't force payments to go through its channels based on some conditions. A lot of app developers including Apple makes use of this. So it might just survive on Play Store.

Games and most apps must use Play's in-app purchases as the payment method: https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answ...

Yes, but you can sideload on android and in fact that's just what Epic did with fortnite on android.

Google at the very least can point to that, Apple cannot.

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