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Apple Will Not Reinstate Epic’s Fortnite Developer Account

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Re: Apple Will Not Reinstate Epic’s Fortnite Developer Account

#391

Post by wvenable »

sixstringtheory wrote: post #359
wvenable wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The iPhone is your house -- you own that. The HOA is Apple -- the people who make the rules. The trucks and warehouses are the servers and the internet. Epic already runs a store they don't need the app store to distribute their apps and do payments. They're only required because Apple gives them no other option.

Apple isn’t an HOA, HOAs dictate what people can do with houses that the HOA had no hand in building. Apple built the houses and the logistics network that made building and selling them possible. Also, the majority of people do not own their houses, banks do. Try financing a house and then stop servicing your loan. That’s essentially what Epic has done: breached contract. Epic’s “store” is an app, and evidently they…

You're muddying the issue here on purpose. Mortgages are irrelevant to the analogy. The logistics network is irrelevant. If you buy a TV, there is a big logistics network in making and building them too -- so what?

> unless you can tell me how to install it right now on my device?

This is the dictionary definition of begging the question. You can't install apps on the iPhone because you can't install apps on the iPhone -- that's not an argument.

Software distribution and installation, historically, not required an "app store". That's a relatively new invention.

Re: Apple Will Not Reinstate Epic’s Fortnite Developer Account

#392

Post by kgc »

lacksconfidence wrote: post #364
smachiz wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about in app payments in XBox or PS4? It will not surprise you to know they also take 30%. I can't help but notice that Fortnite is also available in the PS4 store as well. This is simply Epic doing their own money grab against the the platform they can most afford to alienate: >The documents show that from March 2018 to July 2020, the >breakdown of Fortnite revenue by platform was as follows: >PS4: 46.8% >Xbox…

I don't have links handy but Sweeny directly addressed this. Sony and Microsoft are willing to negotiate with Epic. They get to find a middleground that both sides are happy with. Apple does not negotiate, a developer that has $5 in sales get's the same deal as Epic. Sweeny stated that if Apple had been willing to negotiate similar to Microsoft and Sony then we wouldn't be here.

Apple does negotiate. See Netflix and Amazon.

Re: Apple Will Not Reinstate Epic’s Fortnite Developer Account

#393

Post by rscoots »

lancesells wrote: post #362
moomin wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're also removing it from iPads, which is a nightmare for anyone with small children.

This is definitely inferior to a headphone jack but it works: https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MMX62AM/A/lightning-to-35...

Ahh nice, a planned obsolescence piece of junk that prohibits any other connection to the device while using it.

Re: Apple Will Not Reinstate Epic’s Fortnite Developer Account

#394

Post by virgilp »

michaelbrave wrote: post #386
kllrnohj wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But, sadly, Apple is letting their desire to get vengeance outweigh the interests of their users Of course they are, that's Apple's standard business relationship practice. See also why Mac's still don't have an Nvidia GPU option, because Apple & Nvidia got in some spat a decade ago and Apple has been holding a grudge ever since. The more Apple brings stuff in-house the less this matters to the bottom line, but it…

The main reason flash was killed by Apple was also spite toward Adobe, they made valid excuses sure, but spite was the driving force

Flash was absolutely NOT killed by Apple. Adobe killed Flash, and it was unrelated to Steve Job's letter.

Source: me. Was working at Adobe at the time, probably at the thing that actually led to the demise of Flash (not that it was my intention in any way to contribute to the death of Flash, the decision to kill it was a surprise to me as much as it was to anybody else).

Re: Apple Will Not Reinstate Epic’s Fortnite Developer Account

#395

Post by JiNCMG »

Salgat wrote: post #281
sendtown_expwy wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Fortnite will be blacklisted from the Apple ecosystem until the exhaustion of all court appeals" It's not about sticking it to them. It's to increase the cost of their appeals and pressure them to drop the case.

That sounds like "sticking it to them" to me. The alternative is that Apple lets them back on, stops paying for an expensive lawsuit, and gets extra revenue from fortnite.

Mobile Fortnite has been dying for over a year before all this started so not much of an income. Note: Most gamers move over to a non-mobile device for these games or at least a Nintendo Switch.

Re: Apple Will Not Reinstate Epic’s Fortnite Developer Account

#396

Post by ye_olde_gamer »

rdsnsca wrote: post #284
ye_olde_gamer wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fortnite notwithstanding, Epic also makes the Unreal Engine, which is one of the biggest ones alongside Unity -- especially for cross-platform games. Hindering iOS development of UE will affect a lot of other game devs, both huge and indie.

