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Apple terminates Epic Games developer account, calling it a 'threat' to iOS

techcrunch.com

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Re: Apple terminates Epic Games developer account, calling it a 'threat' to iOS

#681

Post by matthewdgreen »

Despegar wrote: post #57

Epic perhaps thought Apple might show them grace after the lawsuit in the US. A kind of repeat of the Apple-Samsung litigation where everyone has a "it's just business" attitude and keeps doing business together while simultaneously suing each other. Apple on the other hand has decided they will show them no quarter. I don't think they're being emotional about it. I think it's to show every other developer that they…

Epic is sending a strong signal to regulators that they're malicious, and can't be trusted to police themselves. It's a terrible look under the circumstances.

Re: Apple terminates Epic Games developer account, calling it a 'threat' to iOS

#682

Post by ethbr1 »

can16358p wrote: post #669
pjerem wrote: post #641

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But anyway I've written Apple out of my life a long time ago. I love my iPhone and my Mac. They are great devices. I’ve been using Apple products happily despite having pretty few acquaintance with the Apple brand (which I feel incredibly arrogant). All of those stories about the DMA and the total lack of good faith from Apple when it comes to respect the rules are making me strongly reconsider buying new Apple pro…

Similar here. I like their products, their design and don't have anything better to my needs. I even find some sense about this whole DMA thing to their respect. But their user hostility and "you are wrong we are always right and we never accept that we are wrong" kind of gaslighting attitude of them as a company really makes me lose trust in them as a customer. While I still use Apple devices, I wouldn't have though…

The reason I haven't bought into the Apple mobile ecosystem wholly is because of the power they could exert.

My friends' counterarguments were always that they did not currently exert that power to the detriment of users.

To which my reply was "Show me a few down quarters, missed growth targets, or a threat to one of their primary sources of revenue and see what they do."

Any company should always be expected to pathologically leverage all forms of control it can, if it needs to generate profit.

Re: Apple terminates Epic Games developer account, calling it a 'threat' to iOS

#683

Post by dwaite »

andersa wrote: post #62
Despegar wrote: post #57

Epic perhaps thought Apple might show them grace after the lawsuit in the US. A kind of repeat of the Apple-Samsung litigation where everyone has a "it's just business" attitude and keeps doing business together while simultaneously suing each other. Apple on the other hand has decided they will show them no quarter. I don't think they're being emotional about it. I think it's to show every other developer that they…

Epic doesn't care whether Apple shows "grace", or needs them to, they are going in by force with the backing of the EU legislation. It might just take a year or two longer to get through the courts. They can hold out that long without any problems, preparing their store in the background.

Apple is asking for a clear commitment to honor its contract this time. I'm pretty sure a court ruling on reinstating the account isn't going to also require a clear commitment to honor the contract.

Re: Apple terminates Epic Games developer account, calling it a 'threat' to iOS

#684

Post by Apocryphon »

whimsicalism wrote: post #540
Apocryphon wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've argued before that Apple should've semi-opened up iOS in a way that they could manage it to their interests. Now they've forced the hand of regulators to do it instead. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32170848

it didnt work for google, who is also in the sights of regulators despite having a considerbly more semi-open OS

Maybe it would've delayed this for longer- less of a casus belli for the likes of Epic. Apple was lucky for avoiding App Store scrutiny for over a decade.

Re: Apple terminates Epic Games developer account, calling it a 'threat' to iOS

#685

Post by [deleted] »

samatman wrote: post #362
layer8 wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue is that Epic doesn’t want to be Apple’s customer in the first place. They want to publish iOS apps. The fact that this requires them to be an Apple customer is the core problem. Imagine if everyone wanting to publish a web app would have to be a customer of the respective browser vendors. Everyone complains about Google and Mozilla and Safari and Edge. Luckily, that doesn’t prevent us from having our web ap…

We don't have to imagine, we have 40 years of game consoles existing.

[deleted]

Re: Apple terminates Epic Games developer account, calling it a 'threat' to iOS

#686

Post by lnxg33k1 »

seydor wrote: post #673

What a monster big tech has become.

