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Comment by JumpCrisscross | Hacker News Reader

> watching Apple be maximally aggressive

Sweeney allegedly tweeted that he would breach his contract with Apple. Apple reached out and asked if he was being hysterical for public display. He didn’t clarify. At that point, Epic credibly threatened breach of contract.

This is a commercial dispute between multi-billion dollar companies, both of whom charge outrageous platform fees, both of whom seem to enjoy being dramatic, and both of whom are being maximally aggressive. It’s fair to remain emotionally uninvolved.

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> At that point, Epic credibly threatened breach of contract.

A threat of a breach of contract is not a breach of contract, which will be a sticking point if the EU gets involved again.

> threat of a breach of contract is not a breach of contract

I don’t know EU law. But anticipatory breach is enough to trigger damages under American law, and “is an excuse for non-performance by the non-breaching party” [1].

[1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/anticipatory_breach

There's nothing about some random contracts I can see in DMA. DMA however does say that the gatekeeper (Apple) isn't allow to block or retaliate against competitors. Or users for that matter.

> nothing about some random contracts I can see in DMA

There are laws other than the DMA?

(Anticipatory breach is incorporated into EU law through the UN CISG [1].)

[1] https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/16247_2020_13

And how exactly does that then allow breach of DMA provisions?

Do you have a link to the tweet from Sweeney saying he would breach the contract?

No. Graham says it’s this one [1]. I see no threat of breach, so if that’s in fact the tweet, Cook is off his meds.

[1] https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1765431238985187525

Epic has a 12% fee, while Apple has a 30% fee - I don't think those are equally outrageous and I would go so far as to say one is extremely reasonable.

> Epic has a 12% fee, while Apple has a 30% fee

Epic’s fee is global. Once you sign with them, you pay that on every install. There is also the 5% royalty, which brings the actual fee to 17% since we’re comparing non-small developer figures.

The 5% royalty is for using the unreal engine - they don't enforce that the engine be used in order to appear in their game store, nor do they enforce that unreal engine games can only be sold on their game store.

The outrageous part of Epic’s model is the global application.

What is the alternative to global application?

Charging per install through their store. Like Apple does (or used to).

This is flatly false.

Schiller emailed Sweeney asking for assurances and Sweeney responded with:

> Epic and its subsidiaries are acting in good faith and will comply with all terms of current and future agreements with Apple, and we'll be glad to provide Apple with any specific further assurances on the topic that you'd like.

Without reply, Apple summarily terminated their developer account a week later. It seems obvious, in retrospect, that Schiller's email's goal was to establish a fig leaf of Apple having reached out before doing this.

It is indeed true that Sweeney has tweeted many criticisms of Apple's DMA plans but there haven't been any threatening noncompliance.

> there haven't been any threatening noncompliance

Do we have neutral sources for these claims and emails?

Apple said Sweeney threatened to breach contract and didn’t repudiate in private. Epic claims it didn’t threaten and did repudiate. We’re in a he said she said absent independent sourcing.

Epic provided screenshots of the emails. Are you seriously suggesting there's even the tiniest chance they're forgeries?

The emails are from this post (https://www.epicgames.com/site/en-US/news/apple-terminated-e...).

The source for the tweets (from your original comment: "Sweeney allegedly tweeted that he would breach his contract with Apple") are Sweeney's Twitter feed which you can read as well as I did. Did you find any threatening non-compliance?

Perhaps it's just me, but my gut says that EpicGames dot com might, possibly, just might, not be an entirely neutral source on the topic of "was Epic naughty?"

Even with screenshots, and assuming no false claims (which IIRC are entirely legal so long as you don't swear under oath), there's plenty of ways to mislead by omission while saying only true things.

> It is indeed true that Sweeney has tweeted many criticisms of Apple's DMA plans but there haven't been any threatening noncompliance.

Let’s not forget that Epic has previously breached contract with Apple in the past. That’s why Fortnite isn’t in the store today.

Surely this must be the true source of Apples suspicion?

Yes but there's two of them, and they're competing against each other.

That increases consumer choice and weakens the market power of both.

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