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Apple Terminates Epic Games' Developer Account

macrumors.com

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Re: Apple Terminates Epic Games' Developer Account

#571

Post by _qulr »

Fezzik wrote: post #565
_qulr wrote: post #523

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Think of the iPhone as a mall then

Why?

Re: Apple Terminates Epic Games' Developer Account

#572

Post by wilsonnb3 »

croes wrote: post #466
mrkramer wrote: post #222

Is there any other example in the industry where you can not install and use an application without approval of the operating system creator and maintainer?

No. Imagine Microsoft would try do the same. Inconceivable.

Microsoft does exactly that on the Xbox and they also did it on the short lived Windows RT.

Re: Apple Terminates Epic Games' Developer Account

#573

Post by chillfox »

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…

Epic’s endgame would be allowing consumers to install multiple stores on iPhones just like you can install multiple browsers on Windows.

Instead of thinking about this in terms of physical stores try to compare it to Netscape vs Internet Explorer.

Re: Apple Terminates Epic Games' Developer Account

#574

Post by no_wizard »

My serious op-Ed in this is that these problems for Epic, Apple and those who side with the general idea that Apple needs to loosen some grip around payments and distribution of software are as follows:

- If Apple has a blessed Paymenrs SDk, where you could use an alternative payment processor, thst would solve the percentage cut

- if Apple allowed for being able to do true software update sales - not subscriptions or in app purchases but a way to sell through “versions” of software that would solve the last missing let of distribution

- finally they could provide guidelines for acceptable ways to communicate pricing and alternative purchase points for a license. They already have a way for developers to generate codes that let you download an app from the App Store with said code, it’s a matter of blessing this as a distribution target and not just for testing

I think these three things happen, all these issues go away, and Apple won’t have to have a protracted fight in the courts and quite possibly come out the other side looking very bad.

I really believe this is the everyone wins scenario here

Re: Apple Terminates Epic Games' Developer Account

#575

Post by ViViDboarder »

McAtNite wrote: post #555
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…

To me this is exactly where their argument falls apart. I don’t get what Epic wants exactly. Even with Android where they initially had users side load their apps they eventually gave up and put it on the Play Store after complaining that there’s too many warnings when users load third party APKs (how dare they include security warnings of un-reviewed apps!) It seems to me that Epic expects Apple and Google to offer…

They want platform providers (Apple with iOS and Google with Android) to get out of the way. They are both providing platforms, as well as market places, as well as competing apps/services.

Re: Apple Terminates Epic Games' Developer Account

#576

Post by zem »

rumanator wrote: post #377
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,

> 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 well put. i'll admit, i'm mostly reading these threads for the satisfaction of seeing the grievances aired with increasing volume and frequency.

Re: Apple Terminates Epic Games' Developer Account

#577

Post by inopinatus »

Spivak wrote: post #530
_qulr wrote: post #523

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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…

If you recall, Microsoft got a punch in the nose for their abuse of market power, stuck with billion-dollar fines for it, then more similarly scaled fines when they tried to circumvent the ruling in 2013.

They learned an important corporate lesson, which is why Xbox games can link to external subscription payment options.

Apple have not yet learned this lesson.

Re: Apple Terminates Epic Games' Developer Account

#578

Post by ribosometronome »

_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…

>with little work required from Apple.

Outside of the billions of dollars and a decade spent developing and marketing a platform on which Fortnite can be consumed.

Re: Apple Terminates Epic Games' Developer Account

#579

Post by bobdole12345 »

weixiyen wrote: post #529
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…

> not getting the special treatment they want They are not asking for special treatment. They are asking for the courts to curtail Apple's absolute power over how applications can be installed on an operating system designed for general computing. That would be a game changer for the entire developer ecosystem. Whether that's good or bad is another debate, but the industry-shifting impact it could have is undeniable.

Yeah, it would be the end of it.

This kind of thing didn't exist before because it was impossible to make people follow the rules, and it's pretty costly to maintain, given that Apple has to vet all the software, host all the content, and do that across hundreds of jurisdictions with various local rules.

Before Apple there was no way any of this could happen, Google followed suit only because it looked so profitable, and they could afford to bite the losses for as long as it took to prop up their smartphone.

So, yeah, it would shake the industry to the core, just not the way most of the people begging for it think it would.

Re: Apple Terminates Epic Games' Developer Account

#580

Post by ViViDboarder »

Fezzik wrote: post #565
_qulr wrote: post #523

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Sure, but does that one mall capture 50% of all physical good sales nationwide?

This is an issue of monopoly power, which depends on scale. If you use an analogy that doesn’t demonstrate the same market power, of course it’s going to seem absurd.

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