Epic direct payment on mobile
epicgames.com
epicgames.com
If they remove Fortnite from the App Store, Apple will probably be seen as the bad guy. After all, Epic is not taking anything off the top here; they make the same amount of money whether consumers choose to purchase through the App Store or through Epic's direct payment system.
If they keep Fortnite on the App Store, they're going to need to make a rule change to allow alternative payment methods within apps. One of Apple's main defenses during antitrust hearings was that App Review applies rules fairly and consistently. If they don't change the rules, that argument falls dead in the water.
Epic leadership knows that this is going to cause a firestorm. I'm happy that a large company with market power decided this was the right time to do this. I doubt Apple and Epic worked together on this; there's no way that this doesn't completely embarrass Apple and its App Store policies.
It will be exciting to see how this plays out, but my bet is that this is going to lead to a huge win for Apple developers.
[0]: https://venturebeat.com/2018/07/30/fortnite-clears-100-milli...
[1]: https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2019-02-08-fortnite-i...
Edit: Also I thought Fortnite was a FPS. How can you play that on iOS?
Edit: Insert joke about Quantitative Easing here
That is already allowed. It's a common misconception.
[0]: https://www.theverge.com/2020/4/1/21203294/amazon-prime-vide...
https://www.theverge.com/2020/4/1/21203630/apple-amazon-prim...
Right now I have little to worry about when I leave my kid playing a game, all the payment need to go through Apple or at least the offending app will not stay up for too long.
I want Apple to be forced to come up with a fairer solution (eg: same api, but different payment provider) rather than being strong-armed into getting rid of the current protection from dodgy apps abusing dark ux pattern.
Consumers can choose to side-step the Play Store with a few taps. iOS users would need to throw out their phones.
At the beginning that will be easy to simply not register and not use games that require registration. But well, micro-transaction started that way and nowadays all the major player do it that way.
Platform like XCloud that bundle various games from various studio will be used, and that basically mean you have a single app in your iPhone that can download a variety of content, all outside the control of Apple.
I'm not an idiot, I will whitelist and use the tool available in said platform, but that's one more thing to care about. One problem for which Apple just worked for me and won't anymore.
I want an ecosystem that works and I can rely on including knowing that little to no one can side load a malicious application onto the device.
I’m also very well aware of the fact that while Apple scalps developers it’s also the reason why my devices get security updates for 6 years while Google can’t provide updates after 2.
I don't understand this, can you explain why? As long as you don't sideload on your own phone, why would having the option be a problem?
The things you can do with the phone are already more dangerous and hazardous than say, manually approved, developer-mode sideloading.
Following this logic, why is the phone even allowed to get phone calls from non-Apple approved numbers?, or mail from non-Apple approved email addresses?
Like at what point does this logic actually stop, because for someone who somehow manages to install malware after having to tap on some arcane menu seven times in a row every service on that phone is a minefield
If the US ban reasons are valid and Google is forced to remove it from the store for those reasons, then sideloading TikTok would be this exact situation I'm describing.
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Let me restate it like this. Company A wants access to iOS app market. Their app does X, Y, and Z. Z is frowned upon but X and Y are pretty valuable. In a world with no rules (i.e. sideloading), they'll do X, Y, and Z and consumers will have to put up with Z. In a world with rules (i.e. App Store), they will have to omit Z even though it's good for business because that's the only way they can do business in X and Y.
Also, sideloading doesn’t necessarily mean there’s no access controls or permissions on iOS any more. Though Apple might have to step up security and fixore bugs.
And yes I do have different policies for sharing info with people on Android vs iPhones.
Problem is e.g. Facebook will immediately require side loading so they can install all manner of spyware that wouldn’t make it through the App Store’s vetting process.
And it's all somewhat beside the point, isn't it? Facebook Research was usable on iOS. By the time Apple put an end to it, the backlash had become so significant that Facebook pulled the program from Android anyway.
Plus, developers lose access to a lot of Apple's functionality, like the fact that XCode can upload LLVM bytecode so that Apple can re-optimize through new or updated LLVM backends to deliver optimized versions for new platforms, etc.
Suddenly, all the goodness that's "baked in" to the iPhone experience is gone, and the whole system starts looking like an inconsistent mess compared to the way it was before.
I wonder if some kind of hybrid approach would work; for example, a workflow like this:
1. Developers develop locally as usual 2. Developers upload to Apple via XCode as usual 3. Apple does its standard automated checks (private APIs, etc) 4. The developer can file for that app to be held "off the store"; this is rejected by Apple for some reasons (like private API usage, malware, etc.) but generally approved. Apps which do this likely lose access to some system APIs (e.g. iCloud storage, IAP) but it's a tradeoff. 5. The developer can now get an App Store link which they can give to users to find their app on the store. This is the only way to find the app; it doesn't appear in lists, search, "top paid", features, or anything of the sort. 6. Users get an app that isn't (overtly) malicious and won't definitely break in future OS updates, developers get the infrastructure benefits and automatic updates, Apple can wash their hands of any downstream issues because they know for certain that the user arrived via the developer and can make that clear to the user ("if you have problems, go talk to them. If they're misbehaving, come talk to us.")
This would make the value proposition for most developers pretty clear, but for huge entities like Epic or Microsoft, they can just bypass the system because people can come to them directly.
It's not clear to me that what you're describing is actually a problem that happens.
Plus, even if you try to deploy malware you still need to get through the regular permission dialogs and other bits of Android security. I have no idea how easy/hard this is but I would be surprised if iOS performs substantially worse here.
In fact some of the apps could only be found on Samsung Store and it’s bundled in and from my recollection couldn’t be removed easily.
Some apps would even demand your contacts to start on Android to send to China, but on iOS wouldn’t because it’s a breach of the ToS to completely stop working with partial permissions.
