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Comment by arduinomancer | Hacker News Reader

The whole strategy here feels pretty unprecedented.

Usually these kind of lawsuits happen in the background but Epic seems to be going full force with making it a public campaign.

> Apple is blocking your ability to get the latest Fortnite updates! All players should have a choice in payment providers and save up to 20%. Apple wants to limit your payment choices! Join the fight against @AppStore on social with #FreeFortnite

Can't imagine being in the room of Apple's PR team reacting to this.

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For better or worse, many individuals and companies have realised that the court of public opinion can have as much (or even more) of an effect than the legal system can. Hence instead of settling issues in private, now a lot of organisations are trying to set off a negative PR storm aimed at their opponents that paints them as the victim/underdog.

So that's the real goal here. To cause enough of a social media controversy/enough drama over this that Apple is pressured to back down/reverse their decision without a court case, while the court case itself is a backup in case that doesn't work.

I think we're going to see a lot more of this going forward, especially when it comes to individuals and companies going against opponents with significantly more resources than them. They may not fear your legal team/resources, but they might well fear their reputation being torn to shreds.

It really seems that the court of public opinion has risen out of a dissatisfaction with courts of law. Of course, maligning the public opinion of your opponent is not a fair way to deliver justice, and it's a kangaroo court, but I wonder - if our legal system were better, would this phenomenon still arise?

Oh man, you put this into words so well exactly what I have been thinking. We have a justice system that has massive problems, and there is very little change or improvement happening. Confidence in the system is at all time lows. It's not surprising that in these circumstances people are going to look elsewhere for whatever justice they can find.

To some degree this phenomenon might arise (simply because social media makes it really easy to form mobs/start controversies/whatever), but you're right, a lot of the reason this is so common is that people aren't happy with the legal system right now.

Does nobody else see the sheer irony of a company like Epic releasing anything touching on the topics of 1984?

I'm not a fan of what Apple is doing, and am happy to see it be tested in court.

But, I'm not a fan of another multi-million dollar company making such a blatant appeal to emotion, as if Fortnite needs to be "freed", to the common person who has no concept of how nuanced the legalities of this entire thing are.

I'll be happy when the theatrics are over with, and we can simply view the outcome of the legal precedent that is about to be set. This is a battle for the courts, not Twitter.

putting aside the farce of judiciary-as-non-political-body, why wouldn't this also be a battle for the legislatures to consider?

I was going to comment Twitter != legislature.

But uhm, fuck us right?

That's correct, Epic's not altruistic here. But who else would be able to fight Apple's lawyers if not another multi-million dollar company?

If they did so without overtly manipulating people via appeal to emotion and over-simplification, and not attempting to simultaneously run a PR campaign designed to whip people into a social media frenzy, I would not have the dirty taste in my mouth.

You should take a win when you get one.

Yes it's another Billion dollar company going against Apple, but then, who else can actually go against them and not financially ruin themselves? Smaller Indie studios definitely can't

I get their desire to have the fight be a fair one instead of Epic rallying its positively massive fanbase to suddenly start viewing Apple as the bad guy... but I also don't think it'll be that relevant to the court case. Both companies have the best lawyers money can buy, I'm sure they'll be able to throw out any "but think of the fans, look how mad they are" accusations.

I don't think the court case is the only thing that matters. iPhone sales might see a noticeable drop if Fortnite fans pull off. That would make a lot of sense, if Epic would not try to combat Google at the same time.

It’s been pulled from the google store for the same reason, so unless people don’t won’t phones doubt it’ll have any impact currently.

I think the larger move here is to start a fight, which other devs join soon after, so that eventually with critical mass, they can bully Apple into bending the knee.

