Fortnite seems to have been removed from the Play Store as well
play.google.com
play.google.com
Apple and Google are gatekeepers to all mobile devices (practically), but the value they add as gatekeepers is questionable. Certainly there is some value in their delivery (and much lesser so, their security) service; but their fees are not market set (since they are effectively monopolies by device type). If there were actual competitors, their rates would be much lower... around 2-5% probably.
Google Play Store won out on Android simply because the multitude of stores was a nightmare for customers. They don’t want multiple stores, they want one store on this phone, that will also be on their next phone. Any ‘monopoly’ wasn’t seized by Google, it was pushed eagerly on them by customers craving consolidation and simplicity.
Same for me, I don’t want 5 blasted stores on my iPhone. I want one store and run by someone I trust. The same goes for my Switch too, I’m quite happy for Nintendo to run the store for it. If I don’t like how they run it, I’ll get a PS 5 or XBOX. That’s where the competition is. I have plenty of choices thanks.
The individual stores thing is actually really annoying. If you play games on Windows you're familiar with this situation. They all want to run 24/7 and cram their UI in your face at every opportunity, and you just want to play that publisher's one game. They are trying to become chat apps, and web browsers, and it's just crazy. I think my computer will explode if it sees one more web page wrapped in a "start at login" script claiming to be an "app store" or "game launcher". (Why can't these things just let me "chocolatey install" them? I know how to keep Windows apps up to date. Just accept my credit card number from inside the app. Or, horrors, a web page.)
On Windows, the underlying cause of this is "because we can". Everyone that wants a game will install an app store to get it from without thinking, because the one Microsoft offers is too limited. (They don't use Steam because it's run by a direct competitor, and Steam games kind of have that feeling like there are 3 good games in there next to 100,000,000 "I downloaded Unity this weekend, give me money!" games.)
Where I'm going with this rant is that unlimited freedom is the worst form of app distribution -- except for all the others. (I guess I have zero qualms with "go get". It works 100% of the time. Apps can't explode files all over my computer. Google provides a CDN for free.)
Which is much worse than the mobile environment. But you could still have more choice and not require the store to be running to use.
Imagine being able to go to epic games website and click “download game” and get a phone pop up “do you want to install X?”
There’s positively no need for a “store” at all.
Go get is weird. I guess it’s still federated even with GOPROXY as a middleman, but I am still not sure how I feel about all of it. It makes sense from the perspective of ensuring things don’t maliciously break, but it feels less obvious what it’s doing than I’d hope, and that probably makes many uneasy.
Also, to install games from those 3rd party platforms one still needs to install and launch those platforms. So this limits usefulness of the Galaxy.
Yes, thank you! In fact Epic is one of the worst of these stupid stores about blasting you with corner-of-screen advertising even when you’re doing nothing with it.
Not sure about this. Does valve even make games anymore? /s
The suggestion is usually correct, though. Google does a terrible job of vetting Play Store apps, but they do still have some automated safety checks, and they kick out known malware once it's found.
If you allow sideloading, you give up all of that. It's still perfectly safe if you trust what you install, but you have to make that assessment. Google can't save you.
This is exactly how I wish iOS worked. It's also basically how the Mac works nowadays, except replace "App Store" with "Apple notary service."
How would you suggest Google correctly communicate the risk?
And windows has a scary sounding checkbox when you download an .exe from the internet. So what? In the old days, it never warned you, and people were CONSTANTLY getting malware by downloading random stuff from sketchy sites.
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/08/fortnites-android-vu...
A large part of the security model on both systems is the ability to constrain what apps can do, and by ensuring those have happened.
The various privileged (in the security sense) sandbox entitlements on iOS can't be used by a malicious app because the malicious app can't get through the App Store. That significantly increases the bar for any malware. I assume the Google Play store similarly limits access to privileged system features, and I would fully expect the 3rd party stores do not.
Also personally: The Epic store is a terrible app, and signing up for it requires providing vastly more information to them than I ever wanted to, especially for only a single company's games, from a company that has no stated intent of reducing data collection and improving privacy. A company that also engages in scummy tactics like loot boxes, virtual currency, etc
Google put restrictions on Android so that third party app stores can't install in the background, auto-upgrade or batch install.
> Google Play Store won out on Android simply because the multitude of stores was a nightmare for customers.
The Play Store is the only app store on Android where users can install apps in the background, auto-upgrade apps or batch install apps.
The reason the Play Store won out on Android is because it the only app store that Google allows to have the features app stores require.
https://www.cnet.com/news/just-as-critics-feared-fortnite-fo...
On Android, the F-droid app store (https://f-droid.org/) comes closest but it has nowhere near the breadth of the Debian repos.
This would allow multiple actors to be present, while keeping things simple for the users.
The store design has a lot to do with which apps get attention.
This is exactly what F-Droid is able to do on Android, and what nearly all reasonably-popular Linux distributions have been able to do for decades.
It's basically how my Fire TV worked. I could search for a title in the home screen and it would tell me that it was on Prime Video, Hulu, Netflix or I could rent from Amazon or whatever.
Now if you were to take the package model and move it to Windows it would be the same mess we have today.
Many of us, including Apple, do not want ransomware, malware and viruses on their phone. It's not a computer. It's a phone.
