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Apple Terminates Epic Games' Developer Account

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Re: Apple Terminates Epic Games' Developer Account

#271

Post by yyyk »

thrwn_frthr_awy wrote: post #262
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.

How should Apple get paid for a free app that has it's own payment system? Apple created a phone, IDE, language and entire ecosystem and from day 1 has charged 30%. They have not increased that as their marketshare increased. Should Apple be forced to allow an app to be released free and then accept payments outside of Apple?

Oh, I don't know. They could ask the developer for a fee. How about that?

To answer your question, yes, Apple should be forced to allow other payment system. The current anti-competitive arrangement both disadvantages non-Apple payment systems, and prevents users from switching to Android if they wish (since subscriptions are managed by Apple, and it difficult to access that without an Apple device...).

Re: Apple Terminates Epic Games' Developer Account

#272

Post by flyingswift »

bitxbit wrote: post #234
pier25 wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't uninstall Safari from iOS. In fact you can't even browse the web without it as Apple prohibits any other browsing engine (Chrome, FF, etc, are using WKWebView). I don't know the numbers but I imagine there are more iOS devices now than there were Windows PCs back in the 90s.

Fair point but that’s largely due to security not Apple’s desire to lockout other browsers.

That is a large benefit of the doubt...

Re: Apple Terminates Epic Games' Developer Account

#273

Post by mrgordon »

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…

Well not everyone wants to have to have ten game stores with ten custom launchers if they only have ten games installed

Also Epic may control the release in some ways. For example, Civ 6 on Epic is PC only but on Steam it’s PC & Mac. So I bought it on Epic and then realized I can’t play with my friends who are on Macs.

Why would I want an entire new game store, an app that they’ve chosen to make incompatible with one of the two major computing platforms, and yet another thing to keep updated, minimized, and logged into.

I’m all for competition but exclusivity deals are overall negative for the consumer. It’s worth $10 million to get a new game exclusively for Epic to force everyone to use a store they don’t want to install or use because they’ll end up spending $100 million on other games. It’s an effective business tactic but it’s not exactly in my interest.

Re: Apple Terminates Epic Games' Developer Account

#274

Post by simongr3dal »

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…

> Microsoft takes 30% on Xbox plus its much more expensive to develop and publish on that platform overall.

And yet Epic has beef with Apple. So Microsoft must managed their relationship better than Apple has done to make Epic satisfied enough to not pull a stunt like they have with Apple.

Re: Apple Terminates Epic Games' Developer Account

#275

Post by 1_player »

gameswithgo wrote: post #38
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…

people familiar with Tim Sweeny’s life and ideology know that it is an actual important issues to him that platforms be open. your cynical take is often very true but there are sometimes real human ideals behind things.

He likes his platforms to be so open he openly said he doesn't care about porting his game store to Linux.

Re: Apple Terminates Epic Games' Developer Account

#276

Post by AnthonyMouse »

threeseed wrote: post #248
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Does Spotify control one of the two major music platforms and use that control to require artists to use only their music service (via exclusives)? And can you explain how I am using Spotify on my iPhone if Apple is "forcing" users to only use Apple Music ?

> Does Spotify control one of the two major music platforms and use that control to require artists to use only their music service (via exclusives)?

Exclusives aren't mandatory. The artists get paid extra for that and can decline it if they want to.

> And can you explain how I am using Spotify on my iPhone if Apple is "forcing" users to only use Apple Music ?

The analogy to "their music service" is Apple requiring iPhone users to use exclusively their iOS app store.

Re: Apple Terminates Epic Games' Developer Account

#277

Post by nodamage »

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.

I am not sure why this fallacy continues to be repeated in every Apple thread. Apple currently has 46% US market share [1] and 14% global market share [2]. This is far from monopoly power.

By contrast, Microsoft had 95% market share during their antitrust suit. [3]

[1] https://www.counterpointresearch.com/us-market-smartphone-sh...

[2] https://www.counterpointresearch.com/global-smartphone-share...

[3] https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=179876183890909...

