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Tim Sweeney on Apple and Google

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Re: Tim Sweeney on Apple and Google

#411

Post by wayneftw »

falcolas wrote: post #263
wayneftw wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How so? Having a choice of who to do business with is always good for the customer.

It's not a choice when it comes to exclusives. It's not a benefit if all of the prices are exactly the same across stores. Competition is good, but they're not competing for customers - they're competing for developers, to the detriment of customers.

> ...when it comes to exclusives.

Since when are exclusives an issue outside of console gaming? Even in console gaming - nobody cares that much. And furthermore, console gaming is not even nearly as important a market or as ubiquitous or as useful to society as smartphones are. The fact that some things are wrong with the gaming market doesn't really say much.

Anyway, app publishers like Spotify and Netflix have already offered lower prices when you signup outside of Apple's app store.

Sorry, but you're wrong. Giving customers a choice between shopping at Walmart, Target or Best Buy will always benefit customers more than only giving them the choice of Walmart.

There is simply no way in hell that you're going to convince me that having less choice is good at any level.

Re: Tim Sweeney on Apple and Google

#412

Post by mercer »

toyg wrote: post #186
anoraca wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because some corporations actually do make efforts towards improving society: https://www.apple.com/supplier-responsibility/ https://www.apple.com/environment/

Some corporations are shamed into doing the right thing, typically after an extensive period of morality-free cash-hoarding. Apple was just fine with their supply chain until news emerged of conditions down there (and Cook being a logistic guy, he’s clearly always known), at which point they hd to save face. Similarly, they keep saying they are green but have no qualms pushing out billions of unrecycleable and un-ser…

I'm an Apple fan but the AirPods are a pretty decent counterpoint to Apple being 'green'.

Re: Tim Sweeney on Apple and Google

#413

Post by tomnipotent »

fooey wrote: post #361
eertami wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Epic games exclusives are not the kind of competing I want, and they're not a win/win/win. I'm happy to buy games on GOG or the Humble store for instance, but I will never in a million years install the privacy and security nightmare that is the Epic Game Store on a PC I own. Sure, steam is not perfect but they've not had issues on the scale of Epics software. I've played thousands of hours of Rocket League, but stil…

Epic "exclusives" are really just Epic purchasing customers. The publisher sells their fan base to Epic, and Epic gets a list of potential people they can sell their own crap to, and gets a big install base number they can leverage to convince more publishers to sell them more fan bases. #1 the publisher wins because they don't like risk in the first place, and free money is free money #2 epic wins because they build…

There's zero evidence backing up any of your claims that developers or players "lose" because of these exclusive arrangements. Unlike the militant HN crowd, the average gamer doesn't give a crap if they have to install a client. Feelings are not facts.

Re: Tim Sweeney on Apple and Google

#414

Post by mercer »

floatingatoll wrote: post #328
ben_w wrote: post #51

I think: 1. Multiple App Stores would be good for free speech, and for avoidance of USA cultural and legal hegemony. 2. How can this be done without loss of security for typical users? We don’t want phones to become botnets with microphones and cameras — imagine the opportunities for automatic criminal blackmail, theft planning, target acquisition, or 2FA interception. This is bad for the societies we live in even if…

> How can this be done without loss of security for typical users? It cannot. Typical users are not capable of 'vetting' app stores for their security capabilities.

Sandboxing, which is implemented, takes care of most of these issues.

Re: Tim Sweeney on Apple and Google

#415

Post by wayneftw »

koonsolo wrote: post #313

Here's my "old-timer" take on the 30%: I used to develop games and apps for MS PocketPC. Our users could install apps straight from their PC to the PocketPC. But guess how apps were sold: through portals. These portals also took around 30% (Handango and PocketGear were the biggest ones back then). We were also selling straight from our website, where we could have had 0% cost. But guess what: We wanted to reach top 1…

It's really not just about the 30% here though.

It's the 30% + being feature/speech-restricted by Apple while also competing with Apple in Apple's app store which holds half the US audience captive.

Third parties can't even make a browser that gets set as the default that opens hyperlinks. They can't replace iMessage or the phone dialer. They can't even use a browser engine other than the one that Apple restricts them to. They can't make political apps. They can't offer porn apps. The list goes on and on and on.

Furthermore, smartphones are way, way, way more ubiquitous and important to society right now than those devices ever were back in the 90s and early 2000s. Imagine only being allowed to shop at Walmart or Target with no other choice anywhere at all. If that ever happened in the real world and those companies were acting like Apple is, things'd change real quick.

Re: Tim Sweeney on Apple and Google

#416

Post by nodamage »

gruez wrote: post #385
koonsolo wrote: post #313

Here's my "old-timer" take on the 30%: I used to develop games and apps for MS PocketPC. Our users could install apps straight from their PC to the PocketPC. But guess how apps were sold: through portals. These portals also took around 30% (Handango and PocketGear were the biggest ones back then). We were also selling straight from our website, where we could have had 0% cost. But guess what: We wanted to reach top 1…

>Just take a look at Steam: it's PC games! You can sell all those things straight to the consumer. But developers still choose to give 30% (or how much is it now?) for the exposure. What's your opinion on the following: * pay-for-play "acceptable ads" in ABP * having to get a EV code signing certificate ($300+/yr) to bypass windows smartscreen warnings, which are enabled by default Are they acceptable? Are they a net…

> having to get a EV code signing certificate ($300+/yr) to bypass windows smartscreen warnings, which are enabled by default

Windows was a malware disaster before measures like this were added to the OS, so I would argue this (and other warnings preventing people from randomly clicking and installing things) are a net good for the consumer.

You also technically don't need an EV cert, you can get a regular code signing cert (it will just take longer to build your reputation).

