Apple Says 'We Won't Make an Exception' for Epic Games in App Store Dispute

[rafark]

Apple needs to cut down their fees to about 5-15%.
30% is beyond all reason. It's especially bad for small devs and companies.

That’s what I’m hoping for since Pretty much any other marketplace/store out there charges around 30%, which is nuts. PayPal and stripe charge only about 3-5% per transaction. If Apple reduces its fees there’s a change other marketplaces will do the same.

 

[rafark]

Epic Games should be happy Apple is not introducing a tiered system like taxes are - the more you make, the higher the tax. Epic would probably end up paying 40 - 45%.

It’s actually the other way around in a lot of industries. The more transactions the lower the fees.

 

[MadeTheSwitch]

How am I protected as a customer by not being able to bypass the nanny state of Apple? More like Apple is protecting it’s own income stream.

 

[Realityck]

Epic used its playbook for Fortnite events against Apple and Google - The Verge 8/18/20

Epic typically puts a lot of effort into hyping events by plastering notices in-game and on social media to let players know that something is coming. And when the events do happen, they kick off at the exact same time for every one of Fortnite’s millions of players on every platform Fortnite runs on (which includes the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, PC, Mac, and — for now — iOS and Android).

That time spent honing its marketing for in-game events all led up to last week. Epic used everything it knows about how to get millions of people to show up to its events to pull off Fortnite’s biggest event yet — a showdown with Apple and Google.

 

[sideshowuniqueuser]

Apple is anti consumer. They allow anticompetitive practices by letting Amazon to use their own payment processing but do not allow Epic to do so. This just means that customers have to pay higher prices for apps and developers have less resources to create better experiences.

Apple is anti developer. Disabling Epics access to Apple Dev Kit will hurt all developers making games and other apps on Apple products. The majority of top triple A games on the App Store use Unreal Engine. I am a game developer and personally use Unreal Engine on my Mac (maybe only for another 10 days if Apple succeeds in banning Epic).

Another anti competitive practice Apple does is not allowing cloud streaming games with xCloud / Stadia but lets Netflix stream movies. Apple is stifling innovation in order to squeeze as much money from customers as possible.

This is not the Apple that I fell in love with. Epic is right, Apple has become rotten.

I agree, I've used Apple proudly for many years, but after recent years of poor quality control and design decisions, and now this and other non-competitive and lots of greedy behaviour, I am starting to get an icky feeling about Apple, and getting to the point of being embarrassed to use Apple products. I really think Apple have got a major PR problem on their hands.

Related to this, my son used to play fortnight on his iPad, and him and all his mates were obsessed. If Apple had pulled fortnight when he was into it, he would have been devastated and I am pretty sure would have sold his iPad and bought into another platform we he could still play it. Apple are treading on thin ice with this.

 

[jonblatho]

Apple already charges a pretty penny to iPhone customers that already covers the cost of the development of iOS.

And not to mention that many, many of the public APIs in the iOS SDK are used by Apple themselves.

 

[Ethosik]

Interestingly I’ve been reading about this for a few days on a variety of forums, tech/av forums, gaming forums and mac/ios forums. I think overhelmingly there are more Epic supporters on the mac/ios forums than anywhere else. It looks like most people can see this is an Epic fail.

I think this site has become more of an Apple bashing site than a useful community. There are way too many hate posts here. Don't get me wrong, we can have discussions when Apple has problems - hello keyboard issues on the MBP 2016+. But it seems overwhelmingly negative.

 

[v3rlon]

The difference is that epic makes and sells everything within fortnite, the App Store contains millions of apps and only a miniscule fraction of them are made by apple.

Epic does not have to allow anyone else to make and sell objects on fortnite, nor have they ever, therefore there's no monopoly there.

Apple on the other hand has a marketplace which they've made exclusive to their devices while preventing anyone from being able to install apps from outside of it.

They say they enforce all of the App Store rules equally on all devs, but how is it then possible that there are apps being rejected for being able to run code not contained within the app but yet there are other apps whose sole purpose is to run code not contained within the app on the App Store?

Actually, you CAN make skins for the game. Presumably, some enterprising individual would like to be able to sell them.
So Epic doesn't make everything.

They do, however, have a monopoly on V-Bucks. Why can't I transfer my Gold from Age of Magic into their game? Oh, the oppression is killing me. I need a watery tart to lob a scimitar at me in a farcical aquatic ceremony so I can take over this entire enterprise.

