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

Epic Games steps up Apple fight with EU antitrust complaint

reuters.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

321–330 of 1001 posts

Re: Epic Games steps up Apple fight with EU antitrust complaint

#321

Post by croes »

jwagenet wrote: post #269
bluefirebrand wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have the choice to not go play a game if it isn't on a platform that you want to install. This is somewhat similar to "I don't want to buy an XBox just to play this one game". Of course the barrier there is often a monetary cost. The software platforms are free to download so there's no real barrier. But for instance, I don't particularly like Epic Games attitude around buying exclusives so I don't use their stor…

You have the choice to not use iOS and not use the Apple App Store. You might not like Apple’s attitude around their operation of the App Store so you don’t use their devices. You might have missed some great apps, but there are still many great alternatives on Android.

Imagine the same choice on a PC. Microsoft doesn't allow a ceeatin software just switch to MacOS or Linux. All the software you previously bought is useless and you have to buy it again. So because multiple AppStores is too much of hassle you need to keep multiple smartphones or buy the same software twice.

Re: Epic Games steps up Apple fight with EU antitrust complaint

#322

Post by dragonwriter »

jaegerpicker wrote: post #151
justapassenger wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple isn’t users friend, or defender of the people. It’s biggest company in the word, that tries to make most amount of money by monopolizing markets. And privacy sells nowadays, so they exploit that to grow even more. Of course users get something in return, but that’s not the reason why do that. It’s one of the greatest PR campaigns of modern world, to have people believe that biggest company in the world cares ab…

This is a pointless statement, does Epic have consumers back? LOL hardly. This lawsuit is about Epic cashing in on Apple's work. No one believes Apple the corp is the defender of the people. Apple is great on privacy compared to all the other options, not because they are good people (they may not be or they may be who knows?) but because it's in their best interest to be. This is about two corp's fighting over their…

> does Epic have consumers back?

Of course not.

In principal, in a capitalist society, no firm is on the consumers side—all are trying to extract maximum value from the consumer and give back as little as possible in return. But, ideally, this is constrained by robust competition between firms.

To the extent Apple exercises a practical monopoly, Epic fighting against their ability to leverage that monopoly to dictate terms is fighting in the interest of consumers even if it does not come from a pro-consumer motivation, because it means that competition which benefits consumers will continue for other services dependent on the space monopolized by Apple.

Re: Epic Games steps up Apple fight with EU antitrust complaint

#323

Post by spacebear »

n42 wrote: post #265
curiouser2 wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah what the hell is this person talking about? How do they think software was installed prior to Steam?

yeah! don’t they remember the glory days and freedom of choice to wait in a virtual line on GameSpy to download the bandwidth limited patch from version 1.4 to 1.5 only to realize they’re on 1.2 and there is no delta patch from 1.2 to 1.4 so they can either try again with the full upgrade for 1.x to 1.5 which is about 10x the download size or they can get each incremental patch from 1.2 to 1.3 to 1.4 to 1.5? come on.…

I would argue that removing the App Store as a single point of failure for free speech [1][2] would be a pretty big benefit.

[1] https://torrentfreak.com/apple-bans-vpns-from-app-store-in-c... [2] https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/meghara/pakistan-forced...

Re: Epic Games steps up Apple fight with EU antitrust complaint

#324

Post by PeterisP »

zwily wrote: post #284
dkonofalski wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not parasitic of Valve, though. Valve created the storefront and platform that has all of those customers baked into it. EA is not just paying 30% for the privilege of selling their game, they're paying for the customer base that they haven't had to work to establish on that platform.

s/Valve/Apple/g

Well, the difference is that with Steam EA gets the choice whether they like the "extra marketing" for that price or not. If a customer wants to buy something from EA outside of Steam, EA is permitted to sell it to them without ripping up their Steam distribution channel - which is not the case for Epic/Apple.

Re: Epic Games steps up Apple fight with EU antitrust complaint

#325

Post by chungus_khan »

zepto wrote: post #201
chungus_khan wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then keep using the curated store? It only hurts if Apple's store can't compete with alternative ones. There's no such problem on Android because developers and users are fine with the Play Store. Epic even tried doing a sideloaded Fortnite for Android and people didn't download it, so they came back.

This keeps getting repeated but is false. New stores will pay for exclusives rights to popular apps just as video streaming platforms do for video. Users will have no choice but to use a jumble of different stores.

Then why hasn't it happened? Android has always had sideloading and this is not the case. Just asserting it to be false isn't convincing.

