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Epic Games steps up Apple fight with EU antitrust complaint

reuters.com

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

#411

Post by jaegerpicker »

throw_away892 wrote: post #386
jaegerpicker wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Epic's move has 0 to do with consumer's. It's only about Epic benefiting from Apple's platform.

Epic's move (if it succeeds) would have a direct positive effect on the consumer. Across the board. It's not a gamer issue anymore. It is now bigger than them.

I keep seeing people say this but where is the evidence this is true? Because from my POV this isn't the case AT ALL. Pc gaming and Android both are "open" platforms and both are far worse for consumers that the App Store. This is another case of "common" knowledge that doesn't seem to be supported by evidence.

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

#412

Post by xenihn »

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…

I get that the fracturing of content delivery platforms had to happen for the sake of ~profits~, but I miss the days when having Netflix, Steam, and Spotify completely satisfied consumption needs. At least Spotify still has nearly everything I want, and still provides me with great recommendations.

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

#413

Post by SomeHacker44 »

BillinghamJ wrote: post #389
CivBase wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My gaming computer is already filled with like 8 different app stores each completely different then the other and a variety of privacy/security issues on each. Do you honestly think this is a worse scenario than having to buy all of your apps/games through Microsoft's app store? Can you imagine using macOS without homebrew because everything has to come from Apple's app store? Can you imagine using Ubuntu without…

Absolutely yes. As a user, I really wish Microsoft required the use of their store. Having a single place to go is a lot easier

Quibble: I cannot stand the Microsoft store because I cannot simply delete the apps or even understand why they are there even after I told it to uninstall. I also cannot easily move apps between drives or even control which drive something is installed on sometimes. Steam is the best this way, IMO.

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

#414

Post by stale2002 »

spacedcowboy wrote: post #371
flohofwoe wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Sure they will. If apple reduced their fee to something like 5%, I am sure that even most large game developers would use it.

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

#415

Post by bluefirebrand »

Retric wrote: post #337
StavrosK wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So it's either a choice between "not running some specific game/app whose publisher made their own app store" and "not running any iOS app because my only option is to not have an iPhone"? I know which one gives me more choice.

We have more choice today, because currently Android and iOS have different models. Break up the App Store and your left with a single model. What nobody is talking about is Epic could completely avoid the premium their complaining about by using a website for all transactions. Just like the Kindle App or Netflix etc. The only thing they get from this lawsuit is in app micro transactions. As such it’s really a questi…

> We have more choice today, because currently Android and iOS have different models. Break up the App Store and your left with a single model

What a goofy point of view.

If there are two restaurants in town, and only one grocery store, would you conclude that eating out is better than cooking your own meals because you have two restaurant options instead of just the one grocery store?

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

#416

Post by amelius »

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…

"App Stores" are just synonymous with "content filter".

Perhaps we should just name it such.

So "App Store" becomes "Content Filter".

And you can install any app you want from any URL, unless you have some content filters installed, which will limit what you can install.

No more App Stores.

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

#417

Post by dkonofalski »

PeterisP wrote: post #324
zwily wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yes it is. Epic is allowed to sell to every other person that's not an iOS user without ripping up their iOS distribution channel too. They chose not to do that, though, and then shot themselves in the foot on top of it to try and stick it to Apple.

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

#418

Post by parasubvert »

dragonwriter wrote: post #322
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…

> 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…

This completely misses the point of capitalism and successful business.

The whole purpose of a business is to create (and keep) a customer. The two ways it does that are innovation and marketing. Yes, there can be cases where customers are cheated, but they won't be customers for long.

It's not about "extracting maximum value and giving as little back in return". That's an extremely simplistic argument that bares no relationship to how companies are actually managed, or how products/services are designed and built.

Yes, in a business, there must be profit, as it covers today's risks and tomorrow's costs. "Profit maximization" is nonsense, it's like saying a sports team does "scoring maximization".

Finally, what is a 'practical monopoly', besides "it's not actually a monopoly but I want a cut of it and therefore I feel it is"? This seems to be the argument Epic is making.

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

#419

Post by cafed00d »

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…

> It'd be nice if I can choose what I want to see.

Have I got news for you?! You can choose exactly what you want to see.

There's a very cool "App Store" on your iPhone right now. Somebody in marketing named it "Safari" -- IKR! pfft; -- Safari is one of the best App Stores out there. It has this neat interface called "URLs" where you "search" for Apps and apparently they run on this HTML5 voodoo magic; which is a set of open standards, run by the open committees (W3C); and here's the best part -- JavaScript! Yes! No more pesky Xcode tooling and Objective C and Swift and C++. Bleh!

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

#420

Post by [deleted] »

bluefirebrand wrote: post #237
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.

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…

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