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Comment by nostromo | Hacker News Reader

How does YouTube and Netflix get approved since Apple can’t verify every video on their platform, including videos that have yet to be published?

This reasoning is beyond absurd.

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Maybe their thinking goes along the lines of "an installable game, whether local or not, is considered like an app, wheter it adds its own icon to the homescreen or not, and since it's considered as an app, it must be held to apple app store policies. now unlike youtube and netflix which primarily host video content that don't act like an app, even though you can download content for offline use in both apps."

I think it's more likely that their thinking goes along the lines of "game installs are a ton of revenue for us; game streaming services give iPhone users a way to pay someone else for games without us getting a cut, so we have to stop that because we are a business and we like money."

Very analogous to (anti-net-neutrality) ISP reasoning about video streaming services that compete with what they offer.

Or they want there own gamestream service in the future.

That wouldn't sit well in terms of antitrust if they blocked all their competitors.

Remember Netflix has interactive shows.

I just checked, and Black Mirror: Bandersnatch is playable on my iPhone.

Games like Late Shift or The Complex on Xbox are very similar.

Along the same vein then they would need to remove any remote desktop apps, of which there are many.

Netflix has games that work on the iPhone. Why is that allowed?

They're not though? The interactive stuff doesn't work on an Apple TV at least.

They work on iOS devices.

But the games aren't installed, just streamed.

TFA mentions in-app purchases as a differentiating factor, and personally I suspect that's what's really driving this. Streaming a video doesn't expose a way to make purchases that circumvents Apple's getting a cut, but since a game is executable code, there's no way to guarantee that on a gaming platform.

(Which is not to absolve Apple of unethical behavior, but it is one way in which the analogy doesn't hold.)

However if you get your subscription through the app they will demand 30%.

This is a good question. Maybe consumer demand? Perhaps consumers will move away from iphone because of this gaming platform?

By Netflix having market power.

If you mean your reasoning, yes.

They don't need to "verify every video" because a video is a video. It's all about the codec, security etc wise, not the content. With dynamic code, like a game or app, it's obviously different.

On Stadia (not sure about xCloud), the games are not run locally on the user's device. The Stadia app just captures controller input, sends it to Google's servers and returns a video stream of the gameplay (either VP9, h264, or AV1).

Can’t the web browser be used as the client here? Safari iOS has websockets as well as WebGL, if local rendering were needed.

I’m surprised Google didn’t develop it that way to begin with.

Yes, the web browser can be used as a client.

https://support.google.com/stadia/answer/9598981?hl=en

It can—that's how you used to be able to use Stadia on non-Google/Pixel Android devices before general availability.

iOS Safari isn't supported, however. Not sure if it has something to do with gamepads, video codecs, or what...

Call me paranoid, but I'd bet on Apple intentionally crippling Safari features of progressive web apps just to make sure it doesn't become a viable alternative to their walled garden.

But if it's not about the content, why are we here then talking about how Apple needs to validate the games sold inside a game streaming app to be App Store policy compliant. Youtube isn't necessarily too far off from game streaming, technically speaking. Both transfer video content over the internet. And the game streaming app doens't install anything, not even the games, to your device, as that's the whole point. I'll also add that why can I watch the game on YouTube when some youtuber plays it, but I cannot purchase & play it remotely through this one app?

And do note that you can purhcase movies from Youtube app.

> And do note that you can purhcase movies from Youtube app.

Not on iPhones?

Actually, yes. Screenshot I just took: https://i.postimg.cc/bNX4Bw5s/0-C84-E133-7003-4867-8-F28-F84... (it goes through the normal IAP flow if you hit a button)

Streamed games are just video in one direction and inputs in the other direction. No dynamic code, as far as I know.

And video players have controls, like pause, and analytics and metrics, which are sent to the server.

Game streaming is video.

Technically, the app is only streaming a video and accepting user inputs. It's basically a video player, the actual game code never runs on the Apple device itself.

Apple is just mad because they're not getting a slice of the pie. I could see them being paid for the initial app purchase (once, not a subscription) for the distribution, but why the hell should they get paid for all the games being streamed? They're not handling the game servers or any of the related bandwidth requirements behind the scene.

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