Wasn’t there a headline were it said apple made more on games than Nintendo, Sony, blizzard etc. together. Apple is already on top of the gaming market.
Counting the App Store service fee of 30% as "game revenue" is disingenuous, as then we could count every single Windows license sale and every single dollar of revenue from hosting game servers as "making money from games".
It was total revenue from App Store derived from Gaming Apps. I dont see how that is disingenuous. Just like Sony makes a cut from games on PS5.
When Apple has a total 0 input in making and marketing of said game and just charges for services - that's not revenue from games.
And if you want to put a bar that low - Google makes billions from ads for games, YouTube play alongs and other services purchased by game makers. Let's also no forget Starbucks revenues from all the game devs, that definitely counts as game revenue.
> Just like Sony makes a cut from games on PS5.
You do realize that all PS5 games get input and support from Sony, do you?
(Also - if you downvote, then don't bother replying)
Walmart dictates what gets put on their shelves. Should we throw them into this contest too?
I think people -- on both sides of this little mini-debate -- may be trying to carve out too fine a distinction. Insisting that it's only correct to say that a company makes money from games if the company is developing or publishing games suggests that GameStop doesn't make money from games -- a rather hard position to defend.
The reason why Walmart or GameStop wouldn't be counted in Game Revenue is because they belong to Retail segment. Even if they were to be counted I think retail label would have to be inserted somewhere.
Neither Walmart or GameStop contribute anything to the actual making of Games. They have added zero value to the making of Games in that value chain and act as distribution only ( and arguably discovery in terms of foot traffic ). Since Retail is a clearly defined term, It is perfectly valid to suggest ( Apple's ) App Store as similar to Walmart and GameStop. But I dont think anyone would agree Apple == App Store. Apple as a Platform ( providing tools and support ) Apple as a Publisher ( Buy apps from you and resold to their customers ) and Apple as a Distributor ( App Store ).
It is all about the value creation and where the cuts are taken. It is also the reason why most of the debate about Apple becomes pointless where these aren't clearly defined in the argument. Although Judge Rogers seems to be able to dissect all of these in a very clear manner.
They did help us out when we ran into issues with the dev tooling, but then so does Apple.
Source: I was lead engine dev on a couple of mid-cycle PS2 games.