Epic Games steps up Apple fight with EU antitrust complaint • Hacker News Board

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

#371

Post by spacedcowboy » Wed, Feb 17, 2021, 5:30 PM UTC

flohofwoe wrote: post #358

spacedcowboy wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If EA win their fight, I can't really see them offering their app on the Apple App Store. So, really what this is about is choice for the big app-manufacturers, including games. It has nothing to do with user choice at all, and the cost is borne by the user (who has a far shittier user-experience than they do now).

If it makes EA more money, they will absolutely sell their games on other app stores, see Origin vs Steam.

But it won't, will it. That's the entire reason they want to do it in the first place - to make more money for themselves.

They want in on the platform, without paying the fees that being on the platform requires.

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

#372

Post by tomxor » Wed, Feb 17, 2021, 5:30 PM UTC

At this point I wish there was a way that both could lose.

It's the monopolist vs the predatory casino, both throwing out thinly veiled user centric arguments at the press while their true motives are greed and user exploitation.

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

#373

Post by Arainach » Wed, Feb 17, 2021, 5:30 PM UTC

simias wrote: post #341

BrianGragg wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is the choice is taken away from you though. Just like he said with the game market. If you want to play Game A, you go and download/install Game A's publishing app store. If you want to then play Game B, rinse and repeat. You will be forced to use so many different app stores and won't have a choice to NOT use their app store "IF" it progresses like it has on the desktop. No proof it will/won't either.

There are plenty of cross-store games on PC. And even if some games end up being exclusive you might still benefit as a player thanks to the competition. If Epic started offering a very bad user experience game devs would hesitate to publish exclusively through them because they'd fear reduced revenue. It's also a very good thing for game devs who aren't at the mercy of the whims of a single company. Steam no longer…

> Epic started offering a very bad user experience game devs would hesitate to publish exclusively through them because they'd fear reduced revenue.

This is demonstrably not true. Epic's launcher has been a laughing stock since it was announced.

* It only recently got any form of Achievements (that are completely undiscoverable)

* It has no way to join a party with your friends. I think it has Friends support but am not sure because you can't do anything at all with your Friends so I never even look.

* It has no way to get support (their "troubleshoot" guide amounts to 'clear your cache, run as Admin, then try reinstalling: https://www.epicgames.com/help/en-US/epic-games-store-c73/la...)

* Half the time their UI elements don't work (I just went into the "Troubleshoot" section and the back button doesn't work, so I had to close the whole window and start over)

* There are no user reviews of games

* Their store and library sorting is a mess that makes it difficult to find anything

* They launched without even having cloud save support

Epic's game store is underpowered, buggy, and miserable to use - and plenty of companies still do exclusive deals with them because Epic holds a bag of gold in front of their face. They even do it when it breaks their own promises, like when IOI decided to launch Hitman 3 after promising they'd import Hitman 2 purchases - and then apparently totally forgot that Hitman 1 and 2 were on Steam and Hitman 3 was on Epic, so while XBox and Playstation users got their levels migrated on day one PC users are still out of luck a month later.

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

#374

Post by throwaway48201 » Wed, Feb 17, 2021, 5:31 PM UTC

mikepurvis wrote: post #24

jonwinstanley wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No computer platform should be allowed to prevent sideloading or other stores from competing What about platforms like Playstation or the computers built into Teslas etc, should we allow sideloading on those? How do you define a platform?

TBH I wouldn't be at all surprised if Microsoft is gearing up for this fight with Sony, given that every Xbox Series does in fact allow sideloading once placed into the included-and-supported developer mode.

Maybe not gearing up for a fight with, but rather making sure they don't get lumped in with

Google have made it very clear that you have options other than the Play Store in recent dev docs

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

#375

Post by lkschubert8 » Wed, Feb 17, 2021, 5:31 PM UTC

spacebear wrote: post #323

n42 wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

You have to realize that saying the app store is a single point of failure for free speech is hyperbolic.

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

#376

Post by zepto » Wed, Feb 17, 2021, 5:32 PM UTC

cryptonym wrote: post #283

zepto wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> then constraints on purchase might be something decided by society/people/governments more than a single private company? This is the worst possible (and likely) outcome. Stores lose the right to determine what goes in them, but an expensive government scheme replaces that.

This is literally how it's implemented in the rest of the world: store owner cannot list items that are restricted, by law. Sotres can determine what goes in them, under constraints decided by society/people/governments (law).

> This is literally how it's implemented in the rest of the world

Clearly not.

Which department stores are forced to carry products they don’t want to deal with?

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

#377

Post by the_other » Wed, Feb 17, 2021, 5:33 PM UTC

pennaMan wrote: post #220

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…

Before Apple blessed us with it's ground breaking technology to restrict the software you are allowed to have on your own device we did just fine getting software on our devices using a file system and the internet.

My desktop is a device for making, exploring, working, tinkering, making mistakes, hoarding. My phone is a device that solves problems or unlocks doors (metaphorically) near-instantly.

I’m tolerant to friction (some) on my “exploratory” device. I’m intolerant to friction on my pocket-tool. The latter must always just work or it is pointless. I’m happy to trade freedom for stability for that use case, and deeply frustrated to make that same trade for the other.

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

#378

Post by agentdrtran » Wed, Feb 17, 2021, 5:33 PM UTC

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…

Choice is better than not having it.

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

#379

Post by zepto » Wed, Feb 17, 2021, 5:33 PM UTC

rvba wrote: post #328

zepto wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 A…

> It means lower prices for those who are smart enough to use the cheaper store

This is guaranteed false.

Unless the ‘cheaper store’ has almost all of the customers, you will need to support most of the stores, otherwise you’ll simply lose access to customers.

Just to break even, developers will be forced to support multiple stores.

If consumers want a cheaper option, there is nothing stopping them from buying a cheap android phone today.

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

#380

Post by ricardobayes » Wed, Feb 17, 2021, 5:33 PM UTC

ekianjo wrote: post #301

meowkit wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's not like there were Wallmart exclusive games, right? Either you’re younger than me or you’ve forgotten about the pre-order content exclusives from different stores. If physical retailers had the marketshare that online distribution now has I’m sure they would have done exclusive games. If you have smaller game devs and no cost of disc manufacturing (ie download only) its easier to make exclusivity deals.

> Either you’re younger than me or you’ve forgotten about the pre-order content exclusives from different stores. This has basically no bearing to the actual game access. While now, buying in a certain store means a very limited selection of titles, which is unlike anything ever experienced in physical retail. So, bad analogy.

Yes, makes my blood boil that Stadia is hogging the rights to stream Rockstar games, but you can't import them. So even though I have purchased them, I need to buy them again.