Then you have the latest Android which crashes the sideloaded apps that ask for permission: https://bgr.com/2020/06/04/android-11-beta-sideloading-apps-...
I’m happy that the major mobile os is all about choice, but Apple shouldn’t follow in Googles fragmented, “let the user shoot themselves in the foot”-ways.
Would Apple become the most popular mobile os I’d hope they gave more freedom and fragmented the system but until then it’s the garden of eve that I feel comfortable with. I’m happy software companies for once gets some demands that cannot be rounded instead of this wild wild west.
that is what I dearly hope for!
I've been on the Internet a long time and can't say that closed stores have led to any kind of quality of experience improvement for me. the apple store is full of misleading, garbage apps trying to exploit people.
Nothing stops dodgier companies to ask your kid a credit card number.
If you trust an app and it charges you in a dodgy way, you can claim that charge with your credit company.
On-line transactions work in computers, it is not different in a phone. Phones are just computers nowadays.
A tech company that is your bank, your ID, your messaging system, your location system,... is 1984 level of scary.
To dispute charges that were indeed made by a member of your household, you usually have to file a police report against them.
The method of paying for things online by shared secret numbers is insane. Phones permit much more reasonable payments architectures, since they can sign transactions with their TPMs instead of spraying your credit card number everywhere. We should see phones replace credit card entry even for transactions started on desktops.
The two banks I use already have this, as many other banks. I already have to trust my bank, they literally have my money. I pay my taxes and sign them thru my bank, I do transfers, I pay subscriptions, etc. everything with my bank signature.
Apple is what is stopping more apps to use my bank signature to pay directly thru it. Apple is stopping more secure banking to able to take a piece of the cake.
> The App Store review process stops it.
No, that is not how apple review process works. Many content is server-side. Pop-ups are send from the server to your game/app. Games and app have browsers that can render anything and communicate anywhere.
The App review process may catch some obvious things, but it cannot know what an app connected to the internet is going to do.
Even malware, that should be way easier to detect and stop , way easier than to stop a pop-up asking for your credit card, pass thru their system: https://www.wandera.com/ios-trojan-malware/
Ah yes, one of the scarier trojans to hit your phone: click-jacking for ad fraud.
> The apps communicate with a known command and control (C&C) server to simulate user interactions in order to fraudulently collect ad revenue.
I'd download this malware any day over the actually-malicious Android malware that's out there: https://forensics.spreitzenbarth.de/android-malware/
but it’s not an excuse to limit our freedoms
Should every Apple user have to be tied down to Apple Store because kids and grannies can be dummies when downloading apps? Surely it should be easy to put parental controls and block all the dodgy apps and so forth. So things can stay the same for those who wish to remain in the App Store while having the ability to exercise your personal freedom to decide which apps you want to install on a device you own and paid good money for.
But I definitely don't want to see more stores or payment methods for digital goods on my i-devices.
What’s the concern? All cards are zero liability, and you should be checking your statements anyway due to fraud risks.
Besides that, entering card info is a chore. Same as I don't want to signup for every app (which is solved by apple login mostly), I don't want to enter payment info for every app (and update it whenever the card expires lol).
Why don't you not use it or go elsewhere then? Everyone who uses iPhone to play games just got told to switch to Android. It's easy to switch!
But obviously I cannot make a blanket statement on all consumers since many of them do value a small increase in convenience very highly.
Either way I don’t think there’s a legal precedent for a class action
But you won’t be able to update any more (unless that is via side-channel? I don’t know how mobile games work), which, for a multiplayer game, is as good as deleting it.
> After all, Epic is not taking anything off the top here;
Apple and Google take 30% and they are giving a 20% discount if you pay directly, so isn't there a 10% difference that they would be taking "off the top"?
Or am I missing something?
I'm glad Epic are giving this issue so much publicity - I think consumers seeing the pricing effects of the 30% App Store/Play Store cut is the only way to get people to care about this stuff.
What better demonstration could Epic possibly create of how the App Store leads to price increases?
Epic could still turn around and say "well, the price would be even lower if not for Sony and Microsoft," but I'm not sure how much they want to piss off the console manufacturers, who—all things considered—probably have more power as far as Epic is concerned.
The other elephant in the room, IMO, is that V-Bucks don't actually cost Epic anything. They're just bits, and Epic could set the price to whatever they want without much consequence.
More than anything else, I see Epic's stunt as a wake-up call. It doesn't quite stand up under scrutiny—but, once you've scrutinized the situation, you can also find better demonstrations of the problem, such as Spotify.
V-Bucks whilst costing nothing to create are exchanged for things that did cost money to create and as a means to fund the existence of the game itself.
Right, but the only scarcity of the "good" is that which Epic creates. If more people have V-Bucks, then current skins are less exclusive and become less valuable. I don't think the cost of V-Bucks has an impact on consumer buying power, except in the most pedantic sense.
I don't mean to imply that The Emperor Has No Clothes; the less revenue Epic gives to Apple, the more revenue Epic has to improve Fortnite for their customers. Rather, I think this all speaks to the paucity of the US's current antitrust standard. As long as Facebook is "free", they can be as anti-competitive as they like, and prices will not increase. But consumers pay in other ways—with their data, with their eyeballs, and by missing out on products that never had the chance to exist.
Can't you argue this about any software? A copy of an expensive, downloadable software is always "just bits", and the marginal cost of selling one more copy is ridiculously low, but that doesn't mean the software itself is free. In order to sell those V-Bucks, Epic had to spend millions in order to develop, market, run and support a game that people actually want to play.
For example, you could have two businesses with 100% market share in an industry, and have a contract between the two stating "we will not provide benefits, or salaries exceeding $X, to employees in this sector" and you have zero anti-trust issues because it doesn't increase consumer prices.
Abysmal.
