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Google’s ‘Project Hug’ paid out huge sums to keep game devs in the Play Store

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Re: Google’s ‘Project Hug’ paid out huge sums to keep game devs in the Play Store

#351

Post by Gibbon1 »

rewq4321 wrote: post #347
summerlight wrote: post #332

Interestingly, this is exactly what's happening in the console gaming market today; Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft have been paying subsidies of millions dollar to renowned studios as well as various preferential treatments on advertising, publishing and marketing of their games. The difference is that the console market has real competitions which gives more leverages to developers. Google didn't have to do this thank…

The evidence of collusion between Apple and Google coming out of the Epic case is amazing to me. I'd always thought it was a sort of unspoken "game theoretic" type of collusion (which I'm sure it is in part), but it looks like they've had very explicit communication about it: https://mobile.twitter.com/jowens510/status/1428417681351348... > After another meeting between Apple and Google senior executives, notes showe…

> "Our vision is that we work as if we are one company."

Personal feeling after the whole salary fixing case and now this, Google should be forced to move it's head quarters and it's top management to some place like Waco Texas.

Re: Google’s ‘Project Hug’ paid out huge sums to keep game devs in the Play Store

#352

Post by dazc »

solarkraft wrote: post #223
bushbaba wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s likely the payoff is also to prevent apple from building its own search engine to compete. As googles payoff is so lucrative

There have been reports and speculation that they’re doing just that. Of course it’s worth it for the negotiation threat alone, but Apple also really doesn’t seem to like depending on Google. I personally can’t see them switching any time soon, as DuckDuckGo’s search results are something between worse to terrible and I’m not sure they can do much better without collecting more data.

A year ago, after becoming fed up with my dad clicking financial scam ads, I switched his search to DDG. Thus far, he hasn't noticed.

Re: Google’s ‘Project Hug’ paid out huge sums to keep game devs in the Play Store

#353

Post by snovv_crash »

fingerlocks wrote: post #171
fooey wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As the parent post says, Firefox on iOS isn't really Firefox. It doesn't run Gecko, it's barely more than a skin on top of Safari. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefox_for_iOS https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/#2.5... > 2.5.6 Apps that browse the web must use the appropriate WebKit framework and WebKit Javascript.

How much does this really matter to the typical user? I’m not using Firefox because it’s JS and rendering engine are significantly better than webkit. Can’t really tell the difference honestly. I’m still getting all the other features of Firefox that actually distinguish it from it’s competitors. The so-called skin is more like the guts from a user value perspective.

Apple doesn't develop things like push notifications via web app, which might compete with the app store.

Re: Google’s ‘Project Hug’ paid out huge sums to keep game devs in the Play Store

#354

Post by f6v »

summerlight wrote: post #332

Interestingly, this is exactly what's happening in the console gaming market today; Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft have been paying subsidies of millions dollar to renowned studios as well as various preferential treatments on advertising, publishing and marketing of their games. The difference is that the console market has real competitions which gives more leverages to developers. Google didn't have to do this thank…

> The difference is that the console market has real competitions which gives more leverages to developers.

I see the exact same duopoly as in Apple-Google world. There's Sony and Microsoft(with no independent app stores). Nintendo isn't in the same market as the other two.

Re: Google’s ‘Project Hug’ paid out huge sums to keep game devs in the Play Store

#355

Post by f6v »

heavyset_go wrote: post #225
jakecopp wrote: post #9

> After another meeting between Apple and Google senior executives, notes showed that the execs agreed: "Our vision is that we work as if we are one company." ... > This unredacted graf shows that telcos get up to 25% of Google's app sales to keep them from developing rival app stores on the smartphones they sell and service. Insane reading.

>> After another meeting between Apple and Google senior executives, notes showed that the execs agreed: "Our vision is that we work as if we are one company." They're literally a cartel.

And people on the internet will can you names for using an opposing mobile OS. Ironic.

