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Apple okays Epic Games marketplace app in Europe

reuters.com

91–100 of 285 posts

Re: Apple okays Epic Games marketplace app in Europe

#91
post #48

The title alone makes me shiver. Apple "okays" what a government orders them to do. What!?? You and I look right through this power language, but this kind of wording makes people believe Apple is mightier than it is. It's disgusting from Reuters.

The alternative is to leave EU market. They do have a choice in the matter.

They are refusing to leave Russian market and are actively cooperating with Russian government - see blocking VPNs few days ago. Russian market is much poorer and smaller. If they are refusing to leave this market, leaving EU market is ludicrous to even think about.

Re: Apple okays Epic Games marketplace app in Europe

#92
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, but in the same way that code reviews and QA testers can't catch all defects. Perfect is the enemy of the good. Swiss cheese model: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_cheese_model Apple's (flawed!) review process still catches a lot of bad actors. Not all, and it has false-positives. That doesn't mean it's useless. The (legit) question is: is Apple also using security as an excuse to make more money at the e…

>Perfect is the enemy of the good. I think it goes both ways. Perfection is letting me control the hardware I bought and tweak the software to my liking. them throwing their hands up because of their motte argument of "security" doesn't resonate with me. Especially when the bailey argument is simply "we want to control everything you do". Here, it's "don't even try to achieve good, avoid bad at all costs". In my mind…

Some call it "the Apple tax". To that end, I see this as more like the invention of courts and a police force in a world that was previously an anarchy.

Yes, I lose the power to do things; in exchange, I genuinely gain the security of some measure of defence against other people doing things at my expense. I remember when we could actually read all the code on our computers — that time has passed even when the source code is fully published simply because the volume is too great, and we must either trust someone to do it for us (or at least that someone has liability if it goes wrong), or have some manner of insurance because doing so is impractical.

Of course, corporations are not democracies, so the fight between Apple and Epic is to me as the fight between King John and his barons in 1215 A.D. — and my relative power compared to either corporation is as the power of a, I dunno, franklin or free peasants or something, as to the King and his barons.

Re: Apple okays Epic Games marketplace app in Europe

#93
post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me translate “it’s only cosmetic” for you, because it’s probably what you think when you say there are non predatory IAPs. It means “keep the players playing until they get bored and buy some cosmetics”. They design the game to not only fleece you for money, but to waste your time until you do.

Translate what you like, it doesn't change my point: Free to play is not inherently predatory. There's a big difference between free to play and using as many dirty tricks as they can to fleece as much info as possible (and/or being pay to win), and a company that genuinely makes a free to play game and makes money off skins, because it made better business sense than charging $50 up front.

> Free to play is not inherently predatory.

See below.

> genuinely makes a free to play game [...] because it made better business sense than charging $50 up front.

So the free to play model fleeces you for more money. It's not predatory. At all. Honest.

Re: Apple okays Epic Games marketplace app in Europe

#94
post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fortnite isn't financed from IAPs? Tencent didn't get all their investment money from Gacha in the asian market? And please don't tell me Tencent is a minority investor or that there are non predatory IAPs or I have a bridge I'd like to sell you.

>Tencent didn't get all their investment money from Gacha in the asian market? Got some, but thinking Tencent got all their money from Gacha is like saying Google got all its money from Search. Tencent's reach is in nearly every industry in China. >And please don't tell me Tencent is a minority investor or that there are non predatory IAPs I won't, but do you really believe all add-ons are predatory? This attitude is…

> This attitude is exactly why you can't make premium mobile anymore

Premium? Freemium? The few mobile apps that I bought since i got a smart phone are all pay once and most of them cost more than 0.99.

However, for example, I do not even bother to look at mobile games any more because I "know" they'll be an IAP crapfest.

And if i look at applications, it's because they have been mentioned and deemed useful by a third party i trust.

Re: Apple okays Epic Games marketplace app in Europe

#95

> Before Apple's announcement, Epic said the iPhone maker had twice rejected documents the video-game publisher submitted to launch the Epic Games Store because the design of certain buttons and labels was similar to those used by its App Store. This is illegal and I hope it leads to Apple being disallowed to still insert itself into the distribution process at all, which should’ve been the case from the start.

It’s kinda strange to see so many people taking Epic’s account here at face value given they’ve been fined multiple times in multiple countries over their existing store (Fortnite). For example:

> The FTC says Fortnite's "counterintuitive, inconsistent, and confusing button configuration led players to incur unwanted charges based on the press of a single button."