I don't want 5 blasted distribution methods on my (Android) phone. I'm perfectly happy with 5 different sources, though. Put plainly: I want repositories, not stores. I get to use the same tool (app) to manage all of them, and I can add different sources if I'd like.
Just ask any android developer who develop for the Chinese market where Google is absent. It's a nightmare.
You must be representing the first generation that is anti-competition and pro-monopoly. It makes no sense that you would really want to have fewer options to buy a product. If the problem is trust, then clearly what you need is regulation, not a monopoly.
I want one just one grocery store! Want less common ingredients? NO! I just want one store! I want just one hardware store! Want some part they don't carry? Sucks to be you. Just one car store, etc...
If nothing else I at least one two stores. One for regular apps and one for porn apps. You can see steam now has lots of adult apps.
I'd love to keep Google Play off my phone if there were a competitor who did a better job at surfacing truly great apps (rather than the garbage suggestions Google spams me with) and passed on a bigger piece of the pie to publishers.
I can hardly imagine anything more pathetic than listing 4 locked down, corporate controlled devices, and calling that "choice".
To be honest, I wouldn't mind having the option to specify multiple stores that I trust the same way I do the Google Play store. I could imagine having Google Play, the Epic store, the Blizzard store, and Steam on my phone if that were necessary.
I am not worried about being spammed with stuff, as apps don't run until you open them, normally, and I already have granular controls over what notifications spam me on Android as it is.
The law exists that the strongest might not always get their way. Literally anyone hitting it /should/ have the same claims, rights, laws, and the same process as the very rich and strong when up against these enormous "legal persons". It's an ideal and we won't achieve perfection in trying to get there and there are tradeoffs with other ideals.
But let's never lose sight of the ideal of equality before the law and the strongest should not always get their way.
It's just so important. Without it, we end up with people as the enemy of the state with its monopoly on violent enforcement, then on to revolution and all that horror. I think it's an ideal that is slightly more important than the desire and profit of google and apple claiming the right to tax success and profit as though they were nation-states and the welfare of other big, well-funded profitable companies that don't like that. Regulatory capture is a disaster and an even bigger one that it first appears, be you leftist, rightist, collectivist, rugged individualist or, more hopefully, someone not so easy to label who thinks about individual issues and wants an outcome approximating what you think is best for everyone. We're all united against corruption, I have no doubt, we only disagree on whether particular cases are or are not that. The unity opposed to corruption is a thing that gets lost quite often as the division are imposed on us.
In the Android world, you still have an option. The option isn't good, you might end up limited, the user have to enable a scary checkbox, but you have an option. If Epic wants, they can create a micro store for android. The same thing they do with PCs today.
But you can't do it with an apple device. You have no option, no workaround. That's the monopoly that needs to be destroyed.
Even if both companies behaviors are detrimental for developers, Apple is way, way worst.
That all said: Sadly, this is not about freedom but about money. My bet is that Apply will lose the restrictions for Epic and they will drop the case.
This is probably going to fundamentally change the landscape. Congress accused the big players including Apple of anti consumer behavior. Not being in control of your own device (Read: not being able to side load software without paying a fee.) will be the downfall of the app store.
Maybe for the more expensive apps, but not for the $0.99 apps that consumers love. For those, 2-5% doesn't come anywhere near covering the credit card processing costs.
When I first used it, I wouldn't use very much and I would get notices from time to time that $10 was added to my account. When my usage went up, they did $20 for a while, and at one point I hit $50.
I think this is reasonable and if it makes the overall cost of a service lower I am all for it.
No developer or company is happy with the way Apple runs the App Store. Their commission is outrageously high, their approval process is slow and often arbitrary, and their tooling is god-awful. We all just put up with it because the iPhone/iPad install base is so large, we don't really have a choice.
That being said, I'm very reluctant to demand regulation that interferes with a private company's right to run its own products. After all, maybe Apple's attitude is precisely why their install base is so large.
But God I wish there was a competitor that knocked them down the leaderboard a few pegs. Android is great, but the ecosystem is too fractured for the market to force Apple to change.
The App Store isn’t made with developers in mind. It’s made for the average user. And right now the average user is pretty damn happy with Apple.
It could be the best thing to happen in this space for a while.
This is a fine - even advantageous - for open stores like F-Droid, as the target market is users who explicitly don't want more Google spyware on their phone. But for large software companies pushing out profitable apps that require Play apis, it wouldn't be feasible.
If you own an app and remove it from all App Stores, you’ll quickly see what value they add. It’s the millions of users who are able to download your product.
Most of the value is being provided by the app developers.
30 - 50% is an acceptable markup in the retail world, like a bricks and mortar store selling furniture, but the purchase of virtual currency is not the same as a retail transaction. It's closer to the sort of service a money changer provides, or even a credit card merchant. The fee for such as service should be in the range of 3 - 18%, not 30%.
Amazing coincidence that both charge 30%, isn't it?
Now that's an interesting (though highly impractical) idea!
Imagine both app stores on every phone, providing the exact same service. There's probably no room for price fixing here, because Apple's market share is far smaller than Android's, so Apple would have a significant incentive to reduce the fees (and snatch some of Google's customers.
Now add two or three other "app store providers", and things get interesting.
