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Comment by RestlessMind | Hacker News Reader

From Roblox's own website (https://developer.roblox.com/en-us/articles/developer-econom...), the game owner's share after all of the other costs is only 24.5% and Roblox also takes a cut of 24.5%, compared to an App store portion of 25%. So essentially, Roblox charges as much as Apple/Google for their "platform fee".

Who decides what is a right amount of "platform fee" in either case?

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If I could play Roblox on Android with a direct APK and bypass Google Play, and another 25% of my money went directly to the Roblox developer I'd do it in a heartbeat. But with Apple I don't even get that choice.

Why would you care? You will still spend the same amount of money.

If cost were the only factor in a purchase decision, 90% of the economy would cease to function.

At the consumer level, I would be surprised if even 10% of people cared about the seller’s expenses.

Creators who are making more money off of the thing they make are creators who can keep making the thing they make, or make more things that you might like just as much as what they've already made.

Because I don't wish to participate in a superfluous, rent-seeking, middle-man economy.

I want to support creators as directly as possible while giving a fair amount to those who provide the tooling and infrastructure so that they can keep the lights on.

To not care about this is to be complicit with unethical business practices in the creative industry, ignorance or not.

> Roblox also takes a cut of 24.5%, compared to an App store portion of 25%

I find the graphic even misleading. Roblox takes double that: 50,5%.

If you calculate a share out for hosting and user acquisition you also have to do that for the App Store. And everything Apple does (OS development, new hardware, advertising) could count as “user aquisition”.

IMHO I think with competition the app stores would see fees drop significantly because they’re not really providing that much value. The fee on the roblox side I’m not sure about. I wonder what they do for that 24.5%.

Whoever’s running the game servers, moderating the game, providing new content to keep the game relevant, etc. is doing a lot more to earn their cut, right?

The platform gets to decide what the right fee is.

The market should decide what the correct fee is.

Unfortunately, there isn't a free market in payment processors for phone apps as there is no choice, and therefore no competition.

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