Re: Google’s ‘Project Hug’ paid out huge sums to keep game devs in the Play Store

#356

Post by ygra »

Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #335
toastal wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish more people would realize they are literally working for Google without getting paid to do this work. If it's out of a greater sense of helping people and contributions, OpenStreetMap needs to be better known.

Russian tech giant Yandex (they mostly do everything that Google does: search, maps, email, etc) has a so-called "People's map", filled by volunteers who transfer rights for their edits to Yandex for free the use in their closed commercial project. I always wondered why these volunteers don't work on OpenStreetMap instead.

Perhaps they simply don't know about it. OSM is doing its own thing and doesn't market itself much to the general audience. But for things that Google/Yandex are grabbing for free (opening hours, whether shops still exist, etc.), StreetComplete should be known much better, IMHO.

It doesn't really help OSM that its home page is considered just an example of what can be done with the data and not positioning it as an alternative to Google/Bing Maps is somewhat intentional.

Re: Google’s ‘Project Hug’ paid out huge sums to keep game devs in the Play Store

#357

Post by rleigh »

mcdevilkiller wrote: post #304
solarkraft wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There have been reports and speculation that they’re doing just that. Of course it’s worth it for the negotiation threat alone, but Apple also really doesn’t seem to like depending on Google. I personally can’t see them switching any time soon, as DuckDuckGo’s search results are something between worse to terrible and I’m not sure they can do much better without collecting more data.

DDG is so much better than Google for me.

Likewise for me. I think the primary reason for this is the huge decline in the quality of Google search results over the last decade.

Re: Google’s ‘Project Hug’ paid out huge sums to keep game devs in the Play Store

#358

Post by makeitdouble »

catmanjan wrote: post #261
makeitdouble wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think parent’s point is that a one time slap (as big as it might be) as we do with other crimes wouldn’t solve the issue. The punishment has to be more structural, legislating for instance as you suggest, or dramatically changing the entity’s structure as we did with past monopolies.

Depends on what you think the goal of the free market/society is, e.g. is this even in our interest to solve - better to redistribute these ill gotten gains to the benefit of society and let the free market solve its own problem - if they do it again, another fine. just like parking /speeding tickets arent considered structural problems

Your point seems to be that we would have good metrics to evaluate the actual impact of these anti-competitive practices, including everything that didn’t happen because of them, and can apply proportionate punishment that would repair the damage done.

I don’t see any of these two assumptions to be true today, and if the point is to apply heavy enough fines that Google’s behavior radically changes, we’re not that far from for instance just breaking them up or applying specific restrictions on them.

Re: Google’s ‘Project Hug’ paid out huge sums to keep game devs in the Play Store

#359

Post by kortilla »

Gibbon1 wrote: post #351
rewq4321 wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The evidence of collusion between Apple and Google coming out of the Epic case is amazing to me. I'd always thought it was a sort of unspoken "game theoretic" type of collusion (which I'm sure it is in part), but it looks like they've had very explicit communication about it: https://mobile.twitter.com/jowens510/status/1428417681351348... > After another meeting between Apple and Google senior executives, notes showe…

> "Our vision is that we work as if we are one company." Personal feeling after the whole salary fixing case and now this, Google should be forced to move it's head quarters and it's top management to some place like Waco Texas.

These people use the Internet and cell phones.

Re: Google’s ‘Project Hug’ paid out huge sums to keep game devs in the Play Store

#360

Post by rjzzleep »

f6v wrote: post #354
summerlight wrote: post #332

Interestingly, this is exactly what's happening in the console gaming market today; Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft have been paying subsidies of millions dollar to renowned studios as well as various preferential treatments on advertising, publishing and marketing of their games. The difference is that the console market has real competitions which gives more leverages to developers. Google didn't have to do this thank…

> The difference is that the console market has real competitions which gives more leverages to developers. I see the exact same duopoly as in Apple-Google world. There's Sony and Microsoft(with no independent app stores). Nintendo isn't in the same market as the other two.

Don't Ubisoft and Epic have their own game stores inside of the playstation store?

And given how hard Sony and Microsoft compete to pursuade games to be released exclusively on either platform isn't it a bit of different dynamic?

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