Let’s not forget, you can frame this as a “cost” to developers, but it can just as easily be framed as a convenience fee to consumers, I as a consumer am happy to pay it.
I agree that fees seem somewhat high but we might be underestimating the cost it takes to check all the apps. One reasonable change of law could be a requirement for cost and revenue transparency for app stores and if we are hell bent on lowering prices maybe even a stipulation that margins must remain reasonable or even that stores must be run by a separate nonprofit with its own goals and guidelines.
However, all of this seems to be more in the realm of congress and law making rather than the courts. I don’t think that there are many good legal grounds for epic here. Everyone is paying... they can’t really claim damages in a competitive market sense as they are not worse of than any competitor.
probably not. Visa takes a bigger cut than 2% when you buy a hamburger.
2. Nobody gives a shit if this is better for developers, do they? Epic could charge +30% on IAP and use the Apple IAP system which is orders of magnitude better than anything else in the market. Developers set the pricing, and Apple handles security, authentication, refunds, etc. Consumers know it's a consistent experience across the platform.
3. The only benefit anyone seems to be able to come up with here is "choice" and a misguided belief that prices would come down as if by magic. Video game publishers took up to 60% of video game sales in physical stores, but the ARP of a video game has risen since 2008 and the advent of Steam and other online stores.
4. Seems like Apple has built a successful hardware/software play at least partially based on the fact that consumers don't have to do bullshit things like entering credit card details into some third party payment gateway to buy things, or deal with different refund policies from different folks. Consumers have flocked to the platform and now its success is being used as the basis of an attempt to strip it of its competitive advantage.
5. Same thing happened in the UK with sports coverage. The English Premier League was only broadcast on Sky until a few years ago. £29.99 a month got you all the live televised top flight soccer. Now to watch all of the televised soccer in the UK you need Sky Sports, Amazon Prime Video, and BT Sport. And Sky Sports prices have not decreased in real terms. (Oh, and BT's tech infrastructure is hot garbage.) I don't know anyone who loves the experience of having three different services to deal with and paying more money. Nobody is bleating about "choice" now.
6. I object to this on exactly the same terms as I object to Spotify's bitching that IAP margins -- which have been the same since before Spotify launched -- are too thin. They operate a business where they pay sixty cents of every dollar they make to rights holders for fuck's sake. Why are they bitching at Apple telling them that if they want to do a monthly subscription and net £9.99, they need to charge £14.28? Why can Spotify try to tell Apple that the HomePod -- a fucking speaker -- should let Spotify onto the device natively (when you can already connect via Bluetooth)?
7. Nearly every online store has serious arbitrary limitations placed on it by the operator of the store. Many of these are to do with the user experience, but many of them are a means of paying the bills for something they fund (hosting, marketing, app review team, developers working on APIs). It helps them sell phones, but it's intertwined with the user experience.
8. Gruber's point stands: if you think it's OK for Microsoft to prevent Sony from selling a PlayStation game streaming service on the Xbox Store, I don't see why you have an issue with this. It's not the same as Netflix: it's more like an app store within an app store.
You're totally within your rights to think that! (My advice to you: don't start a business literally built on top of Apple's platform!)
> a couple automated API calls to process a monthly payment.
This sort of oversimplification makes it hard to take your argument seriously. I'm pretty sure you don't believe that, but just in case you do…
This article[1] suggests that Apple made $4.2bn from the App Store in the 10 years between 2008 and 2018.
Here are some of the things I would put into the cost lines for Apple's app store P&L (the company operates a combined P&L):
1. Multiple data centres dedicated to the app store and routing third-party notifications. That's both hosting of the apps and ongoing cost associated with e.g. push notifications, software updates. Each of these data centres has energy, staff, hardware costs. That is to say: there is both opex and capex here, which means Apple isn't only netting ongoing costs from revenue but also thinking about the cost of the capital invested in infrastructure up front.
2. The card processing charges associated with customers buying the app in the first place, and subsequent in-app purchases.
3. The cost of Apple's App Review Teams (three dedicated offices: Cork, Shanghai, Sunnyvale). That's 300 people.[2] There are costs behind them, too (for example: recruitment, HR, management).
4. Product and engineering costs associated with the team Apple has working on internal systems and services dedicated to app review.
5. An apportionment of costs associated with customers seeking technical support in-store and online due to third-party apps.
6. An apportionment of costs associated with the development and maintenance of services and APIs which Apple develops and makes available to app developers. (For example, sign-on with Apple.)
In 2018 the app store had seen 130 billion apps downloaded[3], with an average app size of 38mb[4]. That's 4.94 exabytes of data excluding updates.
Microsoft for many years charged Xbox developers for certification of games and patches, in part because of the bandwidth costs of distributing those patches to its customers, but also because providing this sort of service is mired by multiple perilous overheads -- which, I have to say, people on the web tend to misunderstand/ignore/dismiss.
Fortnite has nearly 150 million installs on iOS. It's 1.8 gigabytes. That's 270 million gigabytes, and the game is free. 30% of users don't spend a dime in Fortnite. That's 81 million gigabytes of free bandwidth for Epic, before you forget about the fact that Apple promotes the game etc.
