Epic was simply asking for it
Apple Terminates Epic Games' Developer Account
781–790 of 1001 posts
Re: Apple Terminates Epic Games' Developer Account
#782My 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 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…
Fortnite players on iOS might move to any other device instead to play, where Epic has lower commissions. That's a win.
Re: Apple Terminates Epic Games' Developer Account
#783My 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 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…
If I understand correctly, the difference is that apple owns both the store and the payment processor, and require exclusive use of the payment processor (with associated uncompetitive fees) to gain access to the store. This would be somewhat akin to Wells Fargo also being in the business selling porn while not processing payments for anyone else who competes with their product. In the current climate, it seems unlikely a judge would rule against apple for anticompetitive behavior, but there are several reasonable cases to be made that this is anticompetitive and even anticonsumer.
Re: Apple Terminates Epic Games' Developer Account
#784Earlier quoted context omitted.
The problem is there is no alternative to the App Store on iPhones. Epic Games couldn't open their own Epic Games App Store and sell their games there because Apple has a complete control over how apps can be used and sold on iPhones.
There doesn’t need to be an alternative App Store in iOS. There just need to be alternatives to iOS. This whole “Apple have a monopoly inside their own product” is an absurd line of questioning when their product has anything but a monopoly. This argument is akin to saying that Disney has a monopoly on hotdog sales inside Disneyland and should be forced to allow competitors to open hotdog stands inside Disneyland.
> Apple have a monopoly inside their own product” is an absurd line of questioning
Didn't MS get into trouble for the exact same reasons, they were using their monopoly in the OS market to force Netscape out of business.
Re: Apple Terminates Epic Games' Developer Account
#785Epic should make a Fortnite inspired Android phone and put their own store on it. Gamers buying such phones (even if the price of the phone was subsidized) would be later spending $$ on in-game purchases. Even if anything positive comes out of the Apple-Epic collision, in the long term, having their own platform would reap benefits for Epic.
Re: Apple Terminates Epic Games' Developer Account
#786My 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…
Even if Epic doesn't "win" this, I just hope that this whole debacle results in an overall improvement of market practices in general down the road, including Google Play and console stores.
Ideally, the sooner people realize and escape from Apple's tyranny the better.
Re: Apple Terminates Epic Games' Developer Account
#787Earlier quoted context omitted.
The problem is there is no alternative to the App Store on iPhones. Epic Games couldn't open their own Epic Games App Store and sell their games there because Apple has a complete control over how apps can be used and sold on iPhones.
There doesn’t need to be an alternative App Store in iOS. There just need to be alternatives to iOS. This whole “Apple have a monopoly inside their own product” is an absurd line of questioning when their product has anything but a monopoly. This argument is akin to saying that Disney has a monopoly on hotdog sales inside Disneyland and should be forced to allow competitors to open hotdog stands inside Disneyland.
Microsoft got slapped for the anti-competitive behavior in the userland of their OS and they didn't even prevent installing the alternatives.
Re: Apple Terminates Epic Games' Developer Account
#788My 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 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 in games or gaming sales, they can just point at steam.
I think this depends on the basis of the rejection. If you can prove that they are not selling because of discrimination then you can force them. The question how can you prove it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masterpiece_Cakeshop_v._Colora...
Re: Apple Terminates Epic Games' Developer Account
#789Earlier 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.
Yeah, I bought a $1000 device, but somehow Apple gets to decide what I run on it? I just cannot see how that is a desireable situation.
You knew perfectly well how applications are installed on that device before you bought it. If you disagree to that just go buy anyone of the other posh 1000$ devices on the market.
It’s not like the ‘00s when you couldn’t buy a PC without Microsoft being involved
Re: Apple Terminates Epic Games' Developer Account
#790Earlier 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…
I doubt Apple could or would really want to ban the Unreal engine, right? I guess at some point Epic could create a new Apple account again (perhaps after some court order by a judge) and just continue testing their engine on devices. They don't need to release games themselves on the AppStore, as long as 3rd party devs can release software based on the Unreal engine on the AppStore. I think what Epic wants to see go…
apple has never ever targeted that kind of gaming market. there are a lot of video games you cannot play without bootcamp on a mac.
i wouldn't be surprised if it turns out they have been trying to jettison the fornite group. it's just not consumers they want to have on their ecosystem.