As far as 'getting into programming' goes, Sweeney is probably second only to Anders Heljsberg. Where the latter got me into 'proper' programming, until well into my late teens I was more interested in level editing and modding and whatnot.
In the same way that it was amazing to find out that the same guy was behind Turbo Pascal, Delphi and Typescript, it was amazing to discover that ZZT and UnrealED, years apart, were also just one guy. I spent so much time with these tools!
Or...make a sudden update to their TOS
If Apple takes down Fortnite here, the DOJ takes down the App Store.
And if Apple prevents Epic from selling direct with a much lower processing fee (note the 20% price cut is similar to the 30%/12% difference between their store fees), Apple is directly preventing competition that would lower prices for consumers.
Which is to say, even if the current laws allow Apple to act here, if it does, the next laws might prohibit it from doing so.
Sure there is. It has a monopoly over apps that consumers install on apple phones.
That is a huge market, and one that apple has monopoly control over.
Apple will not take kindly to this. Best case scenario for Epic (and Fortnite players): they invite Sweeney in for some hard negotiations. Worst case: Fortnite ends up getting removed from iOS for this.
Google doesn't force payments to go through its channels based on some conditions. A lot of app developers including Apple makes use of this.
So it might just survive on Play Store.
Google at the very least can point to that, Apple cannot.
Is that against Apple's store terms? Because that's a common feature of ReactNative based app, you can update them by deploying new JS files without having to pass by a new app store release.
I think the point of contention is not that people can add new content without a full app store review. Any app that can access the Internet can do that[see rant below]. The point of contention is whether a direct payment option violates Apple guidelines.
Personally, I think adding a payment option should not violate guidelines. What should violate guidelines is if they do NOT offer Apple pay at a rate at or below their lowest price elsewhere. Yes, Apple gets a cut of the proceeds if the user chooses to use Apple pay. No, it should not against the law as long as Apple allows the user to pay using alternate means within the app.
No, the app publisher (Epic) may not
1. NOT offer Apple Pay (sorry for double negative)
2. Discourage users from using Apple Pay (rewarding people for using other payment options by means such as offering lower prices elsewhere, exclusive content, etc)
3. Make it difficult to use Apple Pay (by increasing friction as opposed to other means within the app, I'm a bit torn on this one).
I think all of these points are fair. The only thing I think Apple should allow is let people add payment method other than Apple Pay.
[rant] Unrelated rant: No third-party app (not published by Apple) should have access to the Internet by default. An app should prompt the user for the ability to access the Internet.
Imagine going to Walmart and telling them what you want them to give you all the revenue. Walmart will tell you exactly what they want to pay you, or you can leave.
Maybe 30% is too much, but 0% is a terrible idea.
In the old days before the web I had to pay up to 70% for distribution for my apps. If I was lucky I might get my cut 3-6 months later, plus I had to pay for the packaging and shipping to the warehouse and take it back if they didn't sell enough. 30% seems like a bargain.
The majority of software sold for computers isn't sold through the Microsoft store or Apple store, it's through other channels with much lower costs. Apple won't let you load apps onto the hardware you own unless they go through the App store and pay the Apple tax.
Developers (and users) shouldn't settle for "better than retail, even if it's worse than the open web".
There is no reason our phones need to be so locked down today that they only allow apps to be easily installed via the app store.
Instead the app store should be able to stand on it's own and developers should be able to decide if the exposure gained by it is worth the cost.
In the old days it cost your distributors much more to distribute those apps. Charging $1 for 99¢ of work is okay; charging $1 for 10¢ of work is not. With competition, this is rarely a problem, but no one can compete with the App Store—short of creating an entirely new OS and getting everyone to port their apps.
I'm a mobile game dev and I would sacrifice a child to go back to the days when people would pay 0.99 for a game.
You can't set arbitrary prices - only price bands.
Apple really should shake up that market, though it's hard to say how a $0.99 minimum would work out in the end.
Apple decided, a long time ago, that their platform would not be a gaming platform. Even though they often show off games at WWDC, they aren't really there for much more than eye-candy, to get developers thinking about using the base tech for other purposes.
I would love to be able to play better games on my Mac. I have a few games on the iPad (none from Epic), and I really only play solitaire on my phone.
For all the scorn heaped on Mac as a "toy" computer, it's a terrible gaming platform. iOS, on the other hand, is supposed to be a big gaming platform, so Fortnite might be quite important, there.
Your Walmart analogy would make more sense if Walmart sold tickets for admission. For example, Costco, a store that does in fact sell memberships, does buy and resell some products for no margin or even at a loss in order to cultivate a variety of goods to incentivize people to maintain a membership.
Of course, but that's beside the point. This is bait. Epic can point to it later as an example of how Apple's anti-competitive practices increase consumer prices. The worst-case scenario for Epic is that Fortnite gets removed from the App Store for a few days.
...well, I guess the worst worst-case scenario for Epic is that Fortnite gets banned permanently, but I don't see Apple doing that.
>No. Thousands of apps on the App Store approved by Apple accept direct payments, including commonly used apps like Amazon, Grubhub, Nike SNKRS, Best Buy, DoorDash, Fandango, McDonalds, Uber, Lyft, and StubHub. We think all developers should be free to support direct payments in all apps. [0]
All of these services provide something physical. You can't buy Kindle Books, for example, on Amazon's app on iOS. This a bit disingenuous.
>We think all developers should be free to support direct payments in all apps.
Does this mean Epic will start allowing users of the Epic Games Store on PC to directly pay game developers and bypass the EGS cut?
[0] https://www.epicgames.com/site/en-US/fortnite-mega-drop-faq
AFAIK they've already been allowing use of other payment processors for in-app purchases since last year, and are not taking any cut from those sales. They did actually put their money where their mouth is, on this one.