Neither party is a saint here. Apple and Epic both get a lot of out the app being in the store. But Epic has multiple options to resolving this without trying to rob Apple's platform of a significant part of its USP.
[1] https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/20/18273179/apple-icloud-itu... [2] https://www.cnbc.com/2019/06/21/how-apples-app-review-proces... [3] https://www.appannie.com/en/insights/market-data/data-behind... [4] https://sweetpricing.com/blog/2017/02/average-app-file-size/
It’s hard to be sure whether this is an honest mistake or not, given the generally well informed community.
For example, there's absolutely positive value for users in filtering spam. This tends to be negative value for spam senders, but that doesn't detract from the user value.
Apple's version of gatekeeping is a balance between providing a user experience that they control and design, and managing/controlling competition.
It reminds me of the internet filters at large companies. Keeps out the filth and bad actors at the detriment of being on a truly free internet. That makes sense when it's the companies computers.
But not so much when you own the device.
Note: Not a legal expert, this is just my understanding.
You can only get nothing for 2-5% because that barely meets the payment processing fees (of course, a large company can negotiate a lower rate). If you’re saying 2-5% plus payment processing fees, then that might be possible depending on the solution and what’s provided to users and developers.
If the rate mattered, Google would have lowered it to compete with Apple for developers.
Epic gave Apple over $360 Million dollars in the last twelve months just to list the game in it's app store, and over $150 Million to Google to do the same. By any measure, having to hand over half a billion dollars is just an insane cut of revenue to have to give two companies that had absolutely nothing to do with conceiving, designing or developing such a successful game.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/13/technology/apple-fortnite...
But it has everything to do with distributing the game. Also it has a lot to do with outsourcing the maintenance of the mobile platforms — designing hardware, OS releases, etc. Epic did not design their own hardware, their own silicon, build entire global supply chains, design UX, etc. Apple and Google did. Do they not deserve a cut?
I'm not here arguing the percentage of the revenue, just that that some percentage is clearly warranted here. Their relationship with Apple and Google is clearly a partnership, meaning it has to benefit both sides. Same way it works with consoles.
Google didn't even invent Android, they purchased it. (Of course Apple purchased NeXTSTEP too.) And Google is not even the biggest Android hardware manufacturer.
The bizarre thing is that most apps on both iOS and Android are free, so they pay very little for the so-called "maintenance", even if these apps are hugely popular. This is very different from a game console, where every game earns money directly. Fortnite is hugely popular, but for some reason struggling little indie paid apps are forced to subsidize the platform for immensely popular free apps?
Imagine a game console where 84% of the games were free. We can't compare these platforms to consoles.
Because they're the only option. I mean there's no reason why Epic couldn't host the app on their server that people could download. It's not without precedent. But it's just not allowed for mobile.
> designing hardware, OS releases, etc. Epic did not design their own hardware, their own silicon, build entire global supply chains, design UX, etc. Apple and Google did. Do they not deserve a cut?
Seriously? You think Epic should have to pay for the hardware that we consumers buy for thousands of dollars? Apple has some of the highest hardware margins in the world. They don't need software developers to pay for the hardware that we've already paid too much for. These aren't consoles sold for a loss.
Didn't they move to the Google Play Store (from their own download manager) specifically because sideloading was too hard and scary for customers that it was having an impact on Fortnite installs?
Having the option wouldn't be enough for Epic even if it were available on iOS, because it wasn't enough for them on Android
Sure. If they want to complain about the cost of using someone else's hardware.
Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft etc do it.
Where did the $1k I spent on my phone go?
The difference is Apple sells a user experience. Sure, you have to purcahase a physical thing to access that experience, but that is the nature of what you have purchased when you buy an iPhone.
I think this boils down to a mismatched set of perspectives on the business Apple has created. Apple breaks the typical “buy hardware from X, install software from Y” flow and instead turned their iPhones into a portal into their own user experience universe. They did this because it provides a fundamentally unique experience when compared to other platforms. It’s a differentiating factor for them. Again, I would argue that Apple doesn’t want to be a hardware company. They want to be an experience company. In order to do that, they have to develop and sell cutting-edge hardware to you and me.
Don’t get me wrong, not trying to say this is good or bad — just observing a sublety that I think gets missed when passionately arguing about hardware ownership and the rights that come with it.
If you or any customer feels like the hardware's capabilities (i.e. no side-loading) was miss-advertised, I would highly urge them to return the hardware to Apple, sell it, or at the least not re-buy an iPhone next time.
Apple and Google are claiming the right to tax the success of others as though they were nation states and had been granted that right by popular mandate.
A percentage? Of revenue? From companies that refuse to pay a percentage of profit in acutal tax to governments who actually do have that mandate to impose the tax.
Evil is what evil does. Call it out.
If you sell a product through ANY distribution channel whether it be online, brick/mortar store, influencers etc you need to pay a fee. It's been this way for centuries.
Uh, you know Epic makes a 12% cut of all games sold in their store, right?
> By any measure, having to hand over half a billion dollars is just an insane cut of revenue to have to give two companies that had absolutely nothing to do with conceiving, designing or developing such a successful game.
Further, if you want to target mobile devices, you can distribute on Android.
