Apple to kill Epic’s accounts on Friday the 28th • Hacker News Board

Re: Apple to kill Epic’s accounts on Friday the 28th

#191

Post by baddox » Mon, Aug 17, 2020, 8:09 PM UTC

woofie11 wrote: post #159

giovannibajo1 wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fortnite is available on several different game consoles and platforms (most of which, by the way, have a 30% commission fee). It used to be the case that it wasn’t available on iOS, and it was a planetary success already. Customers that had a iOS device and absolutely wanted Fortnite had to resort to use another platform, eg. buy a PC or a PlayStation. Now we’re back on the situations where we were before: Fortnite…

Antitrust doesn't require a monopoly.

Okay, then since we've failed to argue that Apple is a monopoly, what's the next antitrust argument, and how does it apple to iPhones but not to game consoles (which have the same if not stricter restrictions to third-party software developers)?

Re: Apple to kill Epic’s accounts on Friday the 28th

#192

Post by username3 » Mon, Aug 17, 2020, 8:09 PM UTC

ascagnel_ wrote: post #178

username3 wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Epic can sell iTunes gift cards and earn back some of that 30%.

Epic literally does sell gift cards: https://smile.amazon.com/Fortnite-V-Bucks-Gift-Card-40/dp/B0... Fortnite is big enough that Epic fills as many sales channels as they can with ways to buy their in-game currency.

They have the infrastructure to sell vbucks gift cards, so they can sell iTunes and Play store gift cards.

Re: Apple to kill Epic’s accounts on Friday the 28th

#193

Post by baddox » Mon, Aug 17, 2020, 8:10 PM UTC

bryanlarsen wrote: post #58

TylerE wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, total market dominance with 10% market share.

60% market share by revenue in 2019. https://www.businessofapps.com/data/app-revenues/

Isn't that just because Apple's customers are more willing to spend money on apps than other customers?

Re: Apple to kill Epic’s accounts on Friday the 28th

#194

Post by wayneftw » Mon, Aug 17, 2020, 8:10 PM UTC

The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

I'm going to buy all of Epic's games tonight for my PC. In the past, I was a bit annoyed that they plan to remove Rocket League from Steam but now that they're fighting Apple, I love this company.

If this whole lawsuit thing doesn't work out, maybe they'll develop a phone so I can buy that too.

Re: Apple to kill Epic’s accounts on Friday the 28th

#195

Post by gridlockd » Mon, Aug 17, 2020, 8:11 PM UTC

It seems strategically stupid to cut off the company developing the engine that a lot of iOS games use to run from development tools. It's almost as if they want iOS to be the worst platform to develop for.

As an iOS user, I hope Apple's stranglehold on the platform gets destroyed. I didn't practically care for the longest time, but I'm starting to lose self-respect here.

Re: Apple to kill Epic’s accounts on Friday the 28th

#196

Post by klmadfejno » Mon, Aug 17, 2020, 8:12 PM UTC

sircastor wrote: post #64

A lot of this feels to me like Rpic thinks they’re a bigger deal than they are. No doubt they make a lot of money, and they’ve made Apple a lot of money. I think though that their attempt to take Apple in the court of Public opinion is going to fall flat, because there are a lot more iOS users than Fortnite on iOS players.

Eh, I don't know. I think they've got a lot of positive momentum. I would bet generously on their future.

* I despise fortnite. I don't know if it has longevity. But it's pretty damn ambitious and is closer to the metaverse than anyone has gotten in a frustrating sort of way

* Unreal Engine is getting better by the day, is very dev friendly, and is likely going to grow in popularity as some of it's neat-o UE5 features take yet another chunk out of the pain of game dev for indies. Unity feels like takes one step forward, one step back every update.

* Their app store has been on a roll lately with lots of games for free that I actually want to play(Civ 6, Overcooked, Total War Troy, Killing Floor 2, Torchlight, 20xx, Remnant, Enter the Gungeon). I've basically switched all of my attention from Steam to Epic and would probably purchase from there over steam if a game were available on both for the same price. The UI is worse, the networking client is worse, and the store pages are less informative; however I find their library of games to feel relatively well curated whereas steam has pages of crap that you need to sift through to find anything.

