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Apple's bad faith 27% tax on web purchases

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Re: Apple's bad faith 27% tax on web purchases

#231

Post by nirvdrum »

aurareturn wrote: post #176
johnnyanmac wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>that they will happily charge 30% once they have more marketshare. I don't know. They haven't done as much with UE or any other tools, outside of actually charging for non-games (I'm honestly surprised that the Mandelorian was able to be made with no kick back to Epic at all). Historically Epic has been relatively lenient for how it taxes developers. Say what you want about Sweeny and Fortnite and the Games Store, b…

They're developer friendly because they're trying to get marketshare. They're competing with market leader in Steam which charges 30%. Don't think for a second that they wouldn't charge 30% once they get enough market power. In fact, in the Apple lawsuit, it was revealed that the Epic Game Store was operating on a $300-$400m loss in order to acquire marketshare. Epic has to increase commission fees in order to break…

Isn’t that how competition works? Ideally, no company becomes so large that they don’t feel the pressure to remain competitive. Of course there’s countless examples of big players stagnating and becoming rent collectors with a captive market. But, I see that as all the more reason to have competition.

I think it’s rather optimistic to believe the Epic Games Store going to overtake Steam. If that’s the criteria for raising their cut, I wouldn’t expect it to happen anytime soon. Outside of annoying exclusive distribution rights on some games, having another store has given game developers another way to sell and players a way to purchase games cheaper. With that said, I’d guess their real gambit is to create enough pressure to drive the standard 30% down.

Maybe 30% made sense at one point. Maybe it does now. It strikes me that there have been efficiencies that haven’t been passed along to the consumer. Having a competitive market would let us find out.

Re: Apple's bad faith 27% tax on web purchases

#232

Post by tpmoney »

throw10920 wrote: post #200
Someone wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a hacker, I want those, too, but I’m not 100% sure I want that as a developer or user. It also has disadvantages. Part of what Apple sell app developers is that piracy is hard on the App Store. It also benefits developers and users that tweaking apps to cheat in games is as good as impossible. A cloned or patched iOS that allowed users to install anything could change that by no longer checking app signatures.

> It also benefits developers and users that tweaking apps to cheat in games is as good as impossible. This would be just as impossible in a well-designed version of iOS that allowed arbitrary app installation - iOS could do client-side attestation, and app developers could choose to prevent users from playing online matches with app versions that aren't attested by Apple (or a hypothetical Steam for iOS, for instanc…

And yet, desktop anti-cheat is a continual cat and mouse game more than any iOS anti-cheat conflict I've seen. One can argue that macOS, Linux and Windows are not sufficiently "well-designed" OSes for this purpose, but at that point you'd have to start distinguishing what features are missing from those OSes that would be present in this hypothetical iOS version that isn't highly dependent on the degree to which Apple tightly controls the ability to install software on your device.

Re: Apple's bad faith 27% tax on web purchases

#233

Post by spookie »

lykahb wrote: post #108

Apple collects the rent from the apps that exist withn their walled garden. Epic employs behavioural specialists tasked in making their games addictive and coerce user into spending with micro-transactions. I do not want to take a side in this fight.

Couldn't have said it better! Don't forget they're moving for the Roblox market now, getting that child labour content bling!

Re: Apple's bad faith 27% tax on web purchases

#234

Post by brandon272 »

aurareturn wrote: post #102
peterallport wrote: post #61

Apple must allow alternate payment modes without imposing a gatekeeper tax. It must be consistent without exceptions (i.e. not just Amazon). The issue is not the gratuitous fee, it is the lack of choice. iOS is more ubiquitous than macOS yet more restrictive--it cannot last. This entitlement is so restrictive -- it just seems vindictive. Apple's market share and success means additional responsibility. The argument t…

>Apple must allow alternate payment modes without imposing a gatekeeper tax. And I want to put my product in Walmart for free while Walmart pays for the warehouse, staff, marketing, returns, and product inspection.

How is a phone that I pay for at all analagous to Walmart?

Re: Apple's bad faith 27% tax on web purchases

#235

Post by zeroonetwothree »

jmole wrote: post #78

I think what’s missing here is sideloading. The new terms apple set are ridiculous, but it’s their App Store, so whatever. However, this iPhone is my device and I should be able to install whatever app I’d like on it. Without that freedom, Apple has no competition and can set their fees as high as they please.

Apple can’t legally stop you from doing whatever you want with your phone.