Re: Epic Games steps up Apple fight with EU antitrust complaint

#326

Post by jaegerpicker »

justapassenger wrote: post #308
jaegerpicker wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a pointless statement, does Epic have consumers back? LOL hardly. This lawsuit is about Epic cashing in on Apple's work. No one believes Apple the corp is the defender of the people. Apple is great on privacy compared to all the other options, not because they are good people (they may not be or they may be who knows?) but because it's in their best interest to be. This is about two corp's fighting over their…

Epic of course doesn’t have customers back - it’s most likely more scummy than Apple. Only thing that markets discovered so far, that has somehow customers back is free market and competition (and it’s far from being perfect of course), and they happen to push for it. It’s just a case where customer interested happened to be aligned, even tho companies fight it for profit reasons (as with privacy and Apple - good for…

I totally understand that but from my POV, I don't see Apple losing the App Store's position as a positive for consumers. Let's compare Android's eco-system to iOS's. Android's app ecosystem is terrible IMO, piracy - viruses - cloned apps - and general very low quality apps. I'm a mobile developer (both iOS and Android) and I use both in my daily live. I know some people prefer Android but MANY don't. To me it's VERY far from obvious that Apple's walled garden is worse for consumers. In fact I'd say that Apple's App Store is the best example of a platform eco-system we have had in the history of computing. I could see the argument if iOS was the only real choice but it's not even the most popular by sheer numbers.

Re: Epic Games steps up Apple fight with EU antitrust complaint

#327

Post by cma »

dubcanada wrote: post #184

I can hardly wait to use Amazon App Store to install Amazon and then open up the Epic Game Store to install random game and then open up EA Game Store to install random game and then open up Facebook App Store to install Facebook and then open up the Apple App Store to install the Blizzard App Store to install Hearthstone and then go back to the Apple App Store and update the Blizzard App Store so I can get the lates…

One solution is Apple could add a feature where you voluntarily pay $50 to not be able to use other stores, and you could purchase it.

Re: Epic Games steps up Apple fight with EU antitrust complaint

#328

Post by rvba »

zepto wrote: post #166
aboringusername wrote: post #11

It feels a bit hypocritical when Apple laughs at FB for complaining about their new tracking pop-up yet when the shoe's on the other foot and Apple may actually have to compete on its own platform they double down and defend their right to be judge, jury and executioner. Apple competing with third party app stores on iOS is going to be amazing. No computer platform should be allowed to prevent sideloading or other st…

> Apple competing with third party app stores on iOS is going to be amazing. No - it’s not going to add anything at all for users except being forced to deal with a bunch of shady app stores, some of which will be deeply hostile to privacy. Developers will also be forced to support multiple stores and sets of rules. Dealing with this will eliminate any possible cost advantage. Everyone loses except for the new group…

> No - it’s not going to add anything at all for users except being forced to deal with a bunch of shady app stores, some of which will be deeply hostile to privacy.

It means lower prices for those who are smart enough to use the cheaper store and those who cannot will stay on the official store that takes its 30% cut.

In fact even the bare existence of other stores would mean that the cut probably goes down, since Apple probably will prefer to stop the outflow of users.

If someone is inept to use other store than the official apple store, then I guess they have to pay the higher price. Your post sounds comical on a forum called "hacker news". You sound as if using a second app store is some secret knowledge...

You also seem to ignore the fact that even computer inept people try to reduce the amount of money they pay for stuff and money is a big incentive (app costs 1 dollar less on other store is a great motivator to learn how to use it).

Re: Epic Games steps up Apple fight with EU antitrust complaint

#329

Post by babypuncher »

SCHiM wrote: post #197
dubcanada wrote: post #184

I can hardly wait to use Amazon App Store to install Amazon and then open up the Epic Game Store to install random game and then open up EA Game Store to install random game and then open up Facebook App Store to install Facebook and then open up the Apple App Store to install the Blizzard App Store to install Hearthstone and then go back to the Apple App Store and update the Blizzard App Store so I can get the lates…

You install those yourself you know. I'd rather have a choice than not. I feel your pain in the sense that that I think user UX will take a hit, but I think that's less important than breaking the monopoly of the current app store. For example, I can't find apps with pornography or other types of things the high overlords at apple or Google have deemed inappropriate for me to have. That's bad. Apparently apps like Ma…

You won't have a choice when some critical service you use moves to a third party app store in order to avoid Apple's new privacy policy.

Re: Epic Games steps up Apple fight with EU antitrust complaint

#330

Post by ClumsyPilot »

dkonofalski wrote: post #303
sheepdestroyer wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

App store are good, not argument. The inability of side loading beside the store is what is being critisized.

That's literally a major reason why people buy Apple products, though. If you can't sideload things, there's literally no chance of your phone being compromised by those things.

Thats like claiming Isaak newton was a great scientist because he stayed a virgin.

People buy iPhones and tolerate lack of sideloading.

Post reply on HN