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Comment by cedws | Hacker News Reader

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I can see what you mean, but you do have the option to install EGS on your PC, you just choose not to. There was no way to install a separate app store on iOS.

FWIW, I also prefer Steam and dislike needing EGS, but I have the option to install it no problem without being restricted by something like Microsoft when I'm on the Windows platform.

That’s not the question though. If software is not available on a platform it is just not available. If I write a software for windows you can’t sue me for the software not working on your Samsung smart fridge.

Epic on the other hand bought some fridge native software and made sure that you can’t run it on your fridge anymore.

>Epic on the other hand bought some fridge native software and made sure that you can’t run it on your fridge anymore.

But it _can_ still run, you just need to install a new piece of software (EGS) that you don't want to.

The reason the software wasn't available on the other platform is due to restriction of the platform maintainer (not arguing whether Apple should or shouldn't have that right).

It's been a while since I've played Rocket League (I purchased through Steam), but I was under the impression that it still runs and updated via Steam, but new users don't have access to download except via EGS. Am I off target there?

You can start the game. But not play it.

Having exclusives is unrelated to the store walled garden conversation. I have a game, I can choose my store's infrastructure to exclusively sell this game. For instance, if Walmart made a game, it wouldn't be unreasonable to expect Walmart to be the only one distributing it - however Walmart would have to accept the consequences of doing so, which would include people who refuse to go to Walmart not being able to buy the game.

The Apple store walled garden is a completely different beast altogether. Not only Apple sells their software through the store, it requires everybody else to also do so. That reduces competition because it prevents others from lowering their prices beyond a certain point and distributing content that Apple finds objectionable (some of which would undermine Apple's semi-monopoly, such as portable apps using certain technologies like emulation).

Neither Apple nor Epic are very sympathetic when it comes to software freedom. However, in this specific case, Epic is the better of the two.

There's no way this "core technology fee" will survive the inevitable Epic v. Apple lawsuit. I think Epic is just waiting to rack up enough "fees" to make it viable to show how damaging Apple is to the ecosystem so they can correct this in court.

Just fyi, if you bought a copy of Rocket League through Steam, you can still play the game on it.

No you can’t. You must login with Epic.

You only have to connect the Epic account to Steam. The game itself doesn't launch through the Epic Store.

So? I have bought a game that wasn’t developed by epic from a company that isn’t epic.

But out of nothing epic expects me to create a account for a service that I have no intention of using and takes away my access to a product I already paid for.

While it is a little hypocritical of them, the iOS walls have been lifted (a little) for everyone (in the EU...), not just for EGS.

Altstore is another example: https://altstore.io/

AltStore PAL used to be paid (to offset Apple's fees), but it became free now that Epic is paying AltStore's costs: https://techcrunch.com/2024/08/15/epic-games-megagrant-makes...

The other AltStore abuses development signatures and requires you to re-sign apps regularly (which I'm pretty sure is a violation of Apple's ToS so you also risk getting your account banned if Apple starts taking action). That's not really comparable to a normal app store, in my opinion.

I agree that apple's implementation more or less amounts to malicious compliance, but it's very un-hypocritical of Epic to be paying AltStore's fees.

> If not I might just reinstall it a few thousand times.

Unique install per user per year.

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