However I don’t see any reason Apple should be compelled to help you in using it with your own software.

Re: Apple's bad faith 27% tax on web purchases

#236

Post by readyplayernull »

spywaregorilla wrote: post #214
themagician wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Epic used to charge insane fees for the Unreal Engine too. They really only changed their tune when Fortnite became so successful they could print money via skins.

You're making shit up. Unreal was at the same 5% years before fortnite. albeit with a lower kick in threshold

They changed to the low fee in order to stop Unity, around 2015.

Re: Apple's bad faith 27% tax on web purchases

#237

Post by GeekyBear »

readyplayernull wrote: post #164

The infamous 30% goes back to the time when there where no app stores and we, mainly game developers, had to publish our games thru publishers who used to take a large percent of income, 50% or higher, up to 70% I heard; in order for app stores to become competitive they set the fee to 30% which was an incredibly great deal for us! It seemed to me that the democratization of game publishing finally arrived at that po…

For any type of software you wanted to sell to the retail chains, you had to find a software distribution company, since the chains would not deal directly with you.

So you were paying one cut to the software distributor, and another cut to the retail chain.

Then there were costs things like creating and shipping physical inventory, swapping out the unsold inventory in the stores when you did a major version update, shared advertising costs, etc.

You definitely were not getting to keep anywhere near 70% of the price consumers paid for your product.

Re: Apple's bad faith 27% tax on web purchases

#238

Post by johnnyanmac »

aurareturn wrote: post #176
johnnyanmac wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>that they will happily charge 30% once they have more marketshare. I don't know. They haven't done as much with UE or any other tools, outside of actually charging for non-games (I'm honestly surprised that the Mandelorian was able to be made with no kick back to Epic at all). Historically Epic has been relatively lenient for how it taxes developers. Say what you want about Sweeny and Fortnite and the Games Store, b…

They're developer friendly because they're trying to get marketshare. They're competing with market leader in Steam which charges 30%. Don't think for a second that they wouldn't charge 30% once they get enough market power. In fact, in the Apple lawsuit, it was revealed that the Epic Game Store was operating on a $300-$400m loss in order to acquire marketshare. Epic has to increase commission fees in order to break…

I'm still optimistic, but I wouldn't be completely gobsmacked if I was wrong. I would have argued 20 years ago Valve would have done more to lock in their market (I was kind of right, but they are much more clever with it and it doesn't impact consumers). I also would have argued 20 years ago that Sony would topple Nintendo in the portable market.

>Here's an example showing how they're just like any other company:

They aren't really too special on the consumer facing front, I agree. But I still assert they've been pretty goo on the dev facing front. I've heard very little bad about them on the dev end.

Re: Apple's bad faith 27% tax on web purchases

#239

Post by lolinder »

iAMkenough wrote: post #216
sethd wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The developer has to agree to allow Apple to audit them.

Sounds expensive for Apple, and like it will be enforced unevenly.

Yes, that's what the judge warned in the ruling. Epic got what they asked for on this point because they were technically correct on the merits, but both the judge and the appeals court were skeptical that demanding it would do anyone any good:

> IAP is the method by which Apple collects its licensing fee from developers for the use of Apple’s intellectual property. Even in the absence of IAP, Apple could still charge a commission on developers. It would simply be more difficult for Apple to collect that commission.

> In such a hypothetical world, developers could potentially avoid the commission while benefitting from Apple's innovation and intellectual property free of charge. The Court presumes that in such circumstances that Apple may rely on imposing and utilizing a contractual right to audit developers annual accounting to ensure compliance with its commissions, among other methods. Of course, any alternatives to IAP (including the foregoing) would seemingly impose both increased monetary and time costs to both Apple and the developers.

https://casetext.com/case/epic-games-inc-v-apple-inc-2

Re: Apple's bad faith 27% tax on web purchases

#240

Post by etchalon »

selectodude wrote: post #209
arrosenberg wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo, and Steam all take 30% for distribution and hosting, same as Apple. > It's not a monopoly. I believe you have accurately described a cartel, however.

Epic has a game store charging 12 percent and nobody seems to care much about it.

Because developers go where the users are. That's all that matters.

Epic had to pay developers, a lot, to bootstrap the Epic store so that there were games there that mattered. And even now, with a decent selection, most PC gamers still use Steam. Because all their games are on Steam already. And every game they care about is on Steam.

So Steam can charge 30% and Epic can charge 12% and nothing really changes.

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