People are making it seem as if Epic is an underdog with no options here. They make hundreds of millions of dollars from distributing Fortnite on the app store -- and it's a free download. Apple doesn't make a cent from helping to market and distribute this game (and I'd imagine 90% of users are free only).
Epic has the following choices:
1. Don't offer IAP at all
2. Offer microtransactions via web browser
3. Accept Apple taking the 30% cut of current pricing
4. Increase their pricing to accommodate Apple's cut
5. Withdraw the app
UE4 itself is free until you make $1mil lifetime per game, and then 5% after that, IIRC.
But unlike Google and Apple's store, there are plenty of other stores on Windows, and making your own store is really easy. It can literally just be a website with downloads.
My point is that Epic does the same thing.
Apple created the app store. The iPhone brand is built on security, reliability, and ease of use. I can completely understand why Apple strongly resists people trying to disrupt that. It's not in Apple's interests because it'll diminish the appeal of their devices, and it's not in consumer interests either.
https://gamasutra.com/view/news/367690/A_datadriven_primer_f...
https://www.ign.com/articles/2019/10/07/report-steams-30-cut...
(I know Tinder is on other phones and the percentage could change - but you get the idea).
The stat you cited was for two years, not one. Further, they paid $99 for a developer account "just to list the game" (and any other games they want to list). The fees you are mentioning are only for transactions that occurred on the Apple device. Their "v-bucks" can be bought on other platforms and are cross platform (for some platforms - Switch and PS4 do not allow cross-platform in-game currency). But strangely Fortnite gave no discount on their Windows app, for instance... (almost like they set up this whole ridiculous charade just to play the crowd).
Now add that anyone assuming Apple is actually getting that full 30% is deluded. Apple sells iTunes cards at Costco often $100 for ~$80. They have lubricated the market to encourage grandparents, etc, to give their relatives gift cards, and created a system where people feel confident enough to buy. Those gift cards become vbux. Without Apple's and Google's system, they would never have made a fraction of what they've made.
I hardly think Apple is innocent in this -- their position on cloud gaming is absolutely wrong -- but the horde that is suddenly falling in line behind Epic is uproarious. Sweeney is playing this crowd like a fiddle.
If/when my 11P EOL's half-way through the 20's I hope we'll have good enough homebrews to get Linux running like people do now on the 7.
Also, with the outrage over companies needing to layoff/cut hours during(now) Covid-19 because they didn't have a warchest saved up... Having a cashpile seems like a fiscally responsible thing to do for a company.
Epic gave nothing to Apple. Apple gave Epic $840 in proceeds from sales it couldn’t have made without Apple’s work.
I think you know that the margins Apple charges for the apps they retail are not a listing fee, and pay for a significant collection of services.
I’m not commenting on whether Apple’s margin is too high or not. Just that this comment is a misrepresentation.
And Epic is making how much ... off what, beyond the game itself?
For everyone defending Apple, consider your main desktop/laptop computer and how you would feel if all of the apps you installed not only had to be downloaded from Apple/Dell/Lenovo/Microsoft but also 30% of any software or subscriptions you bought on that device went to one of those companies. Apple sells devices with high margins on top of all of this. Which is probably why they are the most valuable public company in the world besides maybe Saudi Aramco.
So the only loss is the time they're off the store, plus legal. They just need to get this lawsuit started, maybe lose a couple weeks profits from the iOS store, and they've created the possibility of permanently increasing profits by 20%.
If Epic wins and are allowed to offer alternate IAP for 20% discount, that increase profits for Fortnite on iOS by 10%, but all the other Fortnite platforms lose 20%.
Maybe Epic will raise the virtual prices of Fortnite goods over time to make up for it, eg a skin will be 1500 vbucks instead of 1250. But I'm guessing Epic has larger ambitions, such as making V-bucks systems for all games that use Unreal Engine.
[0] https://www.businessofapps.com/data/fortnite-statistics/#2
More like cannibalization between several large and ruthless corporations, and mostly because those who should have protected this market from being cornered into its current corrupt state, miserably failed at that (time and again).
Many may be hopeful about the results of this move, which is no doubt part of Epic's strategy. However, I expect that the results will mostly just favor the bottom line of whoever wins this fight. I'm rather convinced that it won't be much of an improvement for end users.
Maybe end users will benefit for a short while after a victory by Epic, until the company decides to "cash in" on their win and end users will (again) get pretty much what they had up till now. Because that is apparently what Epic can charge its users.
Well we don’t know for sure there’s a very good chance the negotiations have been going on behind the scenes and they finally broke down far enough that Epic decided to pull the trigger and force the issue.
Even if Apple and Google have wargamed the move and found out they would definitely lose, would they do anything without first being confronted? I'd bet they wouldn't, because that would be several hundreds of millions in lost revenue. It's better for them to stay quiet, perhaps try to appease under the table those who have deep enough pockets to challenge them (e.g. Amazon), keep milking the cow for as long as possible.
Why anyone supports Apple is a mystery to me. What if the web forced you to use Apple Payments? What if Microsoft forced all installs to go through the Microsoft Store?
Apple took focus from the web and then extinguished openness. It's tyranny.
