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Apple removes Fortnite from App Store after Epic attempts to bypass fees

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Re: Apple removes Fortnite from App Store after Epic attempts to bypass fees

#231

Post by wvenable »

HatchedLake721 wrote: post #118
shajznnckfke wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m a huge fan of Apple Pay and do not begrudge the 0.15% cut they take on those transactions. The cut they take for App Store purchases is over 100x that amount, which is obscene.

You're comparing apples and oranges, two completely unrelated industries. One is payment processing, the other's a unified market of 155 countries and 1+ billion users where all the headache of payments, local sales taxes, APIs, etc are taken care of.

If all those oranges were worth 30%, why would Epic bother with their own payment system?

Re: Apple removes Fortnite from App Store after Epic attempts to bypass fees

#232

Post by grandinj »

smnrchrds wrote: post #160

Discussion of Apple topics here on HN almost always gets reduced to the argument that Apple is not a monopoly, so what they are doing is OK. I want to present an alternative viewpoint. It's not a monopoly issue, it is an anti-competitive issue. In Canada, we have three major cell carriers. None of them has a monopoly, or anything close to it. None of them has even 50% market share. You can have a 10 GB smartphone pla…

Yup. We have similar behaviour with cell phone companies here in South Africa. The big two have reached a stable state, are happy with their market share, and know that as long as they don't directly talk to each other when raising prices, they are legally in the clear.

Re: Apple removes Fortnite from App Store after Epic attempts to bypass fees

#233

Post by kllrnohj »

ecf wrote: post #91
slongfield wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a developer doesn't like Unreal's terms, there are other game engines. If a developer doesn't like Apple's terms, there are no viable alternatives for iOS distribution.

But there are other Smartphone platforms with their own store, correct? I don’t know why people feel it’s their undeniable right to be able to provide an app to iOS users.

Google Search should be free to only show location results from Google Maps, and ban Yelp, etc.. entirely from Google Search. After all, there's other search engines, right?

There is a history here where using your market position in one area to force your product in another as being illegal (see the recent EU fine against Google for "abusing their Android monopoly" for example: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_18_... ). Apple seems to be crossing that line rather brazenly.

Re: Apple removes Fortnite from App Store after Epic attempts to bypass fees

#234

Post by josephcsible »

molszanski wrote: post #112
xoxoy wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

30% is extremely high by any reasonable standard for any marketplace

Doesn't like every online "platform" take 30% cut? Google play, playstation store, steam, xbox store, nintendo store?

You can avoid Google Play on Android by sideloading. You can avoid Steam on PC by distributing your game yourself. You can't avoid the App Store on iOS unless you tell all of your customers to jailbreak.

Re: Apple removes Fortnite from App Store after Epic attempts to bypass fees

#235

Post by musicale »

smnrchrds wrote: post #160

Discussion of Apple topics here on HN almost always gets reduced to the argument that Apple is not a monopoly, so what they are doing is OK. I want to present an alternative viewpoint. It's not a monopoly issue, it is an anti-competitive issue. In Canada, we have three major cell carriers. None of them has a monopoly, or anything close to it. None of them has even 50% market share. You can have a 10 GB smartphone pla…

I think this is called tacit collusion.

You see something like this with gasoline pricing - major brands will have "competing" stations across the street from each other, but their prices moves in lock step without a race to the bottom.

Memory vendors have explicitly colluded in the past, but they really didn't need to - they just needed to copy their competitors' posted pricing. Presumably that is what they do now.

If there are high barriers to new competitors entering the market, then the situation is unlikely to change.

Re: Apple removes Fortnite from App Store after Epic attempts to bypass fees

#236

Post by meheleventyone »

xoxoy wrote: post #184
wmf wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW brick and mortar stores usually take 40%.

not sure what the brick and mortar equivalent is. what does that mean? retailers pay suppliers some wholesale cost for their goods. doesn’t seem like an analogous situation to a marketplace that takes a fixed cut of every sale.

In the olden days of game stores shelf space was at a premium so the power dynamic was on the side of the retailer, particularly with the larger chains who had a lot of room to negotiate their cut rather than buying wholesale.

Re: Apple removes Fortnite from App Store after Epic attempts to bypass fees

#237

Post by detaro »

signal11 wrote: post #181
slongfield wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a developer doesn't like Unreal's terms, there are other game engines. If a developer doesn't like Apple's terms, there are no viable alternatives for iOS distribution.

> If a developer doesn't like Apple's terms, there are no viable alternatives for iOS distribution. Lots of opportunities for mobile distribution though. Apple is what, < 20% of the mobile market? (I know where you're coming from, but this is what Apple's legal team will say).

Apple is also very proud of being a a lot larger share of the mobile apps/content market, which is what everyone elses legal team will say. (And which is why this is actually such a big thing: if loosing iOS customers meant loosing <20% of revenue, app makers would be a lot less fussed about this)

Re: Apple removes Fortnite from App Store after Epic attempts to bypass fees

#239

Post by makomk »

elliekelly wrote: post #12

What is Apple’s end game here? It seems like they’re fighting a losing battle and digging their own antitrust grave. Pretty clever on Epic’s part to specifically highlight how Apple’s app store fee hits the user directly. Pretty short-sighted of Apple to immediately pull an app for providing consumers with additional disclosure about where their money is going.

The interesting thing is that it didn't hit the user directly until now - from what I can tell, Epic Games were quite happy to charge the same amount on platforms like PC and pocket the extra 30% right up until the day that they pulled off this stunt and needed to spin Apple's cut as something that cost consumers money rather than Epic, and presumably they'll put the prices right back to normal if they win.

The other interesting thing is that they're charging the reduced price on consoles which I believe take a similar 30% cut to Apple.

Re: Apple removes Fortnite from App Store after Epic attempts to bypass fees

#240

Post by kllrnohj »

valuearb wrote: post #202
kllrnohj wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Steam changed a while back: https://www.theverge.com/2018/11/30/18120577/valve-steam-gam... It's now 30% for the first $10 million, 25% for $10-$50 million, and 20% thereafter. Also relevant here would be Epic Games Store, which is 12%. Also relevant here, is payment processors are way, way less than 30%, which is all that's used/needed for in-app purchases.

Paynent processors are entirely irrelevant to this discussion, given app stores do far more than just payment processing. Given publicly reported financials for Apples services gross margins imply a break even around 10%, I doubt any successful App Store offering similar services could survive on less than 15%.

> Paynent processors are entirely irrelevant to this discussion, given app stores do far more than just payment processing.

Not for in-app purchases they don't, which is why I specifically called that one out. The game provides all the UX there to find & purchase the items, the game "delivers" the resulting purchased goods, etc... All the app store does in that case is facilitate payment. No different than, say, Square.

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