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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

#371

Post by oldgradstudent »

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.

Enforce the Sherman Antitrust Act.

> Every contract, combination in the form of trust or otherwise, or conspiracy, in restraint of trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, is declared to be illegal.

> Every person who shall make any contract or engage in any combination or conspiracy hereby declared to be illegal shall be deemed guilty of a felony, and, on conviction thereof, shall be punished by fine not exceeding $100,000,000 if a corporation, or, if any other person, $1,000,000, or by imprisonment not exceeding 10 years, or by both said punishments, in the discretion of the court.

A few years in federal prison for the CEOs of Apple and Google might change the situation.

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

#372

Post by oldgradstudent »

jimbob45 wrote: post #156
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.

That’s it, right? That’s the game? There’s no way the DoJ doesn’t have a slam-dunk case with that one quote.

The Obama DOJ had plenty of quotes in the tech wage fixing scandal a few years ago. They didn't bother to enforce it in any meaningful way.

They even had quotes that showed intent and understanding of the illegality:

> "Schmidt responded that he preferred it be shared 'verbally, since I don't want to create a paper trail over which we can be sued later?'", the Reuters news agency quoted the court filing as saying.

https://www.reuters.com/article/apple-google-settlement-idIN...

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

#373

Post by pacija »

dijit wrote: post #363
rjzzleep wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

> Ubisoft and Epic have their own game stores inside of the playstation store? No. Sony PlayStation is almost identical to the Apple App Store in that there’s only 1 way to get your software working on retail units. In fact it’s a lot worse in many ways, you need two specific types of hardware to even develop software- Sony is quite old school and draconian when it comes to testing, validation and communication. At U…

I buy my Sony PlayStation games on physical media in six brick and mortar stores owned by three different brands in Belgrade, Serbia. There are also a few online retailers who will send you the disc and you pay the delivery guy with cash. Sometimes I find a game at half the price at one store as compared to the others. I bought PS4 game three years ago in Oslo, Norway, and two years ago in Nicosia, Cyprus, both in different retail stores.

I wouldn't say visiting any of thousands of reatil stores around the world, or ordering online from any of thousands of online retailers count as "only 1 way".

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

#374

Post by kzrdude »

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…

Incredible that they would allow something like that to be recorded in writing! Apparently they are not even afraid of antitrust laws, judging by that.

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

#375

Post by Applejinx »

londons_explore wrote: post #362
_laiq wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find this really hard to believe. Say, you manage to recruit the top-30 engineers who know all the in-and-outs of the google search engine. Add to that, their recent replacement of trad AI methods with full NN I believe, and I can't realistically believe it's not more than a 1B problem. One of the reasons Google is going horizontal because their search engine can't be "magical" forever, this applies to their ad pla…

Remaking Google requires engineering talent and lots of clickstream data (ie. Hundreds of Billions of search queries and information about what search results were clicked by which users). Nobody else has this, and until they do, they won't be able to recreate Google.

Is it not like statistical certainty: i.e. you need a million or so queries to cover the range of your possible outcomes, and the hundreds of billions just takes you from 0.999999 certainty to 0.9999999999999999999?

You do NOT get added benefit from big data by taking it from millions to hundreds of billions. It becomes just a lesson in scale, without bringing any added benefit of insight.

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

#376

Post by Applejinx »

chrjxnandns wrote: post #311
edouard-harris wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Google also pays Apple 7 billion annually^ to be its default SE. It's actually between $8-12 billion now. [1] > Yahoo & MSFT's experience as 2nd place in that market was working very hard and earning $0 profits. This is an exaggeration though. MSFT made nearly $8 billion in revenue last year from search (mostly Bing), and the business has naturally high margins so it would be extremely surprising if it was unprofit…

It’s insane that Google spends more than Bing’s entire yearly revenue in order to buy a default spot and keep their competitors out of it.

Not really. It's a scale issue. Such an expenditure to Google is like a billionaire dropping ten thousand dollars on something, compared to a normal human asked to come up with ten thousand dollars.

Buying a default spot is the interesting aspect here. Google spending more than Bing's entire yearly revenue just means they want that thing, and tells you their relative wealth. I figure this applies just as well to corporations as it does to individuals: if you're going to look askance at Jeff Bezos etc. you may as well keep an eye on businesses with similar disparities of scale relative to their market sector. Not like we haven't seen all this before.

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

#377

Post by rewq4321 »

oldgradstudent wrote: post #369
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…

>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: Why would you even think that after the whole salary fixing scandal? There's no enforcement of antitrust law and no incentive not to collude freely and egregiously. Had Eric Schmidt, Steve Jobs, George Lucas, Paul Otellini, and everyone el…

Fair point!

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

#378

Post by josefx »

MrDresden wrote: post #367

As much as I am for healthy competition, and would love for the revenue cut to be smaller (even smaller than the current 15%), my main concern as a mobile application developr who has focused predominantly on the Android ecosystem is further fragmentation. If another major store comes onto the plaform, then I am certain it wont have guaranteed access to play services, meaning more headache when selecting what service…

> If another major store comes onto the plaform, then I am certain it wont have guaranteed access to play services, meaning more headache when selecting what services to use and when.

If only Google had acted as a good faith steward of Android instead of pushing vendor lock in and closed source APIs in ways that make Bill Gates green with envy. Who am I kidding, their hilariously named "Open" Handset alliance even has a kill switch in the licensing agreements for anyone even thinking about competing with its services.

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

#379

Post by yobbo »

geocar wrote: post #333
amelius wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I were Apple, I would spend at least $1B of that $7B on developing a secret new search engine :)

I think a lot of people overestimate how easy it is to make a search engine, and underestimate how hard it is to sell search to advertisers. I think this is closer to a 50B problem than a 1B problem. Not impossible, but I don’t know anyone who has 50B that they would want to spend fighting uphill to kill google.

It's not a tech problem.

Google is valued like "real estate", it's the best address. And then you need the advertising network for it be worthwhile.

Apple, like Microsoft, can replace google as the default search, but that alone is not a big chunk of the market. It might not be worthwhile.

Otherwise, of course it can be done, and for even less than that.

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

#380

Post by hyperpallium2 »

tsimionescu wrote: post #338
hyperpallium2 wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.

Adam Smith, right?

yep, but try to consider google whenever a question forms (even in your head). Some questions are curiously resistant to this.

https://www.google.com/search?q=People+of+the+same+trade+sel...

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