I don't see how it's disingenuous, the question was "are these purchases less safe". They said "No, and here are some examples".
Whether the item is physical or not, I don't see how it makes the transaction "less safe"?
But if you are a valid consumer, making a valid purchase with your card, the purchase being fraudulent is not the concern.
The "safety" implication is that any company that is not Apple will lose your payment information, or your payment info will be intercepted, etc.
There are many companies who are perfectly capable of handling PCI that are not Apple.
That argument definitely implies that non-App Store methods are unsafe.
Are you asking whether Epic will start "allowing" people to buy PC games via direct purchase or steam or twitch or GOG the way they've been doing for decades?
People can already buy PC titles anywhere they like. EGS, direct purchase, steam, GOG, twitch, whatever. There's nothing to allow.
This is unrelated to them supporting their 'direct pay to developers' stance on their own storefront. And no, people can't 'buy PC titles anywhere they like' as every game is not multiplatform / storefront.
Then they already do what you're asking for. Games on EGS can have direct payments and EGS doesn't take a cut.
> And no, people can't 'buy PC titles anywhere they like' as every game is not multiplatform / storefront.
People can buy PC titles anywhere the developer chooses to sell them. Kind of assumed that last bit went without saying.
And why would Epic do that? Apple doesn't allow you to buy apps on the app store without the cut. Epic is not advocating that. Nobody is advocating that. Rather, Epic is allowing in-app purchases in their app without giving apple a cut.
The question would be, when you sell a game on EGS, can you allow in app purchases outside of EGS? Does somebody know the answer to this?
If you follow Tim Sweeney and Epic's history surrounding "app store cuts", you'd know that they've always stood on the side of developers. The EGS stands among the lowest app store cuts of any marketplace, at 12%, and Tim has become visibly angry during public appearances concerning Apple, Google, etc and their 30% cut.
Additionally, we're talking about a platform that disallows any alternative installation and distribution mechanisms. The PC ecosystem is vibrant, unlike the forced one-app-store on iOS and the defacto-one-app-store on Android. If a developer wants to control their cut on Windows, they can sell via their own site, or itch.io (which allows developers to select what percentage itch.io receives), or Steam and their 30% cut, or wherever they'd like.
Lmfao at claiming that much moral superiority over a 2xish difference. I’m sure hes become visibly angry, John Legere was a character too, it’s a show.
"No, but we'll screw you for less than Steam."
12% may be less than 30%, but it's still the same business practice that they're decrying when it's applied to them. That's hypocrisy.
The core issues at play with Apple have always been: (1) there's no competition, and (2) 30% is too high. The EGS makes strides in fixing both of these issues: Game developers are not forced to release on EGS, as there are a dozen competitors on Windows, and the revenue share is now 12%. Epic does sign exclusivity deals with third-parties, which often have multi-million dollar values to them (they paid ~$10M to Remedy for one-year exclusive rights to Control); again, while we can argue about the negative impact this has on consumers, its very positive for developers.
https://twitter.com/TimSweeneyEpic/status/128961139770219724...
https://twitter.com/TimSweeneyEpic/status/128922755043103129...
https://twitter.com/TimSweeneyEpic/status/128852123070273945...
My inside sources tell me that this move is intended to start a legal battle with Apple and Google.
I really love Epic.
For many, their iOS device (iPad or iPhone) is their primary computing device.... it is not like a PS4, which is mainly for games.
Back in the 90's If Microsoft didn't get 'checked' with a threat to be broken up, we would have ended up with Pay MSFT 30% tax on every software you installed and purchased.
It it time to 'check' both Apple and Google on their practices... In this case, Google at least allows some sideloading, while apple doesn't at all...
So, I expect Apple is going to be the losing end of the history... but as long as they can keep doing it, and make profits out of it, they will be doing.
I was alive and working during the 90's and a massive linux/freebsd user then. What Microsoft was doing, forcing the hardware manufacturers to install windows or lose their business - forcing the bundling of internet explorer, is absolutely and completely different than what Apple is doing. It's their platform, the are not forcing any one to do anything.
Windows is their platform, their choice for what's installed with it and who can sell computers with windows on it
A monopoly is a monopoly, friend.
> No one is forced to make games for Apple.
Monopoly laws supersede this argument.
> no one has the right to walk into that store and tell me I can't take a cut of the profits
Actually, if a business has a monopoly on a certain market, then there absolutely are things that a person can demand that they do.
It just goes to show 30% is far from unusual - especially in the gaming industry. In fact 30% seems to be the benchmark.
Retailers like Best Buy take 30% of video game sales too.
Here's an article with a useful graphic that shows the cut through common gaming distribution channels: https://www.ign.com/articles/2019/10/07/report-steams-30-cut...
For games, 30% is not unusual for distribution.
Would this just result in every app being free, but using (non-apple) IAP to gain access to any content beyond the opening screen?
If I were Apple, I'd make my payments optional. They're so seamless that as a customer, I'd probably still use them unless I were getting a substantial discount to do otherwise, and sometimes even then. They could do something like give developers the option to sign up to use it exclusively for a reduced rate. It'd be one less bullet for the anti-trust regulators, and app store revenues are only about 4% of Apple's revenue anyway.
Yes, but all IAPs now go through Apple and they get their 30% cut.
> hey're so seamless that as a customer, I'd probably still use them unless I were getting a substantial discount to do otherwise, and sometimes even then
Well, every app would easily be able to offer you a 25% discount (30% - 5% to account for transaction fees), since they would not be paying the Apple fee.
Since when have companies passed on fee decreases to their customers instead of accepting the effectively free higher margins?
Since companies had to compete with other companies. The moment the Apple tax is lifted, at least one company will lower prices. Other companies will be forced to follow suit. I'm not saying ALL the price decrease will be passed to consumers, but some of it definitely will. Especially since a lot of these goods are currently sold at a mark up on the App Store right now.
