Hacker News Reader

Comment by psahgal | Hacker News Reader

You are correct that Epic Games made 5 billion dollars in revenue in 2019, according to Venturebeat [1]. However, Apple Insider reports that Apple made 59.7 billion dollars in revenue in their third fiscal quarter (March, April, and May) of 2020 [2].

Epic's definitely not a little guy, but compared to Apple, it looks more like a respectable medium-sized company.

I find Apple's revenue numbers and market value truly staggering. Few companies seem to be able to compare.

[1] https://venturebeat.com/2020/06/15/epic-games-shareholders-s...

[2] https://appleinsider.com/articles/20/10/26/what-to-expect-fr...

View on HN

Apple is the largest company in the world and sells the most successful product in human history.

Of course nobody ‘compares’.

But compared to almost any other iOS developer Epic is a giant.

And Epic isn't asking for a benefit for themselves: They're using those billions to fight for not just themselves, but thousands of smaller developers. Over two hundred of them joined Epic's little "app dev union" of sorts recently.

Yes, Apple sells one of the most successful products in human history... and they also illegally use that power to control the market and extract revenue from thousands of other companies who have no choice but to do business with them.

“ And Epic isn't asking for a benefit for themselves”

False: Epic wants to pay less commission themselves, and to be able to take a cut of other developers work.

One big difference between Apple and Epic is that Epic didn’t do any work to create the platform.

As to those smaller developers. Apple just cut the commission for them in half. A lower level than Epic was promising. Apple seems to care about the smaller developers.

Epic is not fighting for anyone but themselves.

Let’s note that more than half of Epic’s profits belong to just one man.

I think Amazon, Microsoft, Facebook, and Google would also be considered iOS developers, since they publish apps on the App Store. So in terms of market value, Epic is definitely not the biggest player in the Apple ecosystem.

Although, if we're going by how popular the apps are on the store...I could see how Epic would be considered a heavyweight on the App Store.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com