Re: Apple Terminates Epic Games' Developer Account

#278

Post by DaiPlusPlus »

TotempaaltJ wrote: post #169
fooey wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not even legal departments having a fight, it's Tim Sweeney tilting at windmills I 100% believe that 3rd party app stores is a hill Apple is willing to die on. I would guess they're more likely to get rid of "apps" entirely than open up their ecosystem.

> would guess they're more likely to get rid of "apps" entirely than open up their ecosystem. You believe they'd rather give up the iPhone than compromise on a more consumer-friendly ecosystem policy?

The iPhone had PWAs (under a different name) before it had the App Store though.

I'd wager most App Store apps on the iPhone could be ported-over to PWA and retain 90% of their functionality - and people would still buy the iPhone.

Looking at my Settings > Screen Time history for the past week, these are the apps I use the most (in no particular order) and how I feel they would work as a PWA:

1. Microsoft iOS Remote Desktop Client: this could be a PWA with a WebSocket+-based interaction surface.

2. Twitter: there's nothing I use in the iOS native app that can't be done in their web-app.

3. Google Maps: I think I'd be okay if I had to use the built-in Apple Maps instead.

4. Telegram / WhatsApp / Slack etc: Apps like these can't be used offline anyway, so being PWAs web-apps is also fine. As Slack is an Electron App (on Windows at least) then porting it over to a PWA is straightforward.

5. Authy / Google Authenticator / Azure Authenticator: I'll admit this is one that can't be done properly as a PWA right now because there's no way to reliably and securely persist client-side secrets.

6. Star Walk: this is one that can't be PWA: while the 3D world can be rendered in a WebGL , it needs a large offline data cache and PWAs can only store 50MB presently (and that's 50MB as text, not binary data).

Most of the other apps I use are Apple's own or built-in to the device (iWork, Notes, Camera, iMessage, Mail, etc).

As for games: I stopped buying and installing iOS games on my phone and iPad a few years ago because there's no way to reliably download and "keep" games and apps you've bought indefinitely (e.g. as IPA files). Once a publisher removes an app or game from the App Store and you've removed it from your phone then you're SOL - you will get a refund if you contact iTunes Customer Support, but I view games as art - and the idea for a games publisher to unilaterally prevent me from accessing content I've paid for is horrible and reeks of Orwell's Memory Hole.

(Besides games-as-art that I've bought... and lost, the only other types of games I see in the stores are crass freemium bollocks - and I won't let myself get hooked on that business model).

(I think the last game I ever got from the App Store was "Rainbrow" ( https://apps.apple.com/us/app/rainbrow/id1312458558 ) - which was an experimental game using the then-new iPhone X's face detection camera where you move a character on-screen using your eyebrows - that was almost 3 years ago).

Re: Apple Terminates Epic Games' Developer Account

#279

Post by SXX »

buzzerbetrayed wrote: post #219
Touche wrote: post #170

IANAL and I cannot judge the legal merits of this case. I did read Apple's response though and I found the argument not a compelling justification for their practices. A big part of their response is to justify the need for the 30% as a mechanism to recoup costs. That sounds perfectly reasonable until you realize that Epic is not allowed to recoup its own costs for the higher App Store cost by increasing their produc…

> Epic is not allowed to recoup its own costs for the higher App Store cost by increasing their product cost by 30% What are you talking about? Epic can price their product however they want. Why do you think Youtube Premium costs more on iOS than on any other platform?

> What are you talking about? Epic can price their product however they want. Why do you think Youtube Premium costs more on iOS than on any other platform?

As far as I understand this is something Google was specifically allowed to do because their nature as streaming service. E.g most of companies are not allowed to sell subscription or app options for 30% extra on iOS and make it possible to pay for them on their own website for normal price.

Re: Apple Terminates Epic Games' Developer Account

#280

Post by criley2 »

bitxbit wrote: post #234
pier25 wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't uninstall Safari from iOS. In fact you can't even browse the web without it as Apple prohibits any other browsing engine (Chrome, FF, etc, are using WKWebView). I don't know the numbers but I imagine there are more iOS devices now than there were Windows PCs back in the 90s.

Fair point but that’s largely due to security not Apple’s desire to lockout other browsers.

>Fair point but that’s largely due to security not Apple’s desire to lockout other browsers

Lol, if I remember correctly Microsoft also used the "security" angle to defend their monopolistic behavior too.

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