Re: Apple to kill Epic’s accounts on Friday the 28th

#197

Post by PeterStuer » Mon, Aug 17, 2020, 8:12 PM UTC

Bud wrote: post #40

woofie11 wrote: post #2

This clearly and unambiguously crosses the line into abuse of market power. Apple's actions before? Maybe? Sort of? Apple needed that 30 percent cut to monitor for fraud and quality or something, going above-and-beyond other payment processors. This? This has absolutely no basis in anything. It's simple retaliation designed to kneecap Epic from Apple's dominant control of a market. Apple can refuse to let Epic releas…

On the contrary, there is a very solid basis. Epic has access to Apple's platform and dev tools because it has (or had) an agreement with Apple whereby it paid a percentage of profits earned in exchange for said access. Epic, btw, has the exact same kind of agreement with Sony, Microsoft, and Google, for access to their gaming platforms. All three of those companies are extracting the same 30% fee that Apple is. But…

Isn't that extremely coincidental that they all just stumbled upon that same 30%? I'm sure there is no collusion whatsoever.

Re: Apple to kill Epic’s accounts on Friday the 28th

#198

Post by _qulr » Mon, Aug 17, 2020, 8:13 PM UTC

fooey wrote: post #72

zaphar wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can still play on PS4, XBox, and PC. I think Epic will be fine.

If Epic devs are running macs, do you need a developer license to run XCode? I'm not sure the repercussions of losing their Apple developer accounts, but I imagine it's not pleasant. https://twitter.com/Slasher/status/1295434558112960519 > Epic says that included in the tools that Apple will revoke is the Unreal Engine that hundreds of third party developers use. "Apple’s actions will irreparably damage Epic’s reputa…

You can run Xcode. Basically anyone can run Xcode. But distributing software on the Mac is another matter.

Epic could try distributing unsigned, giving users instructions on how to bypass Gatekeeper, which is possible.

Re: Apple to kill Epic’s accounts on Friday the 28th

#199

Post by baddox » Mon, Aug 17, 2020, 8:13 PM UTC

josephcsible wrote: post #143

Razengan wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Apple needed that 30 percent cut to monitor for fraud and quality or something, going above-and-beyond other payment processors. How much do Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo, Steam, Gog and etc. take from publishers on their stores?

That's a misleading question, because on other platforms you can choose to avoid the store. A better question would be "what's the lowest cut you need to give up to distribute to users of these other platforms?". And the answer to that is zero on basically all of them except iOS.

> That's a misleading question, because on other platforms you can choose to avoid the store.

That's definitely not true. You cannot run unsigned code on most video game consoles.

And for PC game marketplaces, those platforms still have market power. Surely there's a big difference between being banned from Steam and being banned from the Discord Store.

Re: Apple to kill Epic’s accounts on Friday the 28th

#200

Post by Brendinooo » Mon, Aug 17, 2020, 8:14 PM UTC

woofie11 wrote: post #156

ArchOversight wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't retaliation though for Epic going on Twitter and being angry about the App Store practices, or the situation like Hey where the was a lot of press and negativity. Epic breached the terms of the agreement for their app, so their app was removed from the App Store. Other than needing to fix their app to no longer be in violation of the guidelines, they could have cured that breach of the contract. Instead Ep…

A one-sided agreement containing a retaliation clause, followed by exercising that clause, is retaliation. Say you're desperate and need water in a crisis, and I offer you some, but only if you sign an agreement which gives you water, but says I can punch you in the face whenever you say something I don't like. Say you say something I don't like, and I punch you in the face. Did I just retaliate? Or did the contract…

I'd imagine there's a spectrum of "retaliation clauses" that includes acceptable things and unacceptable things, and that whatever is happening in the App Store is pretty different than withholding water from someone who would die without it.

Epic may be smaller than Apple, but they are by no means a "little guy".