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Apple Terminates Epic Games' Developer Account

macrumors.com

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Re: Apple Terminates Epic Games' Developer Account

#561

Post by Aeolun »

_qulr wrote: post #523
mattmanser wrote: post #504

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't see how Epic wins this. If Stripe can claim Wells Fargo doesn't want to process porn payments, and that's legal, how can an American court rule for Epic? Epic are obviously going to lose, and lose hard, or set a precedent that's going to screw every payment provider in America and open a flood gate for fraudulent payments. You can't force someone to sell something they don't want to, especially because Apple…

The iPhone is not a store. The App Store is a store. Epic wants to be on the iPhone, but not necessarily in the App Store. Ideally, Epic wants to run its own store on the iPhone. In any case, App Store is the only store in town, where the "town" is the 1.5 billion iOS users. If there's only 1 store, with no competing stores, that's an entirely different situation legally.

Yeah, I bought a $1000 device, but somehow Apple gets to decide what I run on it? I just cannot see how that is a desireable situation.

Re: Apple Terminates Epic Games' Developer Account

#562

Post by stephc_int13 »

ryandrake wrote: post #535
mattmanser wrote: post #504

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't see how Epic wins this. If Stripe can claim Wells Fargo doesn't want to process porn payments, and that's legal, how can an American court rule for Epic? Epic are obviously going to lose, and lose hard, or set a precedent that's going to screw every payment provider in America and open a flood gate for fraudulent payments. You can't force someone to sell something they don't want to, especially because Apple…

Yea, I just don't understand Epic's endgame here. Even if they win, Apple will never let them back on the AppStore. They sued them! If I owned a grocery chain and one of my suppliers sued me, I would never choose to sell their products again in my store, regardless of the outcome. Suing someone is like burning the bridge. What is Epic hoping for here? Unless they are counting on the judge actually forcing a store to…

I don't think this fight is 100% rational here. There is a good chance they will only lose money. It seems like Tim Sweeney is taking it personally, he is rich enough and has enough power at Epic to take the risk. As an indie game developer I can tell you that the AppStore is a pain and everyone would thank Epic if they manage to break or even change it, at this would lead to a large domino effect.

Re: Apple Terminates Epic Games' Developer Account

#563

Post by bmarquez »

_qulr wrote: post #546
Spivak wrote: post #530

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple will do just fine arguing that their devices are no different from Xbox, PlayStation, Switch, Roku, Cable Boxes, Keurig, Vzw feature phones. I would be extremely surprised if the courts just up and anti-Tivo’d every device on the planet. You try to make a case about how phones are somehow special but they’re really not. You have millions of people who only have an Xbox and so you can’t reach them unless you con…

The case is not about closed platforms in general, it's about monopolistic behavior. In the US (the legal jurisdiction), Apple is the largest smartphone vendor by far, with ~50% market share. Epic is trying to show that Apple is abusing its market dominance. That's the case.

Apple has 52.4% mobile marketshare in the US[1]

The Justice department has said that more that 50% is generally required to be considered a monopoly power, but 70% is a stronger case[2] (not a lawyer, if someone can parse this better please do)

[1]https://www.statista.com/statistics/266572/market-share-held...

[2]https://www.justice.gov/atr/competition-and-monopoly-single-...

Re: Apple Terminates Epic Games' Developer Account

#564

Post by Uehreka »

ryandrake wrote: post #535
mattmanser wrote: post #504

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't see how Epic wins this. If Stripe can claim Wells Fargo doesn't want to process porn payments, and that's legal, how can an American court rule for Epic? Epic are obviously going to lose, and lose hard, or set a precedent that's going to screw every payment provider in America and open a flood gate for fraudulent payments. You can't force someone to sell something they don't want to, especially because Apple…

Yea, I just don't understand Epic's endgame here. Even if they win, Apple will never let them back on the AppStore. They sued them! If I owned a grocery chain and one of my suppliers sued me, I would never choose to sell their products again in my store, regardless of the outcome. Suing someone is like burning the bridge. What is Epic hoping for here? Unless they are counting on the judge actually forcing a store to…

I would note that Apple and Samsung sue each others pants off over patents, but while their legal departments are fighting it out, the operations folks are making deals where Apple buys billions of components from Samsung for use in their phones. This despite the fact that those phones compete with Samsung’s phones. When two companies are engaged in mutually beneficial relationships, they seem to learn not to take the legal stuff personally.

Re: Apple Terminates Epic Games' Developer Account

#565

Post by Fezzik »

_qulr wrote: post #523
mattmanser wrote: post #504

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't see how Epic wins this. If Stripe can claim Wells Fargo doesn't want to process porn payments, and that's legal, how can an American court rule for Epic? Epic are obviously going to lose, and lose hard, or set a precedent that's going to screw every payment provider in America and open a flood gate for fraudulent payments. You can't force someone to sell something they don't want to, especially because Apple…

The iPhone is not a store. The App Store is a store. Epic wants to be on the iPhone, but not necessarily in the App Store. Ideally, Epic wants to run its own store on the iPhone. In any case, App Store is the only store in town, where the "town" is the 1.5 billion iOS users. If there's only 1 store, with no competing stores, that's an entirely different situation legally.

