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Apple Terminates Epic Games' Developer Account

macrumors.com

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Re: Apple Terminates Epic Games' Developer Account

#111

Post by bitxbit »

leptoniscool wrote: post #24

Apple is a monopoly. When Microsoft was investigated and fined for anti-trust behaviors, it hasn't engaged in this level of abuse.

Might be an unpopular opinion but I don’t think they are acting to the level of MSFT in the 90s. What MSFT did would be equivalent to Apple forcing everyone to use its apps and not allow any competing apps. Also recall that Jobs was pretty adamant about allowing third-party apps in the beginning. Now, do I think 30% is ridiculous in 2020? Yes. But it made sense a decade ago when having a half decent working app almost guaranteed you revenue.

Re: Apple Terminates Epic Games' Developer Account

#112

Post by chrisco255 »

dogma1138 wrote: post #57
MaximumMadness wrote: post #21

Apple is truly doing themselves a disservice here, if Epic wins this battle Apple will undoubtedly be painted as the bad guy, and other major companies will smell blood in the water when it comes taking down a competitor. Case in point; Tinder, Microsoft, Facebook, Spotify have all openly backed Epic and started to call attention to features that are impacted by this 30% fee. Status quo isn't going to cut it, and it…

Microsoft takes 30% on Xbox plus its much more expensive to develop and publish on that platform overall. Neither Tinder nor Spotify will transfer any savings to the end users. Spotify has been ramping their sub costs considerably my sub went up by like 150% in the UK over the past 3-4 years. Tinder employs discriminatory pricing by charging certain genders, age groups and sexual orientations more for their premium s…

https://www.xbox.com/en-us/Developers/id

Indie devs can publish on Xbox for a token fee (no % of revenue taken).

Re: Apple Terminates Epic Games' Developer Account

#113

Post by icebraining »

xwdv wrote: post #75
methodin wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With no skin in the game, I could just as easily counter with: Supporting Apple in this fight is just setting a dangerous precedent that big players should be able to just intimidate platform developers into giving them whatever terms they want. Don't do it. Again I don't really have a concrete view but a lot of these discussions tend to boil down to preference against one party or the other and not objectively looki…

It’s a flawed argument, developers don’t come saying “we’ll give you 30% of our revenue if you let us build on your platform”. If they don’t like the terms they can simply choose to not develop there.

And if Apple doesn't like US antitrust law, they can simply not make the App Store available in the US.

Re: Apple Terminates Epic Games' Developer Account

#114

Post by user5994461 »

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #45
oneplane wrote: post #20

Not sure why people are surprised or consider it giant news. > The court recommended that Epic follow the App Store’s guidelines and policies while the case is in progress – the rules they followed over the past ten years until they created the current situation themselves. Epic refused. Well duh, this is a show match court fight of Epic Games not liking the rules and not getting the special treatment they want. No m…

If Epic Games doesn't get it's way will China give Apple the boot? Are we watching a cold war unfold in front of our eyes?

Highly unlikely, the iPhone is very common and a major status symbol in China.

People making up the government are not gonna ban their phones (or their son's and daughter's iPhones, considering the 70 year old politicians might not be strong users of smartphone themselves).

Re: Apple Terminates Epic Games' Developer Account

#115

Post by MereInterest »

oneplane wrote: post #48
leptoniscool wrote: post #24

Apple is a monopoly. When Microsoft was investigated and fined for anti-trust behaviors, it hasn't engaged in this level of abuse.

Microsoft went from open options to package deals with no options. iOS (and vendored Android) started out with nothing, then added a store. There is no precedent on the platforms to point to an "it got worse" scenario. The best (far-fetched) comparisons would be the inability to pick and choose TV packages from your local TV broadcast supplier. Or not having a choice on what firmware your car's infotainment system ru…

> There is no precedent on the platforms to point to an "it got worse" scenario.

While not iOS, there was a discussion last week on how MacOS has made things worse for independent developers, and is laying the groundwork to continue restricting un-notarized code.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24217116

Re: Apple Terminates Epic Games' Developer Account

#116

Post by jacquesm »

8note wrote: post #105
jacquesm wrote: post #40

Remember this whenever you hear someone say their company is too big to fail when dealing with the likes of Apple, Microsoft, Google and others: no company is too big to fail.

Isn't this provably not true? When the government decides a business is too big to fail, it'll ensure that the company keeps running. Just look at 2008

I thought I wrote 'Apple, Google, Microsoft'. The government is a different class of entity altogether and the logical exception to that rule.

Re: Apple Terminates Epic Games' Developer Account

#117

Post by gambiting »

xwdv wrote: post #75
methodin wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With no skin in the game, I could just as easily counter with: Supporting Apple in this fight is just setting a dangerous precedent that big players should be able to just intimidate platform developers into giving them whatever terms they want. Don't do it. Again I don't really have a concrete view but a lot of these discussions tend to boil down to preference against one party or the other and not objectively looki…

It’s a flawed argument, developers don’t come saying “we’ll give you 30% of our revenue if you let us build on your platform”. If they don’t like the terms they can simply choose to not develop there.

>>If they don’t like the terms they can simply choose to not develop there.

Sure, but sometimes, as a society, we decide that this is simply not ok.

I know this is not a completely correct comparison, but the main counter against forcing businesses to accept non-white customers was "well, they can simply go somewhere else, what's the big deal". We as a society decided that no, actually, it is a big deal, and regardless of whether you can "simply" go somewhere else or not, you shouldn't have to.

I'm hoping that this will be the first victory in a string of rulings forcing platform holders to open them up, because we value that more than we value the platform holders ability to keep them closed. Apple just happened to be first.

Re: Apple Terminates Epic Games' Developer Account

#118

Post by radley »

dogma1138 wrote: post #83
radley wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? That's so strange. I swear I thought I could buy XBox games from other stores like Amazon, Target, and Walmart if Microsoft were to kick them out of their store. I can even buy used games on CraigsList. How are they acting the same?

Microsoft takes about the same cut regardless of the distribution method.

Hrm, that's not what their website says:

> There are no fees to apply to ID@Xbox, to submit a game to certification, publish, or update your games. There is a very modest one-time cost associated with development for the Universal Windows Platform.

https://www.xbox.com/en-US/developers/id

It looks like the big costs are insurance and the ratings boards (but this post is 6 years old):

https://www.ign.com/articles/2014/07/30/launching-indie-game...

Re: Apple Terminates Epic Games' Developer Account

#119

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

gambiting wrote: post #85
xwdv wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A company should have the right to enforce the terms for its own platform.

No, I think what they mean is that for instance, Apple Music is on Android, but Apple takes payments through its own platform, not through Google Play, therefore denying Google their 30% cut on apple music payments. Many smaller companies are not able to negotiate the same thing.

Massive off-topic aside: Would you mind stop referring to me as he, and more generally don't assume someones gender identity. Sorry about it, just shitting me off a bit lately.

Re: Apple Terminates Epic Games' Developer Account

#120

Post by apazzolini »

nojito wrote: post #108
Voliokis wrote: post #91

What in god's name is with all the bootlickers in this thread? I have no love for Apple or Epic. But if this lawsuit leads to better treatment of third-party developers on the platform and Apple not being able to arbitrarily control what apps consumers get to download, I don't see why Epic is being painted as the "bad guy" by so many people here. Apple has been behaving in crazy anti-competitive ways (just look at ho…

They built the platform. They maintain the platform. They promote the platform. What's arbitrary about that?

It's disingenuous to claim Apple built and promoted the platform by themselves - third party developers are a huge reason behind iOS's success, and the iPhone wouldn't be what it is today if it only had first-party apps.
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