I feel confident that the 20% price cut was only a show. It will either go away or get replace (T-Bucks? higher in game prices?).

Why aren't V-Buck cheaper on XBox, PS, Switch, and PC if the higher price is all Apple/Google's fault (I realize they dropped the price all at once, but what about BEFORE)? It seems to me that they could easily circumvent the whole problem by having players buy the stuff at a lower price on other platforms.

And comparing Apple/Google play store to a simple credit card processor is disingenuous at best. Apple is providing a LOT more than just a payment processing.

 

[PlainBelliedSneetch]

But users already paid for iOS (which should include free access to development tools and SDK, because an OS without them would be useless). So App Store at most can charge a little more than a credit card company.

Dev tools for Windows cost money. Check out pricing for MSDN. Granted, some might consider Windows useless.

 

[throAU]

I understand where both sides are coming from, but Epic is going to lose this. They don't have leg to stand on in the court of law. They knowingly violated the terms of their contract to prove a point?

This.

EPIC signed up for the App Store knowing the rules.

They broke them.

Sorry but if I was to do similar on EPIC's App Store, violating their terms of service they would kick me off too.

 

[Mark Booth]

I opened a store in the local Weisfield shopping mall. After 2 years I got tired of paying percentage rent based on sales. I told them to screw off and refused to pay any more percentage rent, despite the fact that I agreed to that in the contract I signed when I first opened the store. Can you believe they had the damn nerve to throw me and my business out of the shopping mall?! I'm going to sue them for forcing me to follow the contract and not giving me what I want after I threw a tantrum.



Mark

 

[DeepIn2U]

Apples hypocrisy is the most annoying part about the whole company. I still like their products itself but their whole marketing BS about "WE CARE ABOUT YOU AND NOT THE MONEY" is just off putting.

we don't think it's right to put their business interests ahead of the guidelines that protect our customers.

sit down Apple. Lets see ... 5 GB base storage that does not even fit a back up in most cases and leads to corrupt back ups is totally to protect the customer! Same with offering 64 GB as the base model (totally not done for upselling purposes) or the iCloud storage jump from 200 GB to 2 TB or everything being glued together in the MacBook. So environmental!

If anything, Apple is protecting their business interests since services make up a HUGE part of their sales now

LMAO andyet the hypocrisy of Epic Games forcing developers to release games on THEIR own store with exclusivity dealsthat lock out and penalize other stores, ahem Steam abounds and knows no bounds!

then their is the licensing of Unreal Engine.

this is a classic case of Finger pointing and riding the train shaming Apple for the same reasons their doing themselves. The difference is Apple is and never has LOCKED out a developer with exclusive deals that hurt them should they try to publish on other platforms. Very different than temporary exclusive deals.

just waiting to see other developers whom are doing well on iOS or MacOS speak up for Apple.

so continue to ride this train waxing blind poetic while you miss real justice.

 

[DeepIn2U]

A contract that Apple can, and often does, unilaterally adjust and modify as they see fit. That's not a contract. It's coercion — because developers cannot pull out anymore once investments have been made into an iOS App.

Apple has turned hostile towards developers and as a result, hostile towards consumers. I want choice. I want freedom. I want to decide what I can put on my phone. Not Apple.

OMG: Freedom has nothing to do with your choice of game on 1 platform or another. Freedom - see attached.

you can choose to play the game of your choice on Android. There is NOTHING to stop you there. How can people be so blind to that?

ooh I see you want an Apple device the pleasures and other niceties it offers, but you want developers that make a signed contract which then break it and go against that contract (legally binding) and drag their mud in public about it over their own greed.

 

[garylapointe]

Apple needs to cut down their fees to about 5-15%.
30% is beyond all reason.

Pretty sure this is Xbox, PS4, and Google's fees for game services.

 

[Glideslope]

I understand where both sides are coming from, but Epic is going to lose this. They don't have leg to stand on in the court of law. They knowingly violated the terms of their contract to prove a point?

They will not simply loose. They will be the Poster Child. Tim will disembowel them.