Think of the iPhone as a mall then - it still gets to pick its tenants by whatever criteria it sees fit (that are not illegal, and fees are not illegal). Epic is not winning this one.

Edit: added the bit about fees.

Re: Apple Terminates Epic Games' Developer Account

#566

Post by Spivak »

_qulr wrote: post #546
Spivak wrote: post #530

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple will do just fine arguing that their devices are no different from Xbox, PlayStation, Switch, Roku, Cable Boxes, Keurig, Vzw feature phones. I would be extremely surprised if the courts just up and anti-Tivo’d every device on the planet. You try to make a case about how phones are somehow special but they’re really not. You have millions of people who only have an Xbox and so you can’t reach them unless you con…

The case is not about closed platforms in general, it's about monopolistic behavior. In the US (the legal jurisdiction), Apple is the largest smartphone vendor by far, with ~50% market share. Epic is trying to show that Apple is abusing its market dominance. That's the case.

The PS4 has 58% of the gaming console market currently.

I’m trying to figure out where the monopoly argument comes from. Apple hasn’t demonstrated that they have monopoly pricing power since even the Windows store takes 30% and they’re obviously using their dominance in the smartphone space to advantage themselves in… the smartphone space.

Re: Apple Terminates Epic Games' Developer Account

#567

Post by Aeolun »

_qulr wrote: post #551
ryandrake wrote: post #535

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yea, I just don't understand Epic's endgame here. Even if they win, Apple will never let them back on the AppStore. They sued them! If I owned a grocery chain and one of my suppliers sued me, I would never choose to sell their products again in my store, regardless of the outcome. Suing someone is like burning the bridge. What is Epic hoping for here? Unless they are counting on the judge actually forcing a store to…

> Apple will never let them back on the AppStore. Apple's statement today: "We hope that we can work together again in the future". Also, Apple requested that Epic submit a new rule-compliant version of Fortnite. I think Apple would be happy to have Epic back and paying 30%, which is worth hundreds of millions of dollars. It won't break Apple if they don't get that money, but it's still nice money, with little work r…

> We hope that we can work together again in the future

That doesn’t surprise me at all. Apple wants 30% of that sweet sweet pie.

Re: Apple Terminates Epic Games' Developer Account

#568

Post by nightcracker »

quelltext wrote: post #524
flingo wrote: post #511

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple's iOS ToS specifically forbids downloading and executing code by the app. (with a definition of "code", and "execute" somewhere in the document) While you could technically hide this from them during the review stage, apple can stop any app from functioning on any iOS device connected to the internet by revoking the certificate, if they discover it at a later stage. Are there noteworthy apps that break this ter…

This clause is impossible to apply to games. Any level of a game contains at least some logic like NPC behaviors, event triggering etc. and I'm sure scripting is a standard component of every single game. Have you heard of Thimbleweed Park? It's basically a VM executing an adventure game language (like the creator's SCUMM VM in the past). That's on the App Store. Now if we specifically look at the downloading part, t…

The clause is impossible to apply period. It's undecidable.

Re: Apple Terminates Epic Games' Developer Account

#569

Post by ribosometronome »

hakfoo wrote: post #544
mattmanser wrote: post #504

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't see how Epic wins this. If Stripe can claim Wells Fargo doesn't want to process porn payments, and that's legal, how can an American court rule for Epic? Epic are obviously going to lose, and lose hard, or set a precedent that's going to screw every payment provider in America and open a flood gate for fraudulent payments. You can't force someone to sell something they don't want to, especially because Apple…

> Wallmart choose their suppliers, and sets the markup, why can't Apple? But, at the end of the day, Walmart can't prevent customers from proceeding to Kroger down the street to get the products or deals they want. That's the market regulator of last resort in most circumstances. You say "Apple doesn't have a monopoly on phones or games". In the broad view, you may be right, but they've spent significant effort in cr…

Using cost of switching as an alternative would seemingly have ramifications that could be applied to almost everything from Fortnite skins to membership stores to video game consoles to state governments.

Re: Apple Terminates Epic Games' Developer Account

#570

Post by bobdole12345 »

sfifs wrote: post #557
mattmanser wrote: post #504

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't see how Epic wins this. If Stripe can claim Wells Fargo doesn't want to process porn payments, and that's legal, how can an American court rule for Epic? Epic are obviously going to lose, and lose hard, or set a precedent that's going to screw every payment provider in America and open a flood gate for fraudulent payments. You can't force someone to sell something they don't want to, especially because Apple…

> You can't force someone to sell something they don't want to, especially because Apple is nowhere near a monopoly... The case is going to not about that. The case is going to be about Apple not allowing developers to tell their users that they can buy subscriptions and in-app goods for cheaper through alternative payment mechanisms where Apple cannot take a cut. Payments is what is this is about (also see the FB re…

Yeah, it's really unfair that the farmer got so angry when I was banging his daughter while staying at his house.

I don't think I should have to listen to the farmers rules when he's got such a sweet daughter there.

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