Google says Fortnite’s in-app purchase swap was a breach of contract, sues Epic
arstechnica.com
arstechnica.com
A video game console is marketed and used as a video game console by most people. Mobile phones and tablets are used as mobile general purpose computing devices. I know many people who only have mobile phones and tablets as their computer.
This means everything they do online and in their cyber lives is through their phone. That means two companies have complete control of communications, banking, emergency alerts, voting information, dating/relationships, political discussions, job functions/searches, photo storage, shopping, education, entertainment, identification cards, health care, physical access credentials, schedules, location data, IoT device control, password managers, news, navigation/travel, religious apps, etc.
If gaming consoles begin to be used for most of these things.. then maybe we should look at it as a monopoly that needs to be broken or regulated, but until then its apple and oranges.
You make a great case for an absolutely locked-down device, especially given that it's something that's bristling with microphones/cameras/accelerometers/GPS and logged into the most sensitive services in your life. The market agrees with this stance - Google offers sideloading, and vast armies of people are lining up to never use it. Apple's locked-down product is so successful with consumers that we're complaining about their monopoly power.
You can buy a general-purpose computer for cheaper than a cell phone. The fact that people choose the locked-down pocket computer over the general-purpose device tells me that the locked-down experience is the one the mass market prefers.
The people who I hear complaining about this aren't the regular users, they're the companies who aren't making the maximum profit they feel they're entitled to.
The people I hear complaining about this are generally normal users who have given up. If I mention google's tracking or apple's walled garden they say that they dislike it, they would prefer something else but there is no other choice.
I have a hard time buying that the same users we struggle to convince to not use the same 7 character long password for every site care about security. They don't even know what sideloading means. They don't care about a secure experience, they care about the native experience. Ya click the blue icon with a white triangle and press Get on whatever catches your fancy.
It's always been possible to dynamically load content like a payment signup form after the application loads, app review was never about preventing that. The enforcement mechanism for that is lawyers, which Apple used and collected >3 million from Epic for the breach of contract.
Exactly. Its always been about security theater. The review process is holier than the TSA. But you still go through the same often nonsensical rigmarole for "security's sake", but don't worry when someone gets through we have a team of lawyers to sue people after the adversary got your data! So don't worry, if you see something you like just click the Get button and know we've taken care of it.
I think Microsoft is actually scared that they are on exactly that warpath with some of the things they've been saying about Fortnite and the big exceptions they seem to be making already in advance to Fortnite IAPs in the Microsoft Store, at least on the PC. Still remains to be seen if they plan to make similar gestures on the Xbox itself which for now is relatively a stronghold.
[1] One of the obvious reasons it is "easier": Given the average age of a US Federal Judge they are far more likely to know and use a mobile phone than to know and use an Xbox or Playstation. So less to explain to Judges.
Here fixed that for ya.
Used to be you sold games in retail stores, which took 50% of retail price. Old console games took around 30% of retail. Pretty much every distribution and market maker in gaming history took these rates to provide platforms and markets.
I'm guessing Epic will not win these, given the many platforms they can sell on, and each taking around these same rates.
Maybe it's time for Epic to make their own phone and see how that goes.
And no matter how it's sliced, Epic breached contract. It's one thing to sue over principles or whatever. But when you breach contract, the contract usually has costs for that.