Apple recently rolled out "Sign-In With Apple", which creates burner e-mail address that you can seamlessly use with 3rd party services. As a privacy-conscious consumer, this was great! On top of that, Apple forced all of its developers to support "Sign-In With Apple". This is one of the many reasons I continue to use Apple's phone and OS, because it gives me some peace of mind.
Apple Payments, similarly, gives me some financial peace of mind by providing me with one centralized place where I can view and cancel my subscriptions/purchases. I can't tell you how many times I've forgotten to unsubscribe from a service that I don't use. With Apple's in-app payments system, I can keep tabs on everything. It's like a user-friendly financial reconciliation layer.
Both of these Apple services place some amount of burden on the developer, and I'd even argue that the first example was pretty broadly celebrated by privacy-minded HN readers. The strongest devil's advocate argument is that the second example provides the same value to Apple customers, and that's a distinguishing feature of its platform that it ought to be able to maintain.
There's a strong argument to be made that one ought to be able to side-load apps and install competing app stores on their iPhones (I tend to agree), but that's somewhat orthogonal to this particular issue, especially considering the Google Play Store action.
I’d love to have the option to sideload apps on my iPhone. I understood that I couldn’t do this when I bought it however, and don’t really see any compelling arguments as to why Apple would lose - there seem to be many, many arguments based on fuzzy-feelings like “I don’t like it” and “I feel 30% is too high” and “but it’s morally wrong” and “well if you imagine it this way it’s really a monopoly” and “no, I have decided that arbitrarily this would only apply to ‘general purpose’ devices”, none of which sound like legal arguments.
I assume Epic is putting this up to lose in order to gamble that the law is changed in response to that suit, in which case they’d be fighting presumably against at least the lobby power of Apple, Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo and many other interests.
It's a walled garden, and that's what I intentionally purchased when I brought my devices. These software developers and service providers have a presumption that my money is simply there for the taking, but if they want to get it, they have to come to me, and I have very intentionally chose the platform I want to use. If their services were so important to me, then they could just withdraw them from the appstore, and I would obviously have to go out and buy a different device.
The debate needs to be on whether or not they should take a cut on in-app purchases, and/or what that cut should be, and/or if they should allow third-party processors where the store owner doesn't see profit.
It can force regulators to act.
It can put pressure on politicians to create new laws.
As far as politics goes, you can forget about it in America at least. The senate can’t figure out how to deal with the economic fallout from this pandemic; the idea that they’d be able to pass a law on this is genuinely laughable.
It's actually even slightly easier to install APKs on Android than installing non-Mac-App-Store software on macOS — with Android it prompts you right when you open to allow or disallow installs from the source you downloaded from, whereas macOS makes you dig around in Settings the first time. I tried installing the Epic store just now on Android, and it was a fairly seamless experience.
I'm sure it gets fewer sales, since the Play store is bundled with most Android phones and the Epic store isn't. But it's pretty different than an outright ban: the Play store is charging you the 30% Google tax for reach/audience, but you're free to list on an alternative store if you choose to.
I have apps not listed in PlayStore but works just fine.
How would Google actually block it?
After Epic store launched on the PC in 2018, Epic used their platform's growing popularity to bait and/or strong arm (it's unclear to me) indie developers into exclusivity contracts on Epic's game store. This action caused a massive uproar in the gaming community because with those exclusivity deals, Epic made developers break existing preorders.
This isn't about freedom or choice or walled gardens. It's about cutting off a slightly bigger slice of a billion dollar pie.
- Grow the dev team enough to accelerate time to launch--QA extra engineers, heck, the devs even used the money to pay for porting the game to other devices!
- Guarantee that they could continue to fund development of the game after launch. Bugfixes, DLC, etc.
- Have enough left over to "try again" and launch a sophomore game regardless of the performance of this one.
You'd think that fans of indie games would love this. Who could possibly be opposed to having an indie dev get funds that would enable them to graduate to managing a small indie game studio instead of a ramen diet & 20 hour work days in the living room.
And yet they got enormous amounts of hate from so-called indie game fans and members of the gaming community. And yes, the devs were aware that the hate was coming from a disproportionately small number of people and that most people don't actually care at all. But still, the psychological toll of having to deal with the harassment was enough to make them strongly consider not taking the money--even though it was the right thing to do both from a financial pov and from a development pov (because it would guarantee they could finish and support the game).
The crazy thing is that even if you hate epic you should love these deals: cheer for your favorite dev, then wait a year and buy the game on Steam, doubly sticking it to the man.
It would be choice and competition for the consumer if users could access any game through either platform and choose their favorite.
They took the deal, they didn't get their life/safety threatened.
There was some really shitty behavior by developers who took the pot of money who had already made promises to crowdfunders previously. That's on the developer though, and they should be judged appropriately for their actions.
As my post says: it's unclear to me which tactic was used with which developers, or how those contracts influenced the promises developers made to preorder customers.
We don't know mostly because those contracts are secret.
There have been good deals for developpers, and good deals that developper shouldn't have taken but still took despite their previous engagements to their funders, but Epic literally had no position to strong arm anyone into anything, and they didn't bait anyone - no one signed then realized "oh damn, I didn't think money for exclusivity meant money for exclusivity !".
Epic just said "hey look at this bag of money, I give it to you if you put your game here".
