Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Apple Terminates Epic Games' Developer Account

macrumors.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

431–440 of 1001 posts

Re: Apple Terminates Epic Games' Developer Account

#431

Post by rumanator »

zobzu wrote: post #409
rumanator wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Unfortunately, supporting a brand as team sports is a thing like supporting a political party as team sports is. My take is the exact opposite: this episode is an opportunity to air grievances regarding each company, which by themselves have amassed a bunch of reasons for customers and end users to dislike them. There are no good guys in this story, only bad guys whose evilness outstages the other's evilness.

That's because you're on HN and you and others are reasonable people :) People in the more general population definitely support Company A or B as if these were sports team, you can in fact find this on the linked article.

Indeed fanboyism is a thing, but personally I don't see it in this case. I see arguments accusing a monopolistic app store manager who is enforcing draconian guidelines to abuse it's monopoly, and I see arguments accusing a software vendor with a long history of abuse getting locked out of a plstform it by violating its terms and conditions when attempting to avoid paying for it's use. None of these actions are cheerable.

Re: Apple Terminates Epic Games' Developer Account

#432

Post by jjoonathan »

floatingatoll wrote: post #398
delhanty wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, supporting a brand as team sports is a thing like supporting a political party as team sports is. HN is, hopefully, better than most places on the internet as there are lots of people willing to decide each issue on its merits, and also recalibrate their positions continually in the light of events,

HN is not better in that way, or else the comment you’re replying to wouldn’t have needed to posted. HN users often bring preexisting and inflexible views to new discussions, on topics such as GateKeeper, GPL licensing, and ‘freedoms’. Unpopular positions on such topics are frequently unwelcome in discussions, even when presented with good reasoning and respectful tone. HN users often use downvotes to hide content th…

When I downvote for low quality, I often have the distinct impression that the recipient of the downvote would not understand or admit to themselves the quality deficit I had in mind and certainly wouldn't correctly attribute the downvote to it. It's always easier to believe that you're being downvoted simply because people disagree with you.

Of course, everyone has to be their own judge in every particular case, but there's so much room for disagreement that generalized interpretations of downvoting behavior just aren't convincing.

Re: Apple Terminates Epic Games' Developer Account

#434

Post by CamperBob2 »

filoleg wrote: post #282
jasonlotito wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Instead you have sideload... the Epic Games Store! I remember when Valve did that with HL2 and Steam. The outrage was similar [1]. Look how it turned out for Valve. [1] https://games.slashdot.org/story/04/10/23/0812224/half-life-...

Valve was introducing a new kind of an experience with their store, because there were no digital stores for games before that (that were actually used; because no doubt someone in the comments will point out to some obscure digital game store that existed at that time, but no one has heard of or used). Valve was not fighting an existing store using "stores are bad" as an argument, only to introduce another store. Wh…

Stardock comes to mind as the Obscure Store That We Probably Haven't Heard Of. But unlike Stardock, Steam was also a DRM platform, the first to implement Carmack's observation ("The Internet is the ultimate dongle.")

In retrospect, it seems to have worked out pretty well for the company and its customers. Gabe Newell has proven to be a more benevolent dictator than his counterparts at Apple and Microsoft.

Re: Apple Terminates Epic Games' Developer Account

#435

Post by candiddevmike »

colatkinson wrote: post #362
Gwypaas wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference would be that the same iPhone has access to Taylor Swift through Spotify, Apple Music, Play Music (does that even exist anymore?) and so on. Put the app store on the same level of competition and level the playing field of Spotify vs Apple Music in regards to the 30% subscription fee.

Play Music recently got merged into Youtube Music (formerly Youtube Red). They kept all the features of Play, like uploading your own library, so honestly the least bad Google product death I've seen so far.

You must have a wildly different experience with YouTube Music then me. This forced migration was the final tipping point to push me to Spotify. YouTube Music's UX is _horrendous_ compared to Google Play Music, and the pre-canned radio stations are almost completely missing.

Re: Apple Terminates Epic Games' Developer Account

#436

Post by jeremyjh »

pier25 wrote: post #428
_qulr wrote: post #387

My feeling is that this whole situation is mostly going as Tim Sweeney intended. He was itching for a fight, wanted to sue Apple. The harsher that Apple retaliates, the better Epic's court case. Apple is playing right into his hands. Did Sweeney anticipate Apple's threat to Unreal Engine? Maybe, maybe not. But the temporary restraining order did block that threat, at least for now. I don't think Epic ever intended to…

> I don't think Epic ever intended to release the new Fortnite season on Apple platforms. Epic probably doesn't care much about Apple platforms. 80% of Fortnite players are on console. I doubt macOS accounts for more than 1-2%. https://newzoo.com/insights/articles/newzoos-battle-royale-s...