It is probably a good description of what society has become, there are a lot of people who go on repeating that these big tech are just corporations for profit and don’t have to signal any good intention, because it doesn’t make them any profit, and being bad doesn’t make them lose any profit, because we’ve become just a bunch of ignoring consumers going after the next gadget blindly, these companies are shit, because it doesn’t cost them anything anymore

What I keep wondering is why iSheeps don’t complain, like they’re the ones who are buying these overpriced crap, then being squeezed of 30% every time they get an app, who they think is going to pay for the apple tax at the end of the day

Re: Apple terminates Epic Games developer account, calling it a 'threat' to iOS

#687

Post by zmmmmm »

matwood wrote: post #586
zmmmmm wrote: post #546

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a good question. From the EU point of view it may be simply one of scale. If any of those held the amount of market power Apple does, I suspect the EU would designate them Gatekeepers and we would be off to the races. From the games publisher point of view, the console manufacturer is actually adding significant value and taking a fair (or not so fair) margin in exchage. Apple detracts value, contributes nothing…

> contributes nothing Other than cultivating a base of iOS users spending 7x more than Android users on apps[1]. That sounds like significant value to me and not dissimilar to what the console manufacturers pitch to developers. [1] https://9to5mac.com/2023/09/06/iphone-users-spend-apps/

Epic doesn't want those users. It is not asking for any placement in the app store. It just wants it's own users who have iPhones to be able to access its software which it will funnel to them through their own channel. Apple contributes nothing to cultivate the gaming market overall. No marketing, no investment, no PR, no subsidation of the hardware etc. Apple simply gets in the way, making it harder, adding restrictions, invading Epic's customers privacy and then to add insult to injury takes a huge slice of the profits.

Re: Apple terminates Epic Games developer account, calling it a 'threat' to iOS

#688

Post by dwaite »

overgard wrote: post #664
SllX wrote: post #419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Epic also intentionally broke agreements with Apple before. Non-discriminatory doesn’t mean they have no grounds to terminate Epic’s developer accounts, and Epic is continuing to make themselves look untrustworthy by trying to publicly and explicitly shank Apple. Spotify is also trying to shank Apple in all the same places Epic is, but they also didn’t go behind Apple’s back to deceive the prior review process in con…

I find it hard to see Apple being in the right here. While I'm not so naive as to think one company is "good" and the other "bad", I do think that as developers Epic is fighting for our best interests. Apple's app store monopoly serves only Apple.

I do not. Tim Sweeney testified that had Apple offered a special deal just for Epic, they would have taken it.

Re: Apple terminates Epic Games developer account, calling it a 'threat' to iOS

#689

Post by 1over137 »

askonomm wrote: post #99
_fat_santa wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The key difference I see in Apple's app store business is that it's a monopolistic marketplace model. If Apple allowed an alternative to the app store then this wouldn't be an issue. Take Microsoft and Windows as an example, they have the Microsoft store which operates as a marketplace with rules but they don't get the same scrutiny because there are alternatives. Don't like what MS is doing with their app store? Fin…

But as of iOS 17.4 they do allow alternative app stores in EU.

Do you still need an AppleID to use these alternative stores?

Re: Apple terminates Epic Games developer account, calling it a 'threat' to iOS

#690

Post by akira2501 »

lxgr wrote: post #552
akira2501 wrote: post #510

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Attempting to enforce an "illegal" contract provision seems pretty "emotional" to me. Apple is finally in a position to lose their monopoly grip on a platform software store, and they clearly will stop at nothing to stop the loss of that revenue, this is obviously an existential problem for them.

It certainly threatens their app store revenue, and by extension market value, so it's rational for them to push back, but by no means is it an "existential problem". Apple is quite a bit more than just the app store. There's probably risks on both sides here, too: Playing hardball with EU regulators and courts could cost them a lot of money.

> so it's rational for them to push back

If your vision for your company only extends to the next quarterly earnings report, sure, it's "rational."

If you consider the fact that every other participant in the market dislikes this practice, that this dislike has finally risen to the level of government involvement, and that laws are about to be written taking it away from you, then clutching it to your chest is best understood as an emotional position.

It's rooted in a desire to not lose the past while attempting to deny that any other future could possibly exist. It's classic denial, on a trillion dollar corporate level.

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