The developers agreed to the deal. If that meant they had to do something shitty (Like not-provide steam keys to backers who paid for that during a crowdfunding campaign), you should be upset with the developers. They made a promise and then they went back on it.
I don't think it's fair to hold Epic's feet to the fire because a developer took the money. If someone offers you a lot of money to break a promise (and you take it), this is a reflection of your character.
Epic didn't make anyone do anything. They made the choice.
In this scenario, much of the uproar that happened was developers breaking promises, and the blame for that being placed on Epic as well. Epic merely offered better deals(in the form of a better revenue split) and cash offers to developers that are notorious for being poorly funded. I don't see how this is a bad thing.
In fact, I'd make the argument that there being more competition in the PC video game marketplace is a good thing that will benefit the consumer.
If this were just about money, it would be totally irrational. Epic does have money to gain if they're successful, but they have a lot more money to lose if they fail. It's kind of a suicide mission to simultaneously take on two of the most powerful corporations on Earth. No rational purely profit-seeking corporation would follow this strategy.
$20 to a charity of your choice if you show affirmative proof of (within 7 days¹) a contract showing strong-arming². Email is in profile if I don't notice HN reply. When you make your comment showing strong-arming, I will make two comments one saying "this is strong-arming" and one saying "this is not" and we can see what the community votes up.
If there are at least 5 votes and the former wins, you get to pick the charity. Otherwise, it goes to AMF.
¹ just so that there is a day the money goes out. If you need more time, just say so.
² Email is in profile, you can set up a call with me or send me an email of the contract if you don't want to share the contract publicly.
Everyone should get the same rates with no lock in or out. In media terms if Netflix can stream a movie for $0.40 per stream then every other provider should be able to stream it under the same terms.
Exclusivity agreements are anti-competitive. We've seen them grow unchecked and it's created the same unhealthy relationship between distributors and creators that lead to the forced sale of movie theaters away from the movie studios.
Tim isn't doing it for developers or publishers, he wants a piece of the steam pie.
If he was serious about being competition he would come out with a better platform and compete.
When MS came out the windows store, Tim said "they’re trying to force this thing on the industry and it’s woefully inadequate for the tasks they’re trying to serve it for"
https://www.pcgamer.com/tim-sweeney-microsoft-uwp-is-still-w...
Yet, the epic store, was... IS STILL woefully inadequate. They built a terrible store that has no functionality, no currency options, no linux support, nothing more than a front for a dozen games. Then turn around and buy exclusives under the disguise of "we're doing it for developers and publishers, we are the good guys, screw all you gamers out there who don't care!!!"
(I'm aware they have tried to fill some of these features, but they have ALONG way to go)
They could have come out with something better, and been competition, but they have nothing to compete with.
----
Tim also said: "I believe Microsoft has every right to operate a PC app store, and to curate it how they choose."
Tim is now: "Oh Apple and Google shouldn't be allowed to run their own app store how they choose."
Steam needed that competition. Valve's 30% cut of sales is ludicrous considering that they do not manually audit, validate, or curate the software on their store. They don't even handle security properly—there have been multiple instances of Valve ignoring vulnerabilities in Steam.
I think Epic and Tim Sweeney have acted with remarkable consistency.
I'm amazed "feeding starving artists" is turned into a bad thing.
Epic Games is obviously just out to profit more. But this is a war that we all benefit from if they win.
Sure I'd love to see someone like the EFF change this. But the reality is they don't have the funding to go directly against Apple and Google on this. Epic Games does.
no one thinks corporations don’t do what’s in their best interest monetarily
As I wrote in the Apple thread: I think Epic are the ideal entity to do this since - so long as Apple or Google won't actively erase apps from people devices - they already have large install base and it's unlikely to grow much more.
Those who managed to install the latest update are already able to use epic "apple/google tax"less payment system so that protects their revenue for a while.
If either of those para-monopolies start erasing apps from people's phone's that would only add to the narrative that Epic, Spotify, EU et al. are already pushing: these two entities have built a global extractive platform that keeps partners and consumers hostage by their fees.
Epic Games can show just how much the on-going appstore tax prevent new business models from taking hold. They shown an incredible ability to entice people to separate from their money, even convinced Disney?! to partner for branded content.
Alongside Epic Games licensing of the Unreal Engine at-or-below cost (12% [1]), I believe Sweeney's commitment to growing a "Metaverse" market at the expense of Epic's short-term profit.
This comes alongside EPIC(.org)'s comparisons about American vs Chinese & emerging markets competitiveness, linked today [2].
[1]: https://www.matthewball.vc/all/themetaverse [2]: https://epic.org/foia/epic-v-ai-commission/EPIC-19-09-11-NSC...
> The open Android ecosystem lets developers distribute apps through multiple app stores. For game developers who choose to use the Play Store, we have consistent policies that are fair to developers and keep the store safe for users. While Fortnite remains available on Android, we can no longer make it available on Play because it violates our policies. However, we welcome the opportunity to continue our discussions with Epic and bring Fortnite back to Google Play.
Anyways, Neptune's Pride is very very fun and I can't wait to play it again!
Note, however, that not just anyone can publish a game on EGS, so you'd have to already be an established developer.
If there ever would be some legal pressure on Apple& Google to open up their platforms, it is important to make this point known to legislators.
