Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Epic Games Store Launches on iOS and Android

epicgames.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 63 posts

Re: The Epic Games Store Launches on iOS and Android

#41

Post by fulafel »

zokier wrote: post #26

I've always wondered why Steam hasn't gotten into Android game market. Feels like it would be just free money for them, and gamers like me would be happy if they could play some of the games from their library on mobile.

Even for the Steam Deck it's clearly a big project to get a critical mass of games working on a non-PC device, and that's much easier than Android (only one model of device, no need to port code to another OS and platform, no need to port game interface to touch UI, etc). Ask any Android game developer and the support & cross testing of the zoo of device models and OS versions is a huge part of the work.

Plus on Android they'd be trying to convince Steam publishers to enter a platform where users don't pay for games but rather watch ads or make IAPs, so they wouldn't really get the right kind of paying customers from there.

Re: The Epic Games Store Launches on iOS and Android

#43

Post by rvschuilenburg »

self_awareness wrote: post #34
mstolpm wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is already the opposite situation: "available on iOS AppStore (except in EU)". And that might pop up more often in the future.

mstolpm wrote: > There is already the opposite situation: "available on iOS AppStore (except in > EU)". And that might pop up more often in the future. We already have lots of that related to website access. "Not available due to GDPR" is a pretty common error message for me. If anyone wants to reply that "I've just dodged a bullet thanks to EU blocking unethical websites" then all I can say is I know how to dodge bu…

>If anyone wants to reply that "I've just dodged a bullet thanks to EU blocking unethical websites" then all I can say is I know how to dodge bullets by myself, thanks.

These websites did not get blocked by the EU. These websites chose to block themselves because they did not want to put in the effort to be GDPR compliant.

Re: The Epic Games Store Launches on iOS and Android

#44

Post by lern_too_spel »

stavros wrote: post #4

I'm looking forward to this, even if only to have an alternative Android store that doesn't take such an egregious fee. I just want the market forces to decide the cut, instead of the monopolies. The only thing left to fix is Apple's ridiculous "fee for not putting things on our store". Hopefully someone will do this soon, if the Epic store isn't this (or is this for just games).

Amazon has had its App Store on Android for years. It was a good source of high quality apps given away for free for a while. If Epic does that too, consumers win.

Re: The Epic Games Store Launches on iOS and Android

#45

Post by stavros »

lern_too_spel wrote: post #44
stavros wrote: post #4

I'm looking forward to this, even if only to have an alternative Android store that doesn't take such an egregious fee. I just want the market forces to decide the cut, instead of the monopolies. The only thing left to fix is Apple's ridiculous "fee for not putting things on our store". Hopefully someone will do this soon, if the Epic store isn't this (or is this for just games).

Amazon has had its App Store on Android for years. It was a good source of high quality apps given away for free for a while. If Epic does that too, consumers win.

Oh you're right! I forgot about that, I wonder what happened to it.

Re: The Epic Games Store Launches on iOS and Android

#46

Post by chii »

dools wrote: post #39
chii wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Ironically it is the fetish with free market economics that produces the monopolies. only when there's not sufficient regulations from cartel like behaviour. At the risk of invoking the no-real-scotsman fallacy, i would say that a real free market cannot support a monopoly, unless said monopoly is taking as thin a cut of the profit as possible (thus leaving no room for competition as the initial outlay of capital w…

If you're saying a "real free market" requires "regulations from cartel like behaviour" then what entity is doing that regulating? And if that entity is superior to the market, then how can the market be "really free"?

you're confusing superiority of the entity capable of regulating, to the actions of millions of participants in a market to push it to efficiency.

The entity that regulates is not a participant in the free market. And free market does not imply anarchy - aka no rules.

Re: The Epic Games Store Launches on iOS and Android

#47

Post by ffgjgf1 »

rvschuilenburg wrote: post #43
self_awareness wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

mstolpm wrote: > There is already the opposite situation: "available on iOS AppStore (except in > EU)". And that might pop up more often in the future. We already have lots of that related to website access. "Not available due to GDPR" is a pretty common error message for me. If anyone wants to reply that "I've just dodged a bullet thanks to EU blocking unethical websites" then all I can say is I know how to dodge bu…

>If anyone wants to reply that "I've just dodged a bullet thanks to EU blocking unethical websites" then all I can say is I know how to dodge bullets by myself, thanks. These websites did not get blocked by the EU. These websites chose to block themselves because they did not want to put in the effort to be GDPR compliant.

Which is functionally the same? EU can’t ban websites, but the threat of very high fines is effectively the same.

Also when it comes to random news websites (especially smaller local ones) what sort risks are there? The aren’t handling your personal information and if you’re afraid about them selling your browsing history to third parties there are way to fix that locally

Re: The Epic Games Store Launches on iOS and Android

#48

Post by ffgjgf1 »

39896880 wrote: post #42

Question for someone who is a fan of brand-specific game stores: what do you like about them? Personally I find the idea of apps-within-apps annoying and convoluted, but I’m willing to entertain the notion that I’m a luddite.

Cheaper IAP tokens/coins/etc. ?

Re: The Epic Games Store Launches on iOS and Android

#49

Post by [deleted] »

b112 wrote: post #33
aurareturn wrote: post #15

Just curious. On the other thread, people complain that Google didn't take down a scam app fast enough. People obviously complain about the 30% commission fee for digital goods. So if people don't want to pay the commission, and they want Google to police all the apps, isn't that just a giant cost for Google without a way of making it sustainable? Unless people are ok with drastically higher initial phone hardware co…

Hmm. There is a point here. The reason grocery stores and meat packing plants are inspected, is that competition on price, on profit is a thing. So eventually in a competitive market, someone tries to cut costs by reducing safery checks. Look at Boeing. Cutting safety in the name of profit. So if there is a lot of competition for app stores, cost cutting could come out of reduced fees, "safety inspections" could be i…

[deleted]

Re: The Epic Games Store Launches on iOS and Android

#50

Post by ffgjgf1 »

b112 wrote: post #33
aurareturn wrote: post #15

Just curious. On the other thread, people complain that Google didn't take down a scam app fast enough. People obviously complain about the 30% commission fee for digital goods. So if people don't want to pay the commission, and they want Google to police all the apps, isn't that just a giant cost for Google without a way of making it sustainable? Unless people are ok with drastically higher initial phone hardware co…

Hmm. There is a point here. The reason grocery stores and meat packing plants are inspected, is that competition on price, on profit is a thing. So eventually in a competitive market, someone tries to cut costs by reducing safery checks. Look at Boeing. Cutting safety in the name of profit. So if there is a lot of competition for app stores, cost cutting could come out of reduced fees, "safety inspections" could be i…

Boieing didn’t really operate in a competitive market, though. It’s a duopoly with a very heavily constrained supply. I doubt it was a conscious decision to prioritize profits over safety (obviously it was irrational to begin with because they just ended up with significantly lower profits than they would have otherwise) just a general culture that values and rewards gross incompetence
Post reply on HN