App developers set their prices at whatever maximizes revenue (which is often determined by testing) and the payment processing fee has no effect. It's more like Coke pricing at an airport than Coke pricing at a gas station with another gas station next door.
I expect they'd offer whatever discount maximized revenue, so the real question is how much of a discount do they need to offer to get you to switch from app store payments to some other method? Other methods are largely pretty seamless these days too, so the answer is probably not much. I expect consumers would barely benefit.
(Source: been doing games with IAPs for 13 years).
Now if I'm given the options of accepting App store payments at 30%, and let's say PayPal at 3%, I'm going to offer the customer a little discount to switch to PayPal. That too will be whatever discount maximizes profit. That wouldn't be too hard to determine with testing, and would depend on how easy the payment methods are and how much customers love the convenience/security of Apple's payment system.
For me as a consumer, if I got offered a 10% discount and had something comparably easy to use I'd probably go with it on small transactions. If I had to enter a credit card, I'm not going to bother on a $1 or maybe even $10 purchase for that little.
If Apple allows non-apple payment without major restrictions, it's revenue from app store will trend towards zero (save for inertia).
I think it's fine. It's a tiny part of their overall profits. Like sub 5%. If it gets antitrust regulators off their back it's well worth it.
The problem with Apple Pay is a) it is forced as the only option, and b) it is hidden from the user; you may never realize that all these years you have been paying for a service on your iPhone, you could have instead gone to the publisher's website and saved a lot of money.
As far as I know, you can't use Apple's store without Apple's hardware. So my point is that Apple is getting paid.
Ugh.
Anyway, this should be absolutely fascinating to watch how the antitrust cases against the app stores go!
That's a weird thing to read in a place populated by software people.
how come you would pay for the sounds recorded off musicians, but not the pictures/animations made by game developers?
In the end, both Epic and Apple are big corporations that should not be blindly trusted, but my money is on Sweeney, I have greater faith in the uber-nerd vs the perfect production manager.
I have greater faith in the company with over $200 billion cash on hand, that can throw a ton of money at a long drawn out court battle.
No matter who wins between Epic and Apple human people lose. They're both walled garden monopolists.
Not when Epic paid the devs to make them exclusive (either permanently or time-limited): https://www.gamewatcher.com/news/Epic-games-store-exclusives
Unless you are referring to warez as the other source, of coursse
This was the comparison, which is obviously wrong. Apple has a monopoly and a walled garden. Neither does Epic have a monopoly with their store, nor a walled garden, as the PC is not a walled garden.
So, no. There was nothing said about exclusives.
> Epic has no "walled garden".
Epic is explicitly a walled garden regarding the games it has paid to be exclusive within that walled gardren (Permanently or temporarily).
> The PC is an open platform. An iPhone is not.
You are conflating hardware / software here. PC hardware is an open platform. The software is running on it is not necessarily. You could be running Linux or Windows for example. (Of which only Windows has an official Epic Games Launcher client).
> If I don't like the Epic store, I can install software from other sources just fine.
We are talking about the context of games so "software" means a particular game of which there is only one. Not "Any random note-taking application". Therefore, in the context of games, no you cannot get that software (game) legally from any other source if Epic paid for it to be exclusive.
It's only a walled garden if there is no other option to distribute your games but with that company... so either an enforced monopoly (Apple) or de-facto monopoly (Steam, but this is arguable).
That's not what walled garden means. PC game developers can sell their games any number of ways - if they choose one way instead of others that's up to them. For iOS there's no choice - either you sell through Apple or you don't support iOS. Hence "walled garden".
In short: if you have to pay people to come into your garden, it's not walled. ;)
For a developer I agree with you, it is not a walled garden, they can sell games however they want, epic is one option who happen to be the only one that pays, out of all the stores, 3rd parties for exclusivity.
For a customer it is a walled garden for those exclusive games in that I cannot play those games without having to install and sign-up for the Epic Games Store because they paid to make them exclusive (again, permanently or temporarily).
As a customer, if the game company has better chances of surviving paying their employees a decent wage, making quality games that I can enjoy, I'm interested in the game being exclusive.
As a customer, if the market could have more store options other than Steam so prices can be more competitive and developers can choose better deals, I'm interested in games being exclusive.
Also as a customer I can decide to just not play the game because of exclusivity and move on.
Why is Mario not on Steam? Why is The Last of Us or Uncharted not on PC? Yeah it sucks games are not ubiquitous but it's not always in the best interest of game developers to distribute their games everywhere and I think it should be perfectly understandable from the point of view of customers.
Also, from the point of view of Epic, I guess it's expected they want something in return for funding projects.
I don't get the anger people direct towards Epic when in fact they are doing a good thing for the market that very few companies would have the power to do.
I guess it comes down to if you think having another game store & launcher installed in your PC is free (not speaking just monetarily here) or not. If you think it is free then there is no downside.
If you think it is not free: * Another app to manage * Another company to syphon data * Another place you you have to register a credit card * Another place where you have to add your friends or hope there is cross-store play
Then you will be annoyed that they have artificially restricted access to a game you could otherwise have bought directly or on your store / launcher of choice, e.g. Steam, GOG, with the only limitation being what the the developer wanted to release on.
Now I think EGS is mostly time-based exclusivity (I think there are maybe single digit permanently exclusive games on EGS) but the point still rankles. You can argue "Short term pain" (exclusives, assuming that stays short-term) for long term gain (more store competition) but that is not a guarantee.
> Yeah it sucks games are not ubiquitous but it's not always in the best interest of game developers to distribute their games everywhere and I think it should be perfectly understandable from the point of view of customers.
Many people, myself included, do not want the console exclusivity wars to be something that migrates to PC where there is 0 need for it (i.e. you are not developing your game on two completely different console architectures which adds to cost, maybe adding some store integration code only.) Especially paid exclusives.