> Because of those design tricks, the regulator says it found instances where players were charged while attempting to wake the game from sleep mode, while the game was in a loading screen, or by pressing an adjacent button while attempting simply to preview an item.

> "These tactics led to hundreds of millions of dollars in unauthorized charges for consumers," the FTC said.

> Some parents complained that their children had racked up hundreds of dollars in charges before they realized Epic had charged their credit card without their consent. Accounts who disputed unauthorized transactions on their credit cards often had their entire accounts locked, giving customers no access to content that they had willingly paid for.

(https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/fornite-ftc-fines-1.6690777)

They’ve been fined by multiple governments over button design. Maybe they’re not the most reliable narrator here?

Re: Apple okays Epic Games marketplace app in Europe

#96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple built the city and you're free to go anywhere else.

"free to go anywhere else" is doing a lot of heavy lifting in a state/province with 2 "cities". Google isn't being hit as hard by the DMA, but they didn't get off scot-free either.

That still doesn't give you any right to just take what Apple built for free. Maybe there's no right option for you - I know there isn't for me, I'd prefer to have Windows Mobile (not Phone) again.

Re: Apple okays Epic Games marketplace app in Europe

#97

> Before Apple's announcement, Epic said the iPhone maker had twice rejected documents the video-game publisher submitted to launch the Epic Games Store because the design of certain buttons and labels was similar to those used by its App Store. This is illegal and I hope it leads to Apple being disallowed to still insert itself into the distribution process at all, which should’ve been the case from the start.

It’s kinda strange to see so many people taking Epic’s account here at face value given they’ve been fined multiple times in multiple countries over their existing store (Fortnite). For example: > The FTC says Fortnite's "counterintuitive, inconsistent, and confusing button configuration led players to incur unwanted charges based on the press of a single button." > Because of those design tricks, the regulator says…

Epic‘s no saint, but I don’t expect them to outright lie about something they’ll likely present to officials. Especially considering that the alleged behavior is exactly in line with what Apple has been doing for a long time.

Re: Apple okays Epic Games marketplace app in Europe

#98
post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Translate what you like, it doesn't change my point: Free to play is not inherently predatory. There's a big difference between free to play and using as many dirty tricks as they can to fleece as much info as possible (and/or being pay to win), and a company that genuinely makes a free to play game and makes money off skins, because it made better business sense than charging $50 up front.

> Free to play is not inherently predatory. See below. > genuinely makes a free to play game [...] because it made better business sense than charging $50 up front. So the free to play model fleeces you for more money. It's not predatory. At all. Honest.

I’m not disagreeing with you that it’s predatory but I think the point is that by not charging up front, you get more people in the door. And even if each of those people spend less than the upfront would have been, there are so many more of them that you make money. That basic philosophy isn’t bad, it’s what most tech platforms are based on

Re: Apple okays Epic Games marketplace app in Europe

#99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a problem for those who already bought Apple and didn't know any better or didn't care. Also, not everyone likes the only available other alternative, which is Google, as while they allow sideloading, they're still a privacy nightmare ad-ware company. The mobile space really needs a shake-up from the entrenched duopoly as currently the choice are a rock or a hard place.

> It's a problem for those who already bought Apple and didn't know any better or didn't care. Also, not everyone likes the only available other alternative, which is Google, as while they allow sideloading, they're still a privacy nightmare ad-ware company. If you do care about privacy and having control of your own hardware, Google is the only choice, and that should be very obvious. Not because Android is so much…

> If you do care about privacy and having control of your own hardware, Google is the only choice, and that should be very obvious.

Google is an ad company so it's totally not obvious to me.

> Not because Android is so much better, but because you have a lot of options, even using a custom rom if you want.

Oh, and can I pay with my phone when using those custom roms, for example?

Re: Apple okays Epic Games marketplace app in Europe

#100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's a problem for those who already bought Apple and didn't know any better or didn't care. Also, not everyone likes the only available other alternative, which is Google, as while they allow sideloading, they're still a privacy nightmare ad-ware company. If you do care about privacy and having control of your own hardware, Google is the only choice, and that should be very obvious. Not because Android is so much…

There is Cyndia and other projects like sandcastle and stuff… Android is not the better choice; at all

Cydia requires a jailbreak to begin with, which won't be available on newer devices. Sandcastle project is just Android for iPhones which wouldn't be an alternative to Android and it looks abandoned, too.
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