Android could potentially get pinged for pre-installing Play Market and not offering a choice.
Google Android does.
Removing Fortnite from the iOS store wholly removes the ability for people to download and play Fortnite on iOS devices, unless they're jailbroken.
Removing Fortnite from Google Play does no such thing. It's still readily available to download and play from other app stores and/or Epic directly. No need to jailbreak or root.
This is a huge difference in paradigms that'll probably go overlooked with headlines of "Apple and Google remove Fortnite from app stores".
I think this is why Epic is so ready to "take on Apple" (see: their Nineteen Eighty-Fortnite ad). This'll be a legal battle that's exciting to see, especially in the current/brewing anti-big-tech political climate.
> The open Android ecosystem lets developers distribute apps through multiple app stores. For game developers who choose to use the Play Store, we have consistent policies that are fair to developers and keep the store safe for users. While Fortnite remains available on Android, we can no longer make it available on Play because it violates our policies. However, we welcome the opportunity to continue our discussions with Epic and bring Fortnite back to Google Play.
https://www.theverge.com/2020/8/13/21368079/fortnite-epic-an...
Remember that courts tend to be very lenient towards business practices, so it takes egregious behavior to convince them to step in. This bolster's Epic's position.
They didn't make this in the time it took Apple to reject it. It's all pre-planned
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6B4glqJFz0&feature=emb_rel_...
It will be better for all developers if the gatekeepers lower their rates, but epic really doesn't strike me as a white knight here.
The app store is a two way street. For most developers, apple can hide behind "no one's forcing you to be on our app store". And they are right, apple doesn't have a monopoly, but they have a lot of users, and what they really have is a lot of users who spend money on their platform. They have the customers you want.
But there is the flip side, which is that apple needs apps to be in the store, and sometimes needs specific ones. For most companies, apple doesn't need your app. The only parties that stand a chance at making waves are those who do control apps apple can't do without, e.g. "what do you mean I can't get Fortnite on my iPhone?"
No one in the situation is gonna be perfect, because at the end of the day, this is a fight for who provides what value and should get what money. It's sort of a Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla situation.
They are of course really hard to make ...
Apple or Google may cave in this particular case because Epic has some leverage with their userbase, but I'd be shocked to see either of them lower the rates for anyone other than Epic. I think it's going to take legislation to fix this.
https://www.androidpolice.com/2020/08/13/google-reportedly-b...
If Apple was told to open its App Store they could literally just shut down their App Store instead the next day and in a few days or weeks consumers all around the world would put too much pressure on any legislator to revert their changes, because not a single consumer cares about Epic, but everyone cares about their iPhone to remain as awesome as it is today, ad part of it is Apple's walled garden.
Customers are plainly choosing the open platform.
The fight was bound to happen but I’m fascinated by the timing.
It would be great for Huawei if this whole closed appstore ecosystem would be broken up and give customers the freedom of choice.
If lowering the cost of app sales royalties to all 3rd developers is the only result of this, I'd say this will be worth it.
That precedent is being set anyway, the Epic Games store still exists on Android, and you can get Fortnite through it, and this dispute can't do anything but bring more attention to that fact.
Of course, that kind of does show a way in which they are better for devs and consumers than Apple, since dispute over store terms with devs are less of a total barrier to delivering/selling (for devs) or getting access to (for consumers) apps on the platform.
"The enemy of my enemy is my ally."
"The Seventy Maxims of Maximally Effective Mercenaries"
https://schlockmercenary.fandom.com/wiki/The_Seventy_Maxims_...
If a software developer has an issue with the distribution channel, then they can make their own, including the R&D and operate expense for the hardware. I know, really unpopular take. Bigger question is are Apple and Google (with hardware/software ecosystems) deserving of Bell-style regulation? The US already has a playbook for this.
Epic already has a distribution channel, payment processing, the whole 9 yards, what they don't have is anyway onto the hardware that you own.
Epic does have a way onto the phones: provide an easy way for User's to jailbreak them as part of the ingress to the Epic distribution channel.
"In 2010 and 2012, the U.S. Copyright Office approved exemptions that allowed smartphone users to jailbreak their devices legally,[62] and in 2015 the Copyright Office approved an expanded exemption that also covers other all-purpose mobile computing devices, such as tablets"
So all Epic needs to do is assume the cost and investment of managing the inter-dependencies of the hardware with various other pieces of software, including their distribution channel.
You can choose RC cola or Faygo - always an option. Maybe Faygo offers a great new flavor(no payment fees) and tons of Users see that benefit outweighing other features? That's the market. Make the compelling value prop and you win.
That doesn't add up to anywhere near 30%
Every other aspect of how Epic played this has been brilliant IMO.
Apple is not a monopoly but Apple and Google together have just shown the incredible power they wield.
You just don't start a law suite by violating the terms, then go ahead and cry about it.
I am not sure about Apple.
Mahatma Gandhi did that, and society nowadays thinks he was within his rights.
Uber also did that, but isn’t universally acclaimed for it (¿yet?)
(There’s a large legal difference in that the Gandhi was a person and Uber a company, but Uber somewhat got away with its actions. That’s an indicator that society isn’t unanimous in condemning those actions)
This could and, I think, will be similar. This strong protest by Epic will lead to change.