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Comment by monkin | Hacker News Reader

> Epic had long argued such a cut was unfair, and inflated prices for players. So last year, it offered players the chance to buy the virtual currency direct from its own website, circumventing Apple and Google.

> That was explicitly against both companies' app store rules - so both removed Fortnite from their stores.

Explicitly against both companies was using OWN in app payment solutions thus bypassing their payment systems and 30% cut. But that whole EPIC drama is just another internet drama, nothing there is about users, online shops, or anything other than money.

Yet, at the end they can’t go and say “we don’t care about any of you, we just want more money!”. So they have to put this stunt in place. :-)

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Epic literally showed how it would benefit the consumer in their example. When Apple takes 30%, Epic (and all businesses) have to charge 30% more than they otherwise would be okay with. Even if epic only relays 10% of that back to the consumer, the consumer still comes out ahead.

And if you don't like fortnite as an example, use any app on the platform you might pay for. They all pay an unavoidable 30% Apple tax.

Why would epic relay back 10% to the consumer? There is not a single motivation for that.

Imagine Epic cut a deal with apple for 10%, you think prices would be cheaper ? or they would grow their margin.

Epic do lower their prices in cases where the payment provider lowers the price. Their prices are up to 20% lower when going through their own provider.

https://www.epicgames.com/fortnite/en-US/news/the-fortnite-m...

The prices are lower now because they are trying to make a point. When this reason will dissapear they have no reason not to raise the price again.

They do have competing products though, like other games and things. 30% of all of the money spent on devs, marketing, ops, that's a LOT of overhead just for checking some code isn't malicious

You do realise that Epic has been at the forefront of reducing percentage shares by publishers, right? From UE4 being made free and the initial $1 million being without fees, to EGS taking only a 12% cut (that includes the 5% fee if using UE4) which put massive pressure on Steam to drop their percentage cut too.

a broad ruling will help all app developers though. imagine being able to make apps without having to bend over backwards to please apple/google's 1000 pages terms of service and without giving them 30%. that's a third of all your revenue that goes to apple/google because they can.

What process should be used to come up with a number? Currently, that magic number is 30% or 15% (if revenue is less than $1M per year) progressive charge decided by Apple.

> that's a third of all your revenue that goes to apple/google because they can.

It’s not because “they can”. It is because they distribute it and give you huge audience of potential customers. Second, I’ll trust them more with my card than some third-party shady payment processor. You know how many scams would surface without them?

So I’m really fine with Apple/Google taking my 30%, but I’m probably alone. :-)

> It is because they distribute it and give you huge audience of potential customers.

Epic and many others dont need the distribution though. Gamers can easily go to Epic and download and install the apps themselves.

They can do that today and did do that initially on Android. They abandoned that path so the Play store must bring something of value to them.

They can't do that on ios, never could.

Fortnite still does it on android, why do you think they abandoned it?

... because they did abandon it. After initially starting with their own side-loaded launcher they went into the Play store. They are now back to going outside the Play store after they started the payment fight with Apple and Google last year, which got them thrown out.

and that is a good thing that Epic has that option atleast on Google. Why do you hate freedom of choice?

What exactly gave you the impression that I'm against that? I merely explained why wording choosen further up was appropriate.

Abandon is not the appropriate word.

This doesn't appear to be true.

https://www.epicgames.com/fortnite/en-US/mobile/android/get-...

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