That's nonsense.
Please let us know what the judge is missing about "how any of these of things work." It is completely reasonable and common to charge a fee for use of intellectual property. That's how these things work.
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Apple Wants $73.4 Million From Epic Games to Cover Its Legal Expenses
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It's funny that had they released Infinity Blade Dungeons, they would have probably netted much more than this bill.Ah well EPIC had their fun, now they get their bill. The question will be whether they become smart and realise that sometimes it's better to have a smaller percentage of a lot opposed to have 100% of nothing
Hosting a website isn't using Apple's intellectual property, unless you argue that means of access is what matters, hence my "nonsense" about the Wikipedia donation starts to make sense. This is what the judge doesn't seem to understand.
Yes linking to a website is kind of a loophole around Apple IAP royalties, but allowing Apple to collect royalties on a website in exchange for access to millions of users on iOS challenges some basic assumptions about a free and open internet.
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Epic definitely needs Apple more than Apple needs Epic. Apple users spend much more than Android users on average. It would be a net loss for Epic. If they had followed the terms and still have Fortnite on there, they would be making a fortune and would be paying 73 million. But I don't expect Sweeney to go down quietly and would rather lose more money standing by his principle, or attempt to suing one of the many other companies all charging 30% to see if he can make a case with one of them.
Neither I nor the judge said that it was. The are paying a licensing fee for use of iOS and associated services. Your insistence that the only value that Apple provides to iOS developers is that of a payment processor is ridiculous.
Then Apple should find a different way of collecting royalties for use of the App Store that doesn't involve the means of accessing a website. (It already has one by way of an annual developer fee, which could be reasonably increased for large for-profit companies using the iOS App Store).
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Only 51%? So if he sells more than 1% ($300M), he would no longer have majority control?
Presumably he has other sources of income, like the CEO salary he pays himself.
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Why? As I said, it's completely normal and common to charge a licensing fee on third-party sales.
it’s funny that you chose this particular example. Safari is indeed built on an engine Apple initially built…only to then open-source it and arguably greatly hasten the transition to a post-Flash Internet by doing so. virtually any browser you use is running on an engine that was (originally) built by Apple, and they’re proud of what they’ve contributed to the open-source web dev community—they haven’t once gone after anyone for implementing WebKit in any form because that simply goes against the morals of open-source projects.
but, I mean…sure! whatever example suits you.
I beg to differ: I did exactly that, back during the beginning of the pandemic. I gauged the prices of all of the different options for getting multiple kids in my household devices that could enable them to play Fortnite and I then used the government stimulus checks to purchase iPads all the way around, because I simply couldn't yet afford to get them all gaming computers. I played Fortnite on my iMac (admittedly also not a gaming computer, but good enough) while they played on their iPads; I felt like it was a halfway decent bonding experience for a house full of gamer kids (myself included).
So just imagine our collective frustration when Epic promptly sacrificed all of their Apple players at their "alter of injustice and broken contracts."
The kids still use those iPads for various other things, by the way, so they weren't entirely a waste of money... in fact, I'm pretty sure that's about the time that two or three of them got into Minecraft. And the household now has several gaming computers that weren't there before. But I personally don't play Fortnite at all anymore, and the kids barely touch it much, either. Instead, I (like many other MacRumors readers) have basically just been reading the news with morbid interest as these lawsuits go through their various stages, over the years. Which actually leads into another thought I've been mulling...
But here's the thing: From Sweeney's (and Epic's) point of view, they weren't giving up nearly as much revenue as many commenters seem to assume; those who have been following along since the beginning may well know what I'm referring to, but for the benefit of our audience members who have only recently joined us:
According to court filings and testimony, the iOS App Store never made more than 10% of Fortnite's overall revenue, and the Google Play Store made even less than that; they were respectively the second lowest and the lowest revenue earning platforms for Fortnite. Sony's PlayStation commanded a fairly dominant lead with 46.8% of revenue with the remainder mostly going to Xbox, Nintendo Switch and PCs, in that order. Further, the future revenue projections (at the time) hinted at mobile platforms providing even less of that overall revenue.
So, here's my thought: I think that Sweeney already knew that planned changes to Fortnite were likely going to stress the capabilities of mobile gaming devices of that generation, further shrinking his potential mobile audience. This probably factored into the aforementioned projections, actually. So really, they figured that it was hardly even worth it to continue developing Fortnite for Apple's platforms, let alone the Play Store. Thus, suing Apple was actually a very safe bet for newly cash-flush Epic -- Fortnite's blockbuster revenue figures had basically turned a chimp (Epic) into a two-ton gorilla, after all, so they could certainly afford to intentionally break contract with Apple as an excuse to create their trumped up multi-million-dollar lawsuit. Internally Sweeney likely justified the lawsuit as something that could eventually give them access to another new multi-billion-dollar revenue stream. Personally, I feel like their pulling the same shenanigans on Androids and subsequently suing Google as well was almost an afterthought, since they technically could already sideload on Android... so it's incredibly ironic that (due to some apparently shortsighted side deals by the folks over at Alphabet) they're somehow doing better with that lawsuit than they did against Apple.