 

[DeepIn2U]

There should be a choice given to consumers to sideload apps.

looking back at ALL smartphone OS in the past and present that offered this:

WINCE : paragon software, a rogue software that paired Casio, HP Jornada, Compaq and other PDAs with credit card scanners could be placed on bank machines to fraud unknowing customers! This also led to software theft heavily affecting developer revenue streams.

Epoch (which evolved to Symbian UIQ & S60 early on; before becoming Independent after iOS launched): great OS the first to compete with and include all the PIM features of PDAs at the time and integrate into phones - worlds real smartphone that anyone could buy. Nokia’s great success was based on this and outside the USA flourished. Some pirated software (affecting LonelyCatGames developers great IMAP/POP3/Exchange supported Email) could be found on sites and forums such as Symbian-Freak.com, AllAboutSymbian.com (which had the first great smartphone reviewers in the world really independent).

more specifically was the launch of the N-Gage and especially the N-Gage QD Smartphones - designed similarly to the “taco” phones Nokia made and Nokia partnered with EVERY game company you could think of to PUSH mobile gaming to the masses; not that rinky dink java (J2ME) you found oncellular provider’s store fronts like Verizon, Orange, Rogers, T-Mobile, and was in Colour (unlike BlackBerries at the time; more on that platform later). These mobile games expanded on the limits of MIDP/J2ME games that SonyEricsson had on their feature phones but really had depth. One popular and creative developer - InfiniteDreams (see screenshots of iOS attached) was amongs Epic Games and many others that was screwed OVER by massive pirated games!!

Nokia through their dominance of S60 2ND Edition of the Symbian OS forgot that the N-Gage QD (sold by T-Mobile in the USA) had the same hardware as the Nokia 6620 (and older games worked on similar designed and specde hw of the 6600) that also accepted the MMC removable storage card standard. I’m taking over a hundred games(!), many from the same developers that lost lucrative revenues and Nokia could do NOTHING about it! This for years soured the mobile gaming industry outside of Nintendo! It wasn’t just an open standard storage platform, it was the tools (SDK) being open and theives screwing up others that hurt everyone in the process! I know this first hand cause I had the 6620, I was aforum member at Symbian-Freak. I purchased the game attached on iOS becaus I loved it so much. I purchased the email software on S60 mentioned above back then.

PocketPC and Smartphone Edition: so many pirated software and shipping components of software included in devices like the Samsung BlackJack II to be used on the Motorola Q and Q90( I think it was called?). Also was the reason the Compaq iPaq H5450 has a failed fingerprint reader. Phone apps from one PPC device to be used on other with hardware that supported it.

BlackBerry: this was a closed OS based off Java and MIDP/J2ME which also had a walled garden! I don’t believe pirated software could or was circumvented from the OS, some components like the phone UI, or the message UI was extracted from updates and pieces for other devices after BBOS4/5/6/7 if I recall. BlackEyedPeas must’ve made a killing with the BBOS6/7 ads BlackBerry got a second extension of life against growing Android and iOS back then.

Android: it’s open OS has flourished along with hacked ROMS, software pirated over and over again to the likes the Symbian would shun and brick out a Palm Pre just by witnessing that horror.

yeah I’m OLD enough and experienced enough in global smartphone OS, hardware and trends to KNOW that a walled garden WORKS in favour of developers - even if some choices or wishes by many end users takes a long time to be considered or implemented.

I’m willing to bet the amount of complaining end users of failed non working software on iOS leading to refunds from developers BIG & small is no where comparable to just 1yr of the 15yrs of the previous mobile OS platforms I’ve mentioned above.

all the show baiting for clicks has NO CLUE of the failures of the past their asking to have repeated. Just remember that the end user is much more software savvy today than in the 90’s and exponentially so are the hackers - and their MUCH more hungry to take advantage!

PS: we have Ransomware today - Irving from the 90’s ever came close to that!

infinite dreams’ SkyForce looked THIS great and sounded this great on S60 smartphones - with a joystick and numerical keypads on. 2.5” LCD screen with just 256/1K colours!

 

[throAU]

That’s what I’m hoping for since Pretty much any other marketplace/store out there charges around 30%, which is nuts. PayPal and stripe charge only about 3-5% per transaction. If Apple reduces its fees there’s a change other marketplaces will do the same.

Apple are doing more than payment processing.

They are

• For the vendor/developer:
  • providing global content distribution
  • providing developer support/forums/WWDC content/etc.
  • providing anti-piracy/content validation services - Denuvo for example is not free and is totally un-necessary on the App Store.
  • providing payment processing
  • providing advertising/marketing to a potential customer base of hundreds of millions
  • providing the programming libraries/frameworks (Appkit/Cocoa/Foundation/etc.) to write software for iOS/macOS/etc. EPIC should know full well that programming support/libaries are not free, and EPIC themselves charge a royalty for Unreal Engine if you charge money for your software using it.
• For the end user
  • providing anti-malware screening
  • lack of Denuvo style anti-piracy crapware slowing down your machine or incurring exploitable security holes
  • providing refunds/support services
    • their refund policy is fairly hassle free / virtually no questions asked.
  • providing fairly seamless auto update services

Whether or not you agree that is worth 30% is your prerogative, but plenty of developers are accepting those terms and making millions doing so.

Comparing the App Store to PayPal is simply not a valid comparison, they're totally different services.

 

[DeepIn2U]

Epic only takes a 12% cut from developers on their store plus they give away free games each week. I wish Apple would do that.

Apple HAS actually given away Apps and Games in the past. Especially during the 12 days of Christmas - some games were valued at $12-15 each and developers were paid by Apple for every single download!!

 

[throAU]

looking back at ALL smartphone OS in the past and present that offered this:

Exactly. The past 30-40 years of computing have demonstrated that not enforcing code signing, etc. leads to the malware minefield we have today.

You can load whatever you want onto your iPhone with a developer account by compiling from sources and signing your own apps using the developer cert apple provide. This is the cost of doing things securely.

 

[DeepIn2U]

Apple are doing more than payment processing.

They are

• For the vendor/developer:
  • providing global content distribution
  • providing developer support/forums/WWDC content/etc.
  • providing anti-piracy/content validation services - Denuvo for example is not free and is totally un-necessary on the App Store.
  • providing payment processing
  • providing advertising/marketing to a potential customer base of hundreds of millions
  • providing the programming libraries/frameworks (Appkit/Cocoa/Foundation/etc.) to write software for iOS/macOS/etc. EPIC should know full well that programming support/libaries are not free, and EPIC themselves charge a royalty for Unreal Engine if you charge money for your software using it.
• For the end user
  • providing anti-malware screening
  • lack of Denuvo style anti-piracy crapware slowing down your machine or incurring exploitable security holes
  • providing refunds/support services
    • their refund policy is fairly hassle free / virtually no questions asked.
  • providing fairly seamless auto update services

Whether or not you agree that is worth 30% is your prerogative, but plenty of developers are accepting those terms and making millions doing so.

Comparing the App Store to PayPal is simply not a valid comparison, they're totally different services.

I would say over a Billion devices

malos Apple is maintaining the OS on devices 4-5yrs old and guaranteeing the developer as well as the customer software will work (games as intended) on ALL of them! The developers doesn’t need to compile any new package for any software or game for an iPhone 5S/SE that works for an iPhone XS or 11!

The PC or Mac gaming environments do not and have NEVER supported this last component!

 

[PC_tech]

Even if Apple is one day forced into reducing their commission they are not going to do it over this. They are in a position of strength right now.

If the government says they are, they are...

 

[DeepIn2U]

The amount of people disagreeing and not seeing how beyond crazy the situation is genuinely worries me. I for one don't like the practices Apple have shown in the past, and their unwillingness to evolve and adapt.

Apple love it because the biggest cash cow is IAPs from games, they will fight tooth and nail to keep the system as broken as it is.

that’s why Apple is dropping Epic right? Oh yeah fighting tooth and nail to keep Epics IAP lol

Principles it’s about principles.

 

[PC_tech]

give It up epic we live in apple’s world now.

You may but most of us live in the real world...

 

[frownface]

Like most people, i believe epic has a snowflake's chance of winning this. It seems very open and shut.
However, i'm pretty sure they know that and are proceeding anyway.

Everything they've done so far, has been premeditated, and apple so far has reacted exactly the way that epic has expected and prepared for.

I really wonder what the endgame is here, for all we know fortnite could be the sacrificial pawn that they're using to force apple into a checkmate further down the game.

 

[PC_tech]

You can't engage in monopolistic practices without a monopoly buddy.

You do realize they were just recently in front of congress over these very concerns? People need to stop saying it’s not a monopoly, that is only your opinion, nothing more.