It’s the same bs that tv networks pull on subscribers when they have disagreements with cable providers over the rates they get paid. They air commercials saying “Verizon is trying to keep you from seeing your favorite shows!!” when they are the ones demanding increases from Verizon et al. Newsflash: neither of the parties are the good guys. It’s all manipulative and a pathetic attempt at portraying themselves as the victim. Meanwhile consumers, the real victims, are constantly getting random price increases forced upon them with no option to go elsewhere. It’s transparent and it’s moronic, and I wish it were different.

personally, i feel very different when the dispute is "they're charging us too much" versus "they are not paying us enough", though i guess the underlying cause is the same - companies trying to profit out of the fact that they have access to consumers.

> This is a battle for the courts, not Twitter.

The legal channel isn't the only one though. Sure it would be amazing if the court would do something, but let bet honest here, like you said, it's just a billion dollar company versus another one, except a shit ton of cash, nothing will come out of it.

People need to understands the power Apple has (and Google, and so many others, too by the way). When the theatrics are over, is when people will stop caring... there's nothing good about that. People needs to be aware that companies abuse their monopoly and they need to be aware that when they choose a platform that decide to abuse their monopoly, that they help that kind of abuse.

They not only had the lawsuit in hand and ready, but an ad and a deployment strategy to get it launched in game. Epic was clearly planning to go fully public at scale on this issue.

The Apple fees must be in the order of a million dollar every couple days for Epic Games.

Expect a full-on battle of the same magnitude. It is well worth it.

You don't know that unless you know what the legal costs are, their odds of winning the suit, the lost $$ and opportunity cost due to no sales on iOS, the revenue loss from their 20% discount on V-Bucks, etc.

The existing iOS devices that have the app installed seem fine unless Apple disables the certificate. So, it won't be no sales on iOS; just no new user sales.

Also consider the massive “brand awareness” campaign that this represents.

Not that I support this action. Apple could probably go after Epic for the look and feel / copyright of the Ad.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GN9jWl4Pkmg

Still, they are unlikely to be the real issue for Epic. I'm fully expecting some anti-consumer behaviour from them if they get away with their own payment system, like difficult to cancel payments, gambling or similar.

Estimates place it higher than that [0]: "Broken down further, "Fortnite" is said to have made $1.6 million each day on Apple's devices; if Apple is pulling in its standard cut of 30%, Apple made somewhere in the realm of $136.5 million on "Fortnite" in 2018.".

[0]: https://www.businessinsider.com/how-much-does-fortnite-make-...

I mean, 136MM is a million every two days so OP is dead on.

And some here argues that Apple gets paid fairly for what they provide.. I'm sure many could build payment + distribution cheaper than 100 million dollars..

How is that higher than what the OP said? If anything, it's lower.

It's maybe in the region of $745,205.79 every two days, but sure close enough.

Apple is in a constant state of being involved in lawsuits, though of course not all are of the same significance. Their legal team has a lot on their plate.

Yeah but this was obvious from the moment they first announced the update. You don't do that without a plan, you certainly know what Apple's policy is.

What does a PR response to something to this look like? This happened late in the work day, does that mean that people stay longer, or is it handed off to a PR team in another timezone? Do executives like Tim Cook play a role in the response? I've never really thought about the PR response and would love to know more about what goes into it.

I have a feeling the lawyers and pr people are staying later and assembling the team right now?

The video also uses the word "monopoly", which plays right into the current anti-trust sentiment. Now's the best time to pull something like this. If I had to guess, Fortnite players probably drive a lot of demand for iPod Touch.

These public battles are commonplace when it comes to cable television carriage fees. The big media conglomerates will often raise fees causing a battle with the various big cable providers. Sometimes the cable providers will decide to walk away form negotiations and the media company will respond with a rash of TV commercials telling viewers to call their provider and demand they make a deal. However none of those commercials are even as well marketed as this ad.

Basecamp (dhh at least), were very vocal about Apple's app store shenanigans when Hey was under a similar threat. Not quite as loud as Epic here, but still pretty visible. Maybe dhh influenced Epic.

I'm trying to remember how active Apple's PR was during their lawsuit against Samsung. I doubt that this is the first time that a corporation has tried to polish the optics around a lawsuit.

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