Epic is the only PC store that will pay developers to restrict consumer choice by limiting distribution to their store (temporarily or permanently) only on what would otherwise be a competitive marketplace of stores on the PC platform. No other game store does this.
No, you are.
>Epic is explicitly a walled garden regarding the games it has paid to be exclusive within that walled gardren (Permanently or temporarily).
That doesn't make the PC a walled garden. And we compare PC with iPhones here. Not Apple Appstore vs. Epicstore.
How is that not a walled garden?
[0]https://www.gamewatcher.com/news/Epic-games-store-exclusives
Huh? When people talk about iOS being a walled garden they're referring to the fact that iOS apps can only be bought and sold via Apple. Consumers on that platform have no alternatives, and if Apple doesn't want a given app sold then it can't be bought.
EGS exclusives are nothing like that - anybody can sell PC games any way they like. If some particular developer chooses to sell their game via EGS and not other stores, that's up to the developer.
It's not a walled garden if people can enter and exit any time they like.
I don’t personally have a problem with Apple taking a cut - they are doing work, after all, but I think it should be more along the lines of covering the transaction fees and less “we’re taking a third of your hard work”.
But on my PC I can buy games at other places too, I just prefer Steam due to convenience. It's very different than having to buy your games on a platform from someone specific.
I'm not sure I agree here.
As a consumer, competition is good for me if I either get something I didn't already, or if I get the same but cheaper. EGS provides neither: it has less features than its competitors, and the prices are either the same, or the games are exclusives, making comparisons impossible. Exceptions, like Outer Worlds, cost exactly the same on Microsoft Store as it does on Epic Store.
The consumer gets nothing. They just get another meaningless alternative, another scavenger for their attention, loyalty and wallets.
Let's see:
- games aren't cheaper on the Epic store, in spite of the allegedly smaller cut the store is supposed to take
- they're Windows only (and here comes the China reference, they only know about Windows in there)
- their store still doesn't have a shopping cart (i may not be current on this)... reeks of incompetence? Can you trust them with your credit card info?
- they have bribed developers to give them exclusivity, preventing me to get the games on the store of my choice.
- btw the above means Steam but also GoG. You people calling out Steam for being a monopoly, how many titles have you bought on GoG?
- Epic's only meaningful contribution to gaming since Unreal II is... a free to play arena shooter? Is that even a game? I can't afford free to play games, sorry.
Do you really think that if the Epic Store somehow manages to "win", it will be better for us customers in any way?
It's sad that the only entity fighting Apple's monopoly is... another would be monopolist.
They are literally handing out free games, Total War: Troy, a brand new game, its free today
>they're Windows only (and here comes the China reference, they only know about Windows in there)
Games will not have first class support for linux for years to come, this is not indicative of the linux platform, simply that the market is tiny and developer time is better spent on supporting platforms that are widely used.
>they have bribed developers to give them exclusivity, preventing me to get the games on the store of my choice.
Seems to be a pretty simple calculus to me. Epic is willing to pay developers and publishers to have exclusive access to their games. Steam takes a 30% cut, Epic takes 12%. I would take that deal in a heartbeat.
>btw the above means Steam but also GoG. You people calling out Steam for being a monopoly, how many titles have you bought on GoG?
plenty, they offer a useful service by providing older games with support for modern OS. They have their niche within the ecosystem but they are by and large not competing with Steam
>Epic's only meaningful contribution to gaming since Unreal II is... a free to play arena shooter? Is that even a game? I can't afford free to play games, sorry.
Besides Fortnite being an economic and cultural phenomenon, they are very generous with providing access to their Unreal Engine software, even cutting the cost of using it until they the developers are actually generating revenue.
Before EGS rolled around, Linux momentum on getting games support was amazing. Steam lets you run the vast majority of games on Linux now.
Most developers will not spend time on supporting Linux natively. It's a shame, but that's the economic of it.
The fact that there are only X% of gamers on Linux/Mac OS may be justification for you, but why would I go near a store that doesn't support my platform of choice? As I said, they're not offering ME a better deal.
> plenty, they offer a useful service by providing older games with support for modern OS. They have their niche within the ecosystem but they are by and large not competing with Steam
When have you last bought a game on GoG then? They have quite a few new titles. Everything I backed on kickstarter lately came with a GoG key, for example. Except Phoenix Point - they took the Epic bribe so I won't get to play it.
> Besides Fortnite being an economic and cultural phenomenon.
I can't afford free to play games. Even if the IAPs are all cosmetic, you can't say the design wasn't affected by their presence. For example, by making cosmetic items unobtainable or very hard to obtain through normal game play. If i wanted to grind more I'd keep up my WoW subscription thank you.
Hint: all the money coming from Tencent were made via predatory free to play mobile games, mostly in the Asia region where it's even worse than in the west.
> WRT the shopping cart, I think you're reading too much into not being able to buy 2 games at once. FWIW I've NEVER bought two games at once on Steam.
I don't buy games on launch, even if i'm in a hurry i wait for a couple reviews. Also I suppose I have more money than time so I buy my games in batches on sales, since I know I won't get to play 90% of them. Yes, I need a shopping cart.
Anyway, this is all nitpicking. The main thing is that by supporting their bribing you encourage them, and their pay to win attitude will be very very bad for you as a consumer if they manage to kill their competition.
I also take issue with you calling exclusive games 'bribes'. They are looking out for their own self interest, and that includes not paying Steam a 30% cut on all of their sales. It's called competition, not a bribe. If another employer contacted you and said they would offer a 30% pay raise on your current salary, are you really going to say that 1. that's a bribe, and 2. you wouldn't take it?
Also, denying that Fortnite has not made its mark on society is missing the forest for the trees. I don't play it, I have no desire to play it, but I can see how important it's been to the industry and how much it's effected society.