But critically, none of this was ever really about Fortnite, from Sweeney's point of view. I'm quite convinced that the real objective, all along, has been to force Apple to open up that beautifully manicured walled garden, so that Sweeney and Co. could eventually command 100% of the profits from various (low margin?) mobile games that they have been planning but haven't yet released.
But Sweeney gambled on the courts taking his side and lost that bet... at least, in the US. It's entirely possible that his international legal maneuvering will still make it worth his time and effort to go forth and develop those other games. And it's also possible that he has a contingency plan for the US market... time will tell.
For me, I don't really see much value in Sweeney's actions. Not for him, not for Epic and certainly not for those "smaller developers" that he always pretends to be championing. I think, ultimately, Sweeney became uncontrollably drunk with the power that Fortnite's influx of revenue granted him... and "Drunk Sweeney" just really loves to burn through Epic's cash hoard.
As someone who works very hard to support my family, I genuinely have no respect at all for that.
I wish that Apple customers would just be satisfied that the App Store is your safest way to add function to your iOS devices. Side loading is fraught with risk, and of course those sites that offer the most compelling apps are the ones most likely to cause you trouble, to varying degrees.
I just wanna thank you for such a well-thought-out comment amidst an otherwise rather contentious thread—you clearly have a lot of insight into this from both sides, given the backstory in the beginning of your comment, and you mentioned a ton of ideas I’d have never thought of re: Sweeney’s justification for all of this (e.g., more mobile games). ahh…pride cometh before the fall.I beg to differ: I did exactly that, back during the beginning of the pandemic. I gauged the prices of all of the different options for getting multiple kids in my household devices that could enable them to play Fortnite and I then used the government stimulus checks to purchase iPads all the way around, because I simply couldn't yet afford to get them all gaming computers. I played Fortnite on my iMac (admittedly also not a gaming computer, but good enough) while they played on their iPads; I felt like it was a halfway decent bonding experience for a house full of gamer kids (myself included).
So just imagine our collective frustration when Epic promptly sacrificed all of their Apple players at their "alter of injustice and broken contracts."
The kids still use those iPads for various other things, by the way, so they weren't entirely a waste of money... in fact, I'm pretty sure that's about the time that two or three of them got into Minecraft. And the household now has several gaming computers that weren't there before. But I personally don't play Fortnite at all anymore, and the kids barely touch it much, either. Instead, I (like many other MacRumors readers) have basically just been reading the news with morbid interest as these lawsuits go through their various stages, over the years. Which actually leads into another thought I've been mulling...
But here's the thing: From Sweeney's (and Epic's) point of view, they weren't giving up nearly as much revenue as many commenters seem to assume; those who have been following along since the beginning may well know what I'm referring to, but for the benefit of our audience members who have only recently joined us:
According to court filings and testimony, the iOS App Store never made more than 10% of Fortnite's overall revenue, and the Google Play Store made even less than that; they were respectively the second lowest and the lowest revenue earning platforms for Fortnite. Sony's PlayStation commanded a fairly dominant lead with 46.8% of revenue with the remainder mostly going to Xbox, Nintendo Switch and PCs, in that order. Further, the future revenue projections (at the time) hinted at mobile platforms providing even less of that overall revenue.
So, here's my thought: I think that Sweeney already knew that planned changes to Fortnite were likely going to stress the capabilities of mobile gaming devices of that generation, further shrinking his potential mobile audience. This probably factored into the aforementioned projections, actually. So really, they figured that it was hardly even worth it to continue developing Fortnite for Apple's platforms, let alone the Play Store. Thus, suing Apple was actually a very safe bet for newly cash-flush Epic -- Fortnite's blockbuster revenue figures had basically turned a chimp (Epic) into a two-ton gorilla, after all, so they could certainly afford to intentionally break contract with Apple as an excuse to create their trumped up multi-million-dollar lawsuit. Internally Sweeney likely justified the lawsuit as something that could eventually give them access to another new multi-billion-dollar revenue stream. Personally, I feel like their pulling the same shenanigans on Androids and subsequently suing Google as well was almost an afterthought, since they technically could already sideload on Android... so it's incredibly ironic that (due to some apparently shortsighted side deals by the folks over at Alphabet) