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Apple Terminates Epic Games' Developer Account

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Re: Apple Terminates Epic Games' Developer Account

#221

Post by DetroitThrow »

microtherion wrote: post #166
renlo wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What happens when Target is the only store that 13.5% of the population can access? What happens if it become 25%? 50%? 100%? At what threshold is it proper to put in restrictions on Target?

My understanding is that Walmart is effectively the only retailer in many rural areas of the US (Though I don't know about specific statistics).

This is true, and perhaps consumers in those areas should have more control over the choices that business provides. National corporations with local monopolies are often the least critiqued anti-consumer actor.

Re: Apple Terminates Epic Games' Developer Account

#223

Post by misnome »

IncRnd wrote: post #153
hnarayanan wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In what metric is Apple a monopoly?

Apple is a monopoly that controls what applications can run on iPhones. Being a monopoly is not illegal in the US. What is illegal is for a monopoly to engage in predatory practices, which Apple clearly does.

I think that the word "clearly" isn't so obvious as you seem to think.

Re: Apple Terminates Epic Games' Developer Account

#224

Post by MikeKusold »

john-shaffer wrote: post #129
n42 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

interesting, then, that he is solely responsible for introducing marketplace exclusivity deals to PC gaming.

We've had decades of exclusivity deals for one console or another. Those actually prevented people from playing the games without shelling out for an extra console. Total War: Troy is exclusive to Epic Games Store for one year before it comes to Steam. If you got the game on its release date, Epic gave it to you for free. To play it, you need one more launcher to go along with Steam, Battle.net, GOG, and various cust…

That’s a false equivalency. A more apt comparison would be if you could only buy a game at GameStop for one year, while all the Best But shoppers weren’t able to buy the game from their preferred retail store.

Re: Apple Terminates Epic Games' Developer Account

#225

Post by abc-xyz »

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…

Epic might be painted in a bad light because they’re 40% Tencent owned, and they happen to purposely get banned and sue Apple (in a PR campaign style) shortly after Trump sign an executive order targeting Tencent’s WeChat.

Or people might enjoy being able to use a device without having to worry about viruses and whatnot.. a problem plaguing Windows and slowly starting to affect many Android users as well. And while they might feel comfortable being able to avoid such viruses themselves, then they likely have friends and family that will suffer from it (you might think it’s easy not to install a different App Store, just like you might think it’s easy not to click on phishing links in your mailbox.. but it unfortunately isn’t easy for the average user).

Or people might worry about losing all sorts of privacy as a result of the Apple being forced to open up various parts of their system.

Re: Apple Terminates Epic Games' Developer Account

#226

Post by n42 »

mxfh wrote: post #217
n42 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

interesting, then, that he is solely responsible for introducing marketplace exclusivity deals to PC gaming.

Sure Origin was a failure, but that much of one? Anyone remembers "only on Origin".

those were all EA titles, so EA had their own publisher exclusive marketplace. Tim Sweeney introduced buying out third-party publishers with exclusivity clauses.

edit: there's a good analogy in another thread -- only being able to buy a Nintendo game at GameStop and not Best Buy.

Re: Apple Terminates Epic Games' Developer Account

#227

Post by MaximumMadness »

slivanes wrote: post #210
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…

I would like the developer to have the choice of what percent Apple gets (e.g. slider from 10% -> 30%) and that also determines the level of support (and discoverability on the App store?) that Apple gives. Would that type of system work?

It certainly has the makings of a good idea.

There are lots of questions around compensation equality (i.e. the big companies get richer, the poor get charged more) but something besides the blanket 30% rule based on some metric sounds feasible to me

Re: Apple Terminates Epic Games' Developer Account

#228

Post by shajznnckfke »

slivanes wrote: post #210
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…

I would like the developer to have the choice of what percent Apple gets (e.g. slider from 10% -> 30%) and that also determines the level of support (and discoverability on the App store?) that Apple gives. Would that type of system work?

Sure, if only Apple would itemize the support costs, developers could see how much support each position on the slider will earn us. Surely this won’t reveal that it’s almost pure profit.

Re: Apple Terminates Epic Games' Developer Account

#229

Post by yyyk »

bagacrap wrote: post #165
yyyk wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's irrelevant whether Apple are technically a monopoly or not; Apple abuses their iOS market power to force vendors to use their payment system.

Actually I do think it matters if Apple is technically a monopoly, as laws are technical documents. If you agree Apple is not a monopoly then the worst thing you can say is, "I don't think Apple is being very nice." And Apple is not forcing anyone to write ios apps. They are curating a store. Should lawmakers dictate to Walmart which products to stock or how much to buy and sell them for?

Laws are technical document, and as I keep saying, legally a company does not need to be a monopoly to get the law to interfere against it. IIRC, the test in the US is "market power" + "harm to customer welfare", and there's a good case to be made that Apple meets it.

Apple is not forcing anyone to write iOS apps, Microsoft and IBM did not force anyone either. Still, the law acted, because anti-competitive market behaviour is illegal.

Re: Apple Terminates Epic Games' Developer Account

#230

Post by AnthonyMouse »

microtherion wrote: post #199
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…

> Tinder, Microsoft, Facebook, Spotify have all openly backed Epic Oh, it's going to be so much fun when Epic wins and Taylor Swift decides to apply the same legal reasoning to the cut she pays Spotify for her music…

Does Spotify control one of the two major mobile phone platforms and use that control to require all their users to use only their music service?
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