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Japanese game publisher Digital Will has filed a lawsuit against Apple

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Re: Japanese game publisher Digital Will has filed a lawsuit against Apple

#71

Post by AnthonyMouse »

coldtea wrote: post #2

A sad developer treatment, and a sorry-ass state for a platform, but not related to antitrust law, much less a "textbook antitrust case". For starters, Apple is not a monopoly. You are not a monopoly on your own platform, especially if that platform doesn't even have the majority of the relevant market. A company makes a platform or product so that they dictate the terms and if it's a marketplace, what and how it acc…

> Apple is not a monopoly.

In what sense is it not a monopoly?

Walmart doesn't have a monopoly on toasters because you can go across the street and buy a toaster at Target or order one from Amazon, and it plugs into the same power outlet and works with the same bread and may even be the exact same model of toaster. If you want to sell your toasters and Walmart won't give you a good price for them, you can sell them to the same set of customers through dozens of other channels.

If you want to install an app on your iPhone, you cannot get it from Google Play. If you are an app developer who wants to reach your entire customer base, you cannot choose between Google and Apple, you must use both. Because the customer with one type of device cannot use the other store.

> You are not a monopoly on your own platform

It certainly isn't inherently necessary for you to be. For example, Microsoft has no existing monopoly on app distribution to customers with Windows. But if there is no on else who can distribute apps to that distinct identifiable set of customers, you have a monopoly on app distribution to those customers, because "monopoly" means no one but you can do that. And no one but you can do that.

Re: Japanese game publisher Digital Will has filed a lawsuit against Apple

#72

Post by jkestner »

tadfisher wrote: post #20
stalfosknight wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Phone has a market share of almost 70% in Japan, the location of the plaintiff. iPhone also has a market share of over 50% now in the United States, by the way. Neither one of those market shares are monopolies. > Historical revisionism. For more than 30 years prior to iOS, general-purpose computing platforms were mostly open with no vendor-controlled store. If you don't like the iOS platform then don't develop for…

One can like the iOS platform and still advocate for general-purpose computing. I don't understand why folks on Hacker News, of all places, defend walled gardens so vehemently.

Some people hack on computer systems, some people hack on markets.

Re: Japanese game publisher Digital Will has filed a lawsuit against Apple

#73

Post by Apocryphon »

scarface_74 wrote: post #28
legohead wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anti-trust also encompasses anti-competitive behavior, such as limiting consumer choice and stifling competition. It's a bit grey since Apple's marketplace is pretty unique. We need actual litigation to bring out clear answers.

We’ve already had it. Ask Epic

Rulings change all the time. You just mentioned an incoherent one in the thread about Amazon ebooks. Let's see how this one goes.

Re: Japanese game publisher Digital Will has filed a lawsuit against Apple

#74

Post by Apocryphon »

scarface_74 wrote: post #29
someguy7250 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah you are right that people are applying the wrong laws and expecting results. Ideally we would consider creating new laws. But it is hard to explain why a company's control over its own platform can be harmful especially if competition exists. IMO the reason is that both customers and small creators end up losing in this scheme. They end up purchasing/making products often not for creativity or joy, but for neces…

From what I can tell, the company in question is just another ad platform pretending to be a game maker. Nothing of value is lost

If that's the case then Apple could have been transparent about it and then everyone would be on their side.

Re: Japanese game publisher Digital Will has filed a lawsuit against Apple

#75

Post by ecf »

arrosenberg wrote: post #24
coldtea wrote: post #2

A sad developer treatment, and a sorry-ass state for a platform, but not related to antitrust law, much less a "textbook antitrust case". For starters, Apple is not a monopoly. You are not a monopoly on your own platform, especially if that platform doesn't even have the majority of the relevant market. A company makes a platform or product so that they dictate the terms and if it's a marketplace, what and how it acc…

> For starters, Apple is not a monopoly. You are not a monopoly on your own platform Doesn't matter. Antitrust laws address competition, monopoly is just a subset. The Apple App Store is an 800lb Gorilla is the app space, ergo, subject to pro-competition laws. The app developer can't sell his app on iPhones via another channel, iPhones make up a substantial part of the market, and that's why those laws exist and appl…

I cannot imagine the effect a ruling like this would have on businesses if you actually got your way. It would very clearly lay out that investing in an ecosystem of hardware products and doing it well will only result in all that investment, time, energy, employee sweat and tears, ALL OF IT, to be rendered useless. Basically setting an entire business on fire.

