Apple Rejects Valve's Steam Link App Due to 'Business Conflicts'
macrumors.com
macrumors.com
That said, Steam’s argument is technically true (I think) - their app is basically a remote desktop client. I wonder how Apple could defend that legally without shooting itself in the foot? Although, they’ll probably come to some closed-door financial arrangement before it comes to that.
- Horizontal agreements, like the one you describe, where competitors cooperate in one way or another. Apple and Steam are not cooperating here.
- “Single firm conduct,” i.e. monopoly stuff.
Which laws do you think Apple is violating here?
Personally I think mandatory app stores run afoul of exclusive dealing laws which do require a showing of market power to take force. The FTC had no problem enforcing this in the pipe fittings market [1] which has very healthy competition from china. A total monopoly is not required.
[1] https://www.ftc.gov/enforcement/cases-proceedings/101-0080b/...
Would Nintendo be in the wrong if they didn't allow PSVue on the switch?
Every curated platform controls what can be in it - including all of the console manufacturers.
A general RDP app would stream your entire desktop; exactly what happens on the desktop is outside of the purview of the app.
This Steam Link app is designed to stream Steam, but can be kinda/sorta halfway backed into streaming the remote desktop. It's primary purpose is to stream the Steam "Big Picture" UI -- which prominently features an independent store -- in addition to any PC games that run through Steam. If Valve were to remove the store links, this would be a very different discussion.
It's similar to how Apple wouldn't allow something like the Kindle app to "just" direct users to an in-app web-view or deep-link to content in the system browser to avoid paying Apple -- if you're selling a digital good on an iOS/tvOS platform, you need to pay the 30% gatekeeper's fee.
That said:
> Lombardi said Steam disabled purchasing its iOS app but did not elaborate on how the change was made.[0]
If this is the case, then I've got no idea why Apple would block the app.
[0]: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-steam/apple-blocks-...
At that point it’s a much bigger competitive risk to Apples AppStore game sales revenue. To play devils advocate, I could see this argument having more strength within Apple’s walls than banning an app that just streams games from the user’s own PC.
I think it’s inevitable Valve enter the cloud hosted pc gaming market eventually, personally. Sales of mobile devices and cheap PCs dwarf sales of gaming PCs, the size of the potential customer base explodes once your users don’t need to be well off enough to afford a gaming rig.
nVidia already runs such a service, GeForce NOW. I've been trying the Mac beta for a few months and... it's not great. Some games just need 1:1, perfect streaming (twitch shooters, 2D platformers, etc.), and their service at best (when on wired ethernet and a datacenter nearby) delivers a lag of 2-3 frames. Valve's product, since you're running it on your local network, can get that down to a single frame, but that can still be too much at times.
I think it's foolish to bet against cloud game streaming technology reaching the point where it is good enough for _most_ people, and when it does I'd be even further surprised if Valve aren't at least trying to be a major player. LAN based game streaming is always going to be a relatively niche feature, as gaming PCs are increasingly niche. Cheap tablets/phones/laptops that could use a cloud based service number well into the billions at this point.
As for your point about lag - sure it's not going to be as low latency as a local LAN system, but honestly I don't think a lot of customers will notice this too much or care - people are already happy with 30FPS consoles with often terrible controller latency on some titles. Sure there will be those who still want the best, and they will continue to build expensive gaming towers. The Playstation Now game streaming service has been relatively successful despite having all of these problems and more. I recently finished The Last Of Us on playstation now. Again, it wasn't the best, but it was very close to "good enough".
Many kids today are happy playing "Fortnite" on a phone. A phone, playing an online FPS with touch controls... It's clear that perfect playing conditions are not the primary driver for a lot of people.
I guess maybe it's the combination of "you can buy apps and also play them" that is causing the issue.
I'll give nVidia Shield a try instead. Still a bit disappointed I won't be able to play from my phone, but who knows maybe that'll change too. Only one month left on my iPhone 6s plus payment.
I can use one of several apps to do effectively the same thing, but they lack the Big Picture and Steam Input API integration. Moonlight, Parsec, etc... Some of which are open source. Even if they were rejected down the road I could just run them myself using my dev account.
But if that weren't the case, my next purchase was going to be an Nvidia Shield once my old 2009 Core 2 Duo that I'm using as a Plex Server bit the dust. The idea of having a $200 Shield that could also serve as a Plex server is very enticing. I would have a NAS in my office and the Shield connected to one of my TVs.
I was not going to spend $200 on a 4K Apple TV.
I think Apple is shooting itself in the foot with these stupid decisions, but time will tell.
This is definitely anti competitive practices and I think there is a case to be made for it. Even more if they decide to do it in EU.
That's why the EU action against Google was initiated by some shady comparison shopping websites from the EU, and by Opera (also an EU company). They were financially backed by Microsoft, but they kept their name out of it.
One of the features that Valve talked about was using their Steam Controller with the app.
Since the Steam Controller is not MFi-certified, there was speculation that this feature worked by emulating a keyboard, and sending input as key presses.
This similar to iCade, which has been in the App Store for quite a while.
I’d wager that it’s this bypass of the MFi program which is irking Apple, not the screen sharing function.
I was expecting someone to find a way to blame Valve for this, rather than admitting that Apple likes to abuse its position.
They definitely lost me as a customer.
If they’re blocking because it doesn’t use MFi that’s a blatant cash-grab.
I’m not trying to justify it, just trying to understand wtf is going on.
I hope we still get our hands on this sometime soon.
It’s also weird since the vast majority of the games on Steam aren’t available on iOS or tvOS, so even if Apple is afraid of having revenue cut off from outside sales, it’s not revenue they would have captured in the first place.
I continue to be divided about this, the point of view is understandable, as it would threaten app store revenue (every app would just switch to a digital subscription outside of apple and never charge for the apps) however there's also a clear line of digital goods that are more physical like in nature (rather than just the software) such as eBooks etc and the 30% margin is high enough to ruin most business plans.
This particular rejection is somewhat irritating though.