Re: Tim Sweeney on Apple and Google

#417

Post by lern_too_spel »

falcolas wrote: post #261
lern_too_spel wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get free games from EGS, just like I got free games from Amazon App Store. For the same reason that the Amazon App Store exists, I can also get open source apps from F-Droid, including apps like Newpipe that aren't allowed on the primary app store on the device. Do you wish that the Mac App Store were the only way to get apps on your Mac?

> I get free games from EGS Free games are a marketing practice, nothing more. It's not a sustainable business practice, and it's paid for by Epic's exploitative Fortnight lootboxes. The "free games" will become part of a paid monthly subscription (or just go away entirely) when Epic feels like they have the audience they need. And me? The value those free games might provide me is not worth the cost - being marketed…

> Free games are a marketing practice, nothing more.

It's a marketing practice that would not happen without competing stores. The end result is user benefit.

> it's paid for by Epic's exploitative Fortnight lootboxes

Why does it matter to me how it's paid for? Does not allowing competing stores change where Epic or Amazon get their money? The end result is that I benefit from Epic and Amazon getting to compete.

> being marketed to by a company whose values are quite the opposite of my own.

I find Apple's values to be opposite to my own (selling low privacy devices and lying about it, preventing me from doing general computing on my devices, etc.). With competition, I would at least have a choice of finding an app distributer like F-Droid whose values are closer to mine were I to be stuck with an iOS device.

You still haven't answered the question about whether you would prefer if your Mac didn't allow you to install apps outside of it's app store.

Re: Tim Sweeney on Apple and Google

#418

Post by zachm0 »

odshoifsdhfs wrote: post #357
belltaco wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>but I will never in a million years install the privacy and security nightmare that is the Epic Game Store on a PC I own. What issues? Anyway, having to install a new launcher, as annoying as it is, is a far cry from throwing out your entire phone and all your apps, and buying a different phone (which has many of the same restrictions again). I don't understand why people keep comparing the iOS App Store to the Epic…

They had security breaches. They has some issues where people could use any email to register an account without verification, leaving thousands (millions?) without a way to register their own valid emails. They were caught scanning your pc for everything to 'provide a better experience' if you had some things installed. And if (want to think) they are 'fighting' for openness, 'buying' rights to games and taking them…

I tried googling, it definitely wasn't as easy as you made it seem.

The closest thing I could find for the registering without verification claim was a Verge article [1] about people's Fortnite account being taken over after clicking a link that was sent to them. If you have a better source please do share.

EDIT: Source has been found, apparently store didn't initially send a verification email so anyone could use any email[4], this has been fixed though. I could find no source for the claim that this affected millions or thousands of people.

As for the claim that they were "scanning your pc for everything", that is just completely wrong. According a few articles [2][3] they were reading your steam friends list after getting permission from the user.

[1]: https://www.theverge.com/2019/1/16/18185398/fortnite-player-... [2]: https://www.slashgear.com/epic-games-store-isnt-spying-but-d... [3]: https://www.pcgamer.com/epic-steam-data-reddit/ [4]: https://twinfinite.net/2020/09/crysis-remastered-ray-tracing...

Re: Tim Sweeney on Apple and Google

#419

Post by throwaway34241 »

ericmay wrote: post #388
throwaway34241 wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also, can you clearly articulate what exactly I'm losing here with a single App Store? So far I just see more cons than pros. I can think of some things that I haven't seen mentioned yet: 1) Cross platform app stores. I'd like to be able to purchase an app on one store, and automatically have access to it on Mac/Windows/iOS/Android etc. 2) Alternate web browser engines. It's hard to know exactly how much we are mis…

1) Already done. You just log in to the software. 2) Hm, I see your point but I'm having a hard time envisioning what I'm missing out on. As I look at the web browser ecosystem on desktop, what features are we missing? 3) Not sure why this isn't possible? I think it's more of a limitation of interface than anything. Also why isn't Microsoft making their Xbox app available on Linux or macOS? Hmmm. 4) Eh, the App Store…

1) I’m talking about the convenience of purchasing (and easily accessing past purchases) of app stores, not logging in to each app individually. Many apps don’t even offer that.

2) The main things that come to mind are the same advantages of native apps vs web apps. Integration/access to native API features, CPU/GPU performance, etc. Web browsers can support these things but don’t always.

3) Those specific categories aren’t possible on iOS because Apple prohibits them! That is exactly why Stadia/xCloud isn’t available.

4) Discoverability is hard with tons of apps but it's probably not impossible to do better. There’s not a huge incentive for Google/Apple to fix this since they charge to advertise in the store, some other stores don’t do this.

5) I was thinking about console games here, Switch games are often pretty different from in app purchase based mobile ones.

I think the difference with engines etc is there are big network effects - people buy phones based on the ecosystem which is determined by existing market share. IMO this is why Windows Phone died and it’s not just a matter of enough money or technology.

Re: Tim Sweeney on Apple and Google

#420

Post by lern_too_spel »

danShumway wrote: post #283
falcolas wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because on the PC, the oft-heralded perfect platform because there are multiple stores, there is no price competition? Epic giveaways aside (which is marketing, not competition), games go on sale on most platforms at the same time, for the same prices. I, a customer, am not getting a price discount for a game on the EGS, despite the lower middleman cut.

> games go on sale on most platforms at the same time, for the same prices. No they really don't. Spend time shopping around, games on Humble, GoG, and Itch often have different prices during different sale periods. I just got Into the Breach at 50% off on GoG a day or two ago, it was full price on Steam at the same time. Different stores also cater to different niches: GoG prioritizes older games that wouldn't be up…

And the reason there was a sale on Into the Breach on GoG is that it was free on EGS last week. This is a direct result of competition.
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