Unreal Engine is under a different developer license than the one Apple canceled, though the judge did rule it would be legal for Apple to cancel all of Epics licences. "(2) a declaration that (i) Apple's termination of the DPLA and the related agreements between Epic Games and Apple was valid, lawful, and enforceable, and (ii) Apple has the contractual right to terminate its DPLA with any or all of Epic Games' wholl…

Epic's first-party games are often a showcase / development driver for new versions of UE, though (the way Unreal, the game, first popularized UE, the engine). If Epic can't publish their own games on iOS anymore, they would have less incentive/ability to iterate UE on that platform even if that license wasn't canceled.

It's a loss for cross-platform gaming altogether. Apple just really doesn't give a damn about their users =/

Re: Apple Will Not Reinstate Epic’s Fortnite Developer Account

#397

Post by ye_olde_gamer »

dhosek wrote: post #373
lacksconfidence wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't have links handy but Sweeny directly addressed this. Sony and Microsoft are willing to negotiate with Epic. They get to find a middleground that both sides are happy with. Apple does not negotiate, a developer that has $5 in sales get's the same deal as Epic. Sweeny stated that if Apple had been willing to negotiate similar to Microsoft and Sony then we wouldn't be here.

If Apple had negotiated with Epic, we'd all be arguing about how unfair it is that Epic gets a better deal than everyone else.

Eh, we'd probably just have kept buying Fortnite skins and never have heard about this to begin with.

If nothing else, Epic managed to lower in-app commissions for small indie devs, which is a small win at least.

Re: Apple Will Not Reinstate Epic’s Fortnite Developer Account

#398

Post by JiNCMG »

itwy wrote: post #231
mattcantstop wrote: post #193

I understand Apple's decision to do this. They want to stick it to Epic. Completely understandable desire on Apple's part. But, sadly, Apple is letting their desire to get vengeance outweigh the interests of their users in having all the games they want to play on their devices. I have been realizing lately that my loyalty to Apple has been waning over the years after having invested heavily in the ecosystem. This is…

Exactly this. I bought iPad Pro to play Fortnite with my nephew, and in less than a month it was removed. Epic broke the agreement, fine remove them from the App Store, but there's no reason to not being able to install the game from an external source except for Apple's greed. I, for one, not going to purchase anything from Apple anymore. I spent over 20k on Apple devices in the last 8 years or so.

a month in? You could have gotten a full refund still use that money to buy a couple of Nintendo Switches (better mobile experience).

Re: Apple Will Not Reinstate Epic’s Fortnite Developer Account

#399

Post by ye_olde_gamer »

davidw wrote: post #339
mattcantstop wrote: post #193

I understand Apple's decision to do this. They want to stick it to Epic. Completely understandable desire on Apple's part. But, sadly, Apple is letting their desire to get vengeance outweigh the interests of their users in having all the games they want to play on their devices. I have been realizing lately that my loyalty to Apple has been waning over the years after having invested heavily in the ecosystem. This is…

I tried to explain the details to my son, but he's just disappointed that he can't play a game he liked. He wants to buy a Windows computer and is saving up for it. Trying to get him interested in writing a bit of code, which to me is more fun in some ways than playing games, without pushing it too hard, and so far no luck.

Maybe let him try modding existing games? Steam's community workshop pages are thriving, especially for easily modded titles like Bethesda games.

Back in the day, Warcraft III had a built-in script and level editor and people thrived on making mods and entire new types of games with it (murder mysteries, tower defense, battle royale, DOTA...). It's how I got my start as a coder, modding games that I enjoyed without the boring pressure of "business logic".

I think Fortnite itself has a creative mode with limited logical programming: https://www.firetechcamp.com/course/build-an-escape-room-in-...

Proper modding support is supposed to arrive soon: https://www.pcgamer.com/fortnite-creative-mod-support/

Re: Apple Will Not Reinstate Epic’s Fortnite Developer Account

#400

Post by passivate »

JiNCMG wrote: post #368
passivate wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it was a system design issue because of lack of proper cooling from the integrator (Apple). Maybe someone can look it up, I'm going off of memory here..

No multiple laptop manufacturers had this same issue. Toshiba and Sony were two of them. Heat was the cause but it was operating within the specs of the GPU manuafacturer. The issue that soured NVidia with these manufacturer was when it came to fixing the issues they told them to go suck it. Example when Seagate had an entire batch of 2.5 drives dying within a year of manufacturing, they worked with Apple and HP to g…

>The issue that soured NVidia with these manufacturer was when it came to fixing the issues they told them to go suck it.

Hmm, I don't think this is accurate. As per their filing with the SEC, NVIDIA pledged $150 million to cover damages.

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1045810/000119312508...

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