Sure but a fair few play on iOS. If Apple user revenue didn't matter to Epic why would they have even started this to begin with?

Re: Apple Terminates Epic Games' Developer Account

#437

Post by elmo2you »

jacobwilliamroy wrote: post #401

Maybe if the U.S. government broke up microsoft when they had the chance back in 2001 then we wouldnt even be having this conversation. Apple would clearly, unambiguously be in violation of anti-trust laws, and that would be a win for the people. But the courts have set a precedent with microsoft which makes it very hard to destroy these vertically integrated monopolies moving forward. Destroying monopolies is needed…

That particular piece of history sure doesn't help.

But Apple excluding all of Epic's products from their store (the technical reasons aren't that important, the effective result is), while only a single product is actually violating their (already questionable) rules, sounds to me like a heck of a glaring antitrust issue either way.

The real issue here is not so much that Apple is doing all kinds of illegal (antitrust) things (and so do Epic, Microsoft, Facebook and many more). It's that the USA has essentially become a defunct banana republic a long time ago. That particular Microsoft charade, including their subsequent violations and blatant disregards, played a significant part in the whole shift to where we are now. However, for some reason it appears that most Americans still want to hold on to an image of reality that already belongs to the past.

I'm not saying it's better in other places, or even comparing it with any other place. Still, the USA not enforcing its own antitrust rules sounds pretty bad to me. If these companies have become too powerful to effectively prosecute them for violations, then it is certainly on the government for having let those get to there in the first place.

Re: Apple Terminates Epic Games' Developer Account

#438

Post by dvtrn »

tomc1985 wrote: post #373
lr4444lr wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, but I think the downvoting provides all of the corrective feedback your target audience needs to learn this.

I'm not so sure about that. Downvotes are as much an indicator of outspokenness as they are that one's post is repugnant. Unfortunately lots of people love to downvote posts they do not agree with, or don't support their chosen side

Unfortunately lots of people love to downvote posts they do not agree with

This behavior has been given blessings.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17996858

Re: Apple Terminates Epic Games' Developer Account

#439

Post by cgriswald »

jjoonathan wrote: post #432
floatingatoll wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HN is not better in that way, or else the comment you’re replying to wouldn’t have needed to posted. HN users often bring preexisting and inflexible views to new discussions, on topics such as GateKeeper, GPL licensing, and ‘freedoms’. Unpopular positions on such topics are frequently unwelcome in discussions, even when presented with good reasoning and respectful tone. HN users often use downvotes to hide content th…

When I downvote for low quality, I often have the distinct impression that the recipient of the downvote would not understand or admit to themselves the quality deficit I had in mind and certainly wouldn't correctly attribute the downvote to it. It's always easier to believe that you're being downvoted simply because people disagree with you. Of course, everyone has to be their own judge in every particular case, but…

That's all true, but I'm not sure that's relevant. I agree with the GP, not because my posts are downvoted, but because I see respectful, thoughtful posts from established users of reasonable karma downvoted into greyed-out territory for no obvious reason other than that their opinions (or their facts) are not popular. This includes posts I agree and disagree with, so I don't think it's necessarily bias. I also think it is behavior that has become endemic (although I may think so because I find myself having trouble not doing that).

Introspecting into the occasions when I myself downvote out of disagreement it is usually:

1. I think the other person "doesn't get it."

2. I lack the time to offer a substantive opinion.

3. The other party has demonstrated either: a. A tendency to view statements ungenerously or; b. that they already know The One True Way.

4. Some combination of the above.

Edit: List formatting.

Re: Apple Terminates Epic Games' Developer Account

#440

Post by HeavenFox »

I do agree with Epic that the requirement for all IAP to go through Apple is absurd, and the 30% cut is too high. However, I fully support Apple in enforcing the App Store rule.

What else do you want Apple to do? Suppose Apple cave this time, what happens if tomorrow Facebook comes in and use private API to track users? Could Facebook argue Apple is using its monopolistic position to hurt its business? If you say, clearly forbidding tracking is good for the user and taking a cut is bad, who gets to draw the line? One can argue preventing tracking make ads less relevant to user therefore hurt them, and similarly forcing all purchase to go through Apple prevent unscrupulous developers from fleecing users. It's never a black and white issue.

Also, to be honest I always thought bigger developers have special negotiated rate with Apple. As an Apple customer & developer, I am very glad that everyone is treated equally in App Store.

Post reply on HN