Microsoft Statement in Support of Epic [pdf]
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The definition of anti trust is to use your position in one market to gain an unfair advantage in an other market. By denying Epic access in the game engine market, Apple is trying to get Epic to fold in the game distribution market. Thats text book antitrust behavior.
It is shocking to me that Apples lawyers, would allow Apple to so blatantly threaten Epic in this way. They are providing a clear example of anti competitive behavior, for Epic to use in future litigation. You would think Apple has good enough lawyers to put a stop to this self defeating behavior.
However, Apple is also one of the largest companies of USA and a quite successful one. At that size they must have considerably good lobbying efforts, political class might also have connections to Apple through shares etc. They might go and say that enabling third party vendors will cause thousands to lose their jobs at Apple. They basically got a huge amount of political influence and I’m sure they will use it for this case.
How much political influence Epic games have? Zero? Perhaps not zero but definitely not at the level of Apple. Hence, this case might not be a straightforward win for Epic.
It is good though, perhaps some of the fortnite players will understand why antitrust laws are needed and perhaps influence the justice system once they grow up.
I think Epic has been smart to do a lot of PR on this. They need public support since this will become political. I'm surprised that Epic hasn't filed in the EU too.
You're using this word wrong.
Microsoft does the same as Apple, it makes money off micro-transactions and the ability for its competitors to sell on Xbox/Microsoft store, use trade dress, and be included in those hideous green media cases.
Last I checked Epic, Steam, Origin, uPlay, Google, Amazon, SetApp, most retailers, etc... do the same practice to varying degrees. Shrewd business practice != injustice/anticompetitive practices, just because a company has a large market share or is personally abhorrent to you.
Civil suits are also one of the mechanisms by which government regulation is enforced. The alternative to that would be the government inserting itself into private relations even when there is no dispute between the parties; which is even more heavy handed (albeit somewhat justified).
It is a weird quark that you often have to violate the terms of a contract in order to get standing to challenge it; but that is the procedural rules we have.
They had standing the whole time, albeit with a limitation to arbitration at first instance for certain claims, which may have been bypassed on certain grounds anyway.
The temporary restraining order (injunction) application claims they want to be able to post Fortnite on the App Store without scrutiny from Apple and lastly that they regain access to a working developer account for unreal engine.
I recommend watching the virtual legality series on this topic which might interest you on the ins and outs of the legal dispute. The latest episode covering Microsoft is here: https://youtu.be/-jXJjllz00I
Edit: spelling.
What is the "other market" in this scenario?
Your definition is missing a key point, which is you have to possess sufficient market power in the primary market in order to use to gain an advantage. If you lack market power, it doesn't matter what you do because you lack the ability to coerce consumers. As the Supreme Court put it:
If one of a dozen food stores in a community were to refuse to sell flour unless the buyer also took sugar it would hardly tend to restrain competition in sugar if its competitors were ready and able to sell flour by itself. (Northern Pac. R. Co. v. United States)
> It is shocking to me that Apples lawyers, would allow Apple to so blatantly threaten Epic in this way. They are providing a clear example of anti competitive behavior, for Epic to use in future litigation.
Epic violated the terms of Apple's developer agreement by deliberately hiding their payment processing code to get it past app review. Hiding functionality is considered an egregious violation of the developer program and grounds for termination of your entire account. Apple has the right to terminate their contract for that violation alone, regardless of whether you think the terms relating to in-app purchases are lawful or not.
Framing this as retaliatory or a threat is hyperbole. One party violated the terms of a contract, so the other party is exercising their right to terminate.
> You would think Apple has good enough lawyers to put a stop to this self defeating behavior.
Do you really think you have a better grasp of antitrust law than their legal team?
Obviously Apple's legal team does not understand antitrust law. It is impossible to get someone to understand something, when their salary depends upon not understanding it.
It's such a stupid trope in any case.
In my opinion, it doesn't get any more retaliatory than that, which means Apple is most likely very far down the wrong side of antitrust law.
I also do not read anything there that will affect this round of this fight, which is about the question whether an urgent ruling has to be made that Apple should _now_ be forced to chance its stance.
I doubt that a major company would let someone at this level of management make such a "personal statement" without signing off on it internally. Even as an individual contributor at such a company, you would invite quite a bit of trouble with this.
In fact, does anyone else who deliberately tries to sneak things past the review process get to keep their developer account _and_ the offending version of the app available? Couldn't this just be Apple going "see, we treat them the same as everyone else"?
What? Didn’t think so.
Considered as a console iOS is actually more open and capable than most.
But it's not just a console.
Just like the case of the iPhone, the only thing that makes them appear otherwise is what software their respective owner companies choose to allow or disallow.
And frankly, anybody bringing up consoles in this context is arguing in bad faith. The similarities are purely surface level.
They really aren't. If you'd care to offer some reasoning behind your assertion that they are, I'm listening.
Almost no one would replace a desktop or laptop with an xbox while many people have done just that with an iPhone.
The iPhone is has 10 times a larger market than Internet Explorer did when it lost the anti trust case, for comparison.
[0] https://9to5mac.com/2019/03/06/microsoft-store-revenue-share...
[1] https://blogs.windows.com/windowsdeveloper/2019/03/06/update...
[2] https://www.ign.com/articles/2019/10/07/report-steams-30-cut...
[3] https://query.prod.cms.rt.microsoft.com/cms/api/am/binary/RE...
Rumors are some publishers get the 5% deal (or better?), at least for digital-only sales, as some of those publishers have indirectly mentioned higher profit margins on Xbox versus PlayStation, but who knows how accurate the rumors are (or if there are other confounding factors for higher margins on Xbox such Microsoft subsidies or Microsoft's increasing "economy of scale" with keeping PC and Xbox in closer API sync these days) because Xbox keeps a tight lid on publisher specific deals, unlike the rest of the App Store which tries to be much more transparent. The fact that Epic isn't complaining so much about Xbox sales seems to indicate a favorable position on Xbox as well, but again any such details are probably closed room deals we can only guess at from the outside (and probably in constant flux with Xbox marketing as Microsoft wanders between incentives based on favoring Marketing tools/projects like Xbox Play Anywhere, Xbox Game Pass, xCloud, Xbox Smart Delivery, etc).
They did not mention Fortnite or alternate stores at all.
I'm not fan of Epic however if the court rules Epic as right, we are about to see an important precedent to a less monopolized market.
This case is less about monopolisation and more about inequality between two parties when settling a contract. Nothing stops Epic from making an Epic phone and doing the same.
https://cdn2.unrealengine.com/epic-pi-tro-08-23-2020-8198711...
Best Buy, for instance
If the problem is Apple doesn't allow you to sell apps without going through their approval process, Microsoft does the same.
If the problem is Apple doesn't allow you to sell apps without collecting a commission on each sale, Microsoft does the same.
8note made the point that you could buy games from other stores. It's a narrow point. Why would you reply to that person (in particular) about a digital protection issue that has been prevalent in consoles since the NES introduced it in 1983? Why not start your own thread about that issue?
Do you expect him to support a point he did not make? Because it sounds like you are assuming his point of view on digital protection would be different than yours.
Epic may have thrown Unreal Engine under the bus, but Microsoft needs the law to recognize it and Apple compete as fully integrated experiences not unbundled hardware separate from app stores.
That said, a lot of games money is going to iOS that used to funnel to consoles. So they’re of two minds.
The PR move is support Epic. The business move is keep consoles vertically integrated and own curation.
/2c
They should only be vetting the privacy and security of apps, and let users decide what is crap.