Quite frankly I find it ridiculous people here are even suggesting this.

Re: Japanese game publisher Digital Will has filed a lawsuit against Apple

#76

Post by lapcat »

ryandrake wrote: post #65
lapcat wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Phones weren't "general-purpose computing platforms" for the most part of those 30 years (Gordon Gecko's phone didn't have apps). Nor where they considered as such. We're all well aware of that, but so what? There's nothing inherent to smartphones that requires vendor-locked stores, and indeed some other smartphone platforms allow various levels of so-called "sideloading". > And there were tons of capable of "gener…

What makes a phone a "general-purpose computing platform" that is also not true for game consoles? They seem the same to me: They both have general purpose processors which -can- run arbitrary programs, but the owners of their ecosystems choose to limit what is allowed to run on them. If one is a "general-purpose computing platform" then the other must be, and vice versa.

It's the design and marketing of the product. Game consoles are designed and marketed to play games. General-purpose computing platforms are designed and marketed to do almost anything (including but definitely not exclusively to play games). Apple says "There's an app for that", while console developers don't say that, nor should they, because it would be false marketing.

If game consoles were marketed and sold as general-purpose computing platforms, then consumers would be very disappointed with them, because they make crappy general-purpose computing platforms. If iPhone or Mac were marketed and sold as game consoles, consumers would be similarly disappointed with them.

Re: Japanese game publisher Digital Will has filed a lawsuit against Apple

#77

Post by Terretta »

thrown1212 wrote: post #69
Terretta wrote: post #66

> anti-trust Anti whose trust?* Apple targets users' trust. If you count up news headlines for your statistics, you may end up biased on the utility a platform provides to end users by shutting down fraudulent dev accounts and erring on the side of caution. Because there are "think of the innocents" headlines when a small dev gets caught in the dragnet, but no headlines about the hordes constantly getting shutdown be…

Anti-trust not anti trust

Of course. That was just word play.

Re: Japanese game publisher Digital Will has filed a lawsuit against Apple

#78

Post by dang »

Url changed from https://9to5mac.com/2023/08/23/textbook-antitrust-case/, which points to this.

Submitters: "Please submit the original source. If a post reports on something found on another site, submit the latter." - https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Japanese game publisher Digital Will has filed a lawsuit against Apple

#79

Post by frumper »

programmarchy wrote: post #67
HumblyTossed wrote: post #22

> Since the developer had no idea what it was supposed to have done wrong, it was unable to meet Apple’s appeal requirement of explaining what happened, and how it has resolved the issue. The appeal was thus denied. If nothing else, Apple should fix this. There is ZERO reason to be anything other than 100% transparent.

Ignorantia juris non excusat.

That implies someone can learn what the rules are. Apple is capricious in the enforcement of those overly vague rules.

Re: Japanese game publisher Digital Will has filed a lawsuit against Apple

#80

Post by scarface_74 »

taeric wrote: post #58
scarface_74 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How could physical book sales not be impacted when Amazon was selling ebooks for $9.99 when they weee buying the right to sell them from the publisher for $14.99? It’s a classic case of price dumping. Apple was found guilty of price manipulation because they wanted to make a deal with the publishers to allow the publishers to set their own pricing instead of Amazon price dumping.

I don't really care to defend Amazon in this, but your argument here is pretty weak. Which is why nobody has really accused Amazon of this in court. Note that antitrust lawsuits have been brought against them, but from what I can find, they were dismissed. https://www.reuters.com/legal/amazon-major-publishers-win-di... This is all a side discussion, which I confess is fun; but it seems you agree that Apple has been g…

https://qz.com/103169/how-apple-tried-to-turn-the-e-book-ind...
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