... except both Steam and GoG can do it isn't it? :)
> I also take issue with you calling exclusive games 'bribes'. They are looking out for their own self interest, and that includes not paying Steam a 30% cut on all of their sales. It's called competition, not a bribe.
No, the exclusives are paid money upfront on a certain amount of estimated sales, which they don't have to return no matter what the actual sales are. They're not going exclusive just for the lower commission.
Ref: https://gamerant.com/epic-games-store-exclusive-deal/
The juicy bit: When doing the math, looking at Fig's stake (50%) and the 85% dividend rate (how much Fig gives to investors), this means that Epic Games will have had to have given Snapshot Games approximately $2,247,058 for the Phoenix Point exclusivity rights.
> Also, denying that Fortnite has not made its mark on society is missing the forest for the trees. I don't play it, I have no desire to play it, but I can see how important it's been to the industry and how much it's effected society.
I'm sure the society would have been better without IAPs. Not all the marks something leaves are desirable.
Also, it's "affected". Random ref: https://www.diffen.com/difference/Affected_vs_Effected
1. As I have said, 99% of games do not provide linux first class support. A compatibility layer using existing libraries is not the same thing,
2. What you call bribing is actually competition. If you believe that there is criminal bribery going on, I'm sure the Feds would be more than happy to look at the evidence. Publishers and developers do not owe you anything, and I would rather they take the extra cut and either pay their employees/shareholders, or develop better games.
30% is unconscionable, and I cannot wait until the App Store is forced to be spun off or forced to lower their margin, and Steam is being out competed by Epic.
Right? I'm not a potential paying customer? They owe me everything.
I don't understand this publisher worship going on.
Windows only is fine. From a purely pragmatic point of view, other platforms are such a small fraction of the gaming market, it really doesn't make sense to support them. Companies have tried supporting OSX and Linux for years (decades?) now, but there just aren't enough players to justify it (much less than 5%).
There is absolutely nothing wrong with Epic paying developers for exclusivity. There is fundamentally nothing different about that than Valve selling their own first-party game exclusively on their own store (Half-life, Portal, DOTA, etc).
If you don't know about Epic's contributions to gaming, then you're just out of touch. Fortnite is a huge deal, but there's also stuff like Gears of War, and of course Unreal Engine 4 itself.
I absolutely do think if Epic wins, it will be better both for consumers and game developers like myself. I don't think you understand the mindset of Tim Sweeney if you think he is super monopolist.
Oh, TIL.
Hmm why isn't Epic the games developer suing Valve for that?
I have ~24 games in my Epic games library from this and 6 work on Macs. Not exactly Windows only (but way way moreso than Steam)
WRT the shopping cart, I think you're reading too much into not being able to buy 2 games at once. FWIW I've NEVER bought two games at once on Steam. I buy most of my stuff on Amazon without using a cart.
Exclusivity kinda sucks, although at least the PC/Mac platforms can support both Epic and Steam and GoG! Sucks even harder for PS or Xbox players.
WRT contribution to gaming, the Unreal Engine seems like a small contribution...
Lastly, Fortnite isn't to everyone's tastes but it is IMO a very fun and unique game with the build mechanic. Free-to-play implies pay-to-win and that's not the case. Virtual goods are cosmetic not stuff like levelling up faster
PS. I do prefer Steam and appreciate Valve's contributions
The rest are not related to price. A shopping cart, for example, is just a feature. And the Apple and Linux gaming markets are so small that its generally not worth developing for them unless compatibility comes free with your engine. The EGS store was intended primarily as a sales vehicle for Fortnite, with support for other games being grafted on over time...the same way that the Steam store got its start. Steam used to be an utter piece of shit too, and it took years for them to get to where they are today. (Note: Epic's Unreal Engine actually does support Apple and Linux, however the anti-cheat mechanisms in Fortnite wouldn't work on either platform, and given the almost-daily updates required it would require a fairly hefty user base on those platforms to justify support.)
By they way, Epic contributed Unreal Engine to the world. Only a few thousand games are made on it, including the world's current most popular game, Fortnite. Other notable games using the current version of Unreal Engine include Crash Bandicoot, the newest Batman game, Final Fantasy 7 Remake, Gears of War 4 and 5, Hellblade, Kingdom Hearts, Minecraft Dungeons, NBA 2K, PUBG, Sea of Thieves, Star Wars JFO, System Shock remake, The Outer Worlds, and oddly enough Youshi's Crafted World.
UE3 was around long enough that all of the original Mass Effects used the engine. Other notable games on the UE3 engine include the Medal of Honor series, Mortal Kombat, Rocket League, XCOM, Tom Clancy games, Infinity Blade (one of the games credited with making iOS a gaming powerhouse), Gears of War 1-3, Devil May Cry, Borderlands 1 and 2, and the older Batman Arkham games.
Steam hasn't improved or fixed serious bugs for years because they have had no serious competition, all while taking a massive cut from developers' sales. On top of that, their game development stagnated and they really haven't given much back to gamers or game developers aside from a common store front and launcher (both of which suffer from numerous technical failures and poor engineering).
Meanwhile, Epic has developed kickass games and licensed the kickass engine behind it to game devs for pretty reasonable terms, and recently removed them wholesale for games under $1mm in revenue and waiving the license fee for release on their store (so they're not double dipping on the same games' revenues).
Epic has consistently worked to deliver better products cheaper to consumers and to make them easier to create for developers.
If we take a holistic view of what Epic has done versus Valve, we can excuse them a bit for buying an exclusive here or there to kickstart adoption. It's baffling to me that they even need to, because their software runs laps around Valve's.
Uhm, what?
