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Comment by jmull | Hacker News Reader

Did something change?

(Windows users/developers have always been able to use various distribution systems... likewise for macOS.

The change is that their current Windows Store is a tumbleweed wasteland with astonishingly little uptake, so Microsoft has offered some partners (I presume it's a subset or it'll just become a scam central) like Adobe to put themselves "on" the store, but not actually on it. Basically a package manager.

The announcement was that "bring-your-own-commerce" platform was going to be open to all developers (it is becoming basically a package manager), except for things categorized as Games, where presumably existing Xbox rules still take priority.

I might be wrong (not a developer), but I thought within the official stores, in-app purchases were subject to 30%, as standard, going to the platform provider. At least that's what I understand with regard to Apple and Google stores.

You can install software on Windows and MacOS outside of the app stores jfyi

I mean, you can also do that on Android; in fact Epic was doing that for quite a while with fortnite.

Yes, inarguably true, my omission wasn't implying otherwise.

But now you can have your Windows Store presence and still keep all your money.

Of course that's easy to offer while nobody uses the Windows Store, but e.g. on MacOS that would be quite a big deal.

But more and more applications can only be installed through the app stores on those platforms. That's the issue.

I see now… the Microsoft store will let publishers collect payments in alternative ways.

That’s well and good, but I don’t see that as a big deal because the microsoft app store isn’t that important.

The problem with the Apple ios app store isn’t that they have a specific, restricted payments mechanism. It’s that it’s the only practical way for developers to distribute native software to iOS devices.

I think this is important to Microsoft, and actually quite a smart move. By letting other people use the Microsoft/Windows Store app natively built into windows, with their own billing infrastructure, they basically kill off any reason to have other applications for buying/installing software.

Imagine if Steam allowed Blizzard/Activision/EA to sell their games on the Steam store, and as long as they pay their own hosting/billing infrastructure costs, Valve takes no cut?

I think that would immediately kill the need for EA/Ubisoft/Blizzard/etc. to ever need their own applications to sell software.

They still get value from their apps, those won't go away.

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