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Comment by stonith | Hacker News Reader

> Epic wants to sell digital gambling (loot) boxes to children

Fortnite hasn't had loot boxes like this for about 18 months. The contents of the box are visible and change each day.

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2019/01/fortnite-puts-an-end-...

Which is still gambling, just on the contents of the next box. It’s obfuscating the gambling, and it’s unfortunately working.

Either way, Apple takes 30% of the revenue. Apple isn't standing up to Epic's gambling, they''re profiting a lot from it and their only issue with Epic seems to be that they want to keep profiting from it. The Epic and Apple case started when Epic circumvented Apple for in app purchases and lowered their prices accordingly.

They don’t get a commission for the sale of the Fortnight software, or for marketing Fortnight on their own dime; do you believe that they don’t deserve to get any commissions for providing Fortnight a platform and publicity?

As a developer, I have no desire for Apple to market my software for me. Fortunately for me, Apple has never chosen to highlight and market my software for me. Unfortunately for me, they’re still taking 30% of the revenue for distribution alone, and there’s absolutely no way that’s fair, given that I can self distribute on every other platform for about 4%.

I already have a cloud footprint as my apps depend on it. The bulk of that 4% is in payment processing. The rest is just background noise on my hosting bills.

> I have no desire for Apple to market my software for me

Yet you do have a desire for it to run on Apple's hardware, under Apple's OS. And thus you have a desire to do business with them. That you disagree with their rules for doing business by itself doesn't make them the bad guy.

They're offering many of the same terms offered by Microsoft, Google (Android Play store and Stadia), and Sony after all.

“Apple’s hardware”?! Is it not the customer’s hardware? We aren’t talking the cloud here, these are devices that the individual customers have already paid for. Apple should have little say in how a customer wants to use their own hardware.

So, jailbreak it, and install your own Epic App Store.

But, as I pointed out in a sibling reply, this hardware, firmware, and OS is, practically speaking, not ours. No matter how much as we’d like it to be.

then there should a law which makes hardware and software I paid for - mine.

This is the mistake, as a developer I want my app to run on your hardware, and the hardware of millions of others, it hardware that you happen to have bought from apple, but it's no longer theirs, and if you want to run my app, and I want you to, that should be our choice, not Apples.

> your hardware

This is a problem that's bigger than Apple, and it's not a problem that will be solved by allowing more stores on the phone - it won't make it somehow "your" hardware.

You can blame Apple for doing this with their phone all you want, but you're fighting against the tide with a shovel. It's an industry standard to lock hardware down to the point where they'd rather the hardware be bricked (the Nintendo Switch and its hardware fuses) than run "libre" software on it.

Epic tried “self distributing” on Android with side loading. Guess how that worked out?

If they want to charge Epic and other developers of free apps and games, that's one thing. Apple have made a calculated business decision to charge developers $99/year for those expenses, and it's not like they don't profit anything from having a large game and app library. They're not charging for providing a platform and publicity though, they are forcing developers to use their payment processing for in app purchases, which IMO does not contribute 30% of the produced value for those purchases.

But my main point was that trying to frame it as heroic Apple against evil Epic, where Apple tries to save their users from gambling by taking a large cut of the loot, isn't entirely truthful.

I guess this is the crux: are they providing a platform and marketing, or are the gate-keeping rent seekers between the developer and their customers?

Honestly, both positions are arguable. But, and it's a big but, the fact that it is their hardware and their OS points to the former (their platform, their marketing).

Ultimately, it's their storefront, so who they do business with - and the terms of that business - is their choice (as is so often argued when free speech and platforms comes up here on HN). Competition exists, in the form of other hardware and other OSes (though, Epic's Fortnight was kicked off Google's store for the same reason as it was kicked off Apple's).

That doesn't meet any definition of gambling I'm aware of. It's equivalent to having a daily sale on a set of products.

If you purchase a lootcrate, a new lootcrate is revealed for you. Sorry if that wasn’t clear.

That makes sense as point... Yes I can see that giving the same feeling as old lootboxes.

If you want to get all the cool items, you can wait till tomorrow for one of them to maybe show up as an offer, or you can buy boxes until they are offered to you. It might be the very next box!!

Does buying a product at full price constitute gambling because tomorrow it might go 50% off?

And Epic has been found guilty since then of illegally convincing minors to spend money in Fortnite.

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20191008/08591443147/epic-...

The linked article neither found Epic guilty (they settled) nor was it even about Epic convincing minors to spend money, but about Epic suing Fortnite cheaters, one of whom apparently was a minor.

Please don't willingly spread misinformation like this.

Wrong link.

https://www.sportskeeda.com/esports/news-fortnite-sued-trick...

> U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers announced a ruling yesterday which stated that Fortnite had convinced minors to spend money in game without parental consent. This ruling keeps Epic on the hook for its misleading business practices.

The article you linked says no such thing, it talks only of an out of court settlement.