Epic has delivered Unreal Engine 4 – good for them. They've also released a successful battle royale, piggybacking off of other developers' success and rolled out a crappy store/launcher, a straight downgrade from every single competitor, that they actively force on people by literally buying their portfolio. Nobody would ever install EGS if the monopolist didn't bully their way onto the market.
Meanwhile Valve has been pushing VR, extending Steam (with Proton, Remote Play etc) to the point where it's actually an added value over the games you buy on it, attempting (successfully or not, depending on who you ask) to revolutionize gaming controllers... what exactly did Epic do for gaming, other than release the next iteration of their already successful engine?
For example, there's no VR for them to "push" without companies like Epic giving out engines to develop VR content for free.
Personally this statement:
> a straight downgrade from every single competitor
I strongly disagree with. Steam is awful on every machine I have it installed on, and it does everything worse than other programs. Browsing the store is faster and has fewer bugs in Firefox than it does in the Steam client. All my chat is in discord. I play several games that don't play well with a 4k resolution available and have to change my display resolution pretty regularly in between launching games, for this to work in steam one must manually kill all the background processes and relaunch steam. Never mind that in 2020, they're shipping a 32 bit binary.
Proton is cool and admirable. Steam is not. Origin, Epic, etc are all pieces of software that "just work." I can browse my library, buy new games, and launch them just fine. Everything else is better handled by other programs anyway, and Steam is so bug ridden that they don't need to buy exclusives for me to pick Epic over them.
That's part of my point – EGS (and Steam, arguably) does nothing that you actually need for gaming itself. It may have some extra features, but that's not the core idea. We've been buying and launching games forever without them.
Now they're forced upon us however, and it's worth looking into what kind of value they give us. When I buy a game on Steam I can refund it if I don't like it, I can share it with my family when I'm not playing (not as good as a DRM-free copy, but closer than others still), play it on Linux even if it's unsupported, play it remotely from a weaker computer or a phone.
EGS in comparison provides me with a negative value. Not only it doesn't provide anything worth paying for (it's 2020 and "it's a downloader" is not really a selling point anymore), it's actually a negative value imo – were I to pirate the game I'd at least not have to install any additional crapware on my computer and open yet another account which will probably hoard my personal data forever.
I'm not saying Steam has the best client as a software – yes, it absolutely sucks. Galaxy or itch.io (and possibly EGS) have built far better working software – but it's still the software I don't need. With Steam the extras are at least compelling enough to justify using it over the alternatives. You do actually get more from it than you do from piratebay – something I can't say about EGS.
> Valve is a middleman, Epic creates values
I'd put it differently – Valve innovates, while Epic iterates. Epic built another engine. Another successful BR game. They're forcing yet another launcher. Their only positive impact on gaming is their engine – making them the "middleman" you mentioned. I'm excited for VR, and what HL:Alyx will inspire people to create. I'm not excited for yet another game on Texture Popping Engine 4.
Try to buy more than one game at a time on EGS
What are the examples where that happened?
They rarely buy game companies. With Psyonix they are making Rocket League free to play and won't be able to download it on Steam, but will still be on a bunch of platforms.
Is "monopolist" now just used to mean "big"?
The ; at the end of yours breaks it
Their app store link doesn't work https://apps.apple.com/us/app/fortnite/id1261357853
If Fortnite gets banned, they'll stay that way for a long time unless they remove direct payment.
So, you use your browser, login to epicstore with your account, purchase v-bucks at 20% discount and you use those v-bucks in all Epic Games regardless the platform.
Which apps are allowed to open the browser for payments? I don't think even Netflix isn't allowed to do it. They just say "You can't make an account in the app" (paraphrasing) on the sign in page.
Then in the app the Apple/Play payment method is explicitly not discounted.
Things are about to get interesting.
That's a bold promise if Apple shuts the practice down. Will need to go back on the promised permanency or take the loss.
Also, if a significant amount of purchase volume comes from iOS users, this could save them money.
Also Epic: We'll be locking as many games as we can afford behind Epic Store exclusive contracts since our store isn't good enough to compete with Steam on functionality or price.
Indeed this is huge, well it will be huge if the app is still in the store by tomorrow ... I wonder what apple will do? I wonder if apple greenlighted this? If they didn’t get this greenlighted, I wonder how they bypassed the Apples app review process (in app updates instead of a store update?)?
I can’t wait to see how all of this unfolds, years ago I was part of a team that built a music app that got refused in the app store because we had included payments via a credit card processor, bypassing the 30% apple tax and today I’m in the process of building another app which is impacted by this … I also imagine companies like spotify are following this very closely
> Update 1 > Apple has blocked your access to Fortnite on iOS devices! Take Action! #FreeFortnite
... well that answers a some of my questions ;)
I've had to update multiple apps that took donations, in order to pay for development work, and Apple absolutely won't let that fly anymore. On Apple's behalf, this unacceptable, illegal, and infuriating. I might consider joining a class-action lawsuit like this one: https://www.hbsslaw.com/uploads/case_downloads/apple-dev/201...
Starting today, any V-Bucks or real-money offers you purchase on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, PC, and Mac are now discounted by up to 20%. You don’t need to do anything!
> If Apple or Google lower their fees on payments in the future, Epic will pass along the savings to you.
and
> Do you play Fortnite on Android, but don’t purchase through Google Play? No problem! You’ll find that V-Bucks and real-money offers are now discounted by up to 20% through the Epic Games app at epicgames.com and the Samsung Galaxy Store.
Both of which strongly hint to the idea that its specifically the rates the Play/App Store charge at issue here, and they likely received discounted rates on competing storefronts by default.
So if Apple reduced fees to 10%, the price to pay with Apple would be the same as it is through Epic direct pay. In other words, Epic doesn't expect a 0% fee.
https://www.pcgamer.com/every-game-company-that-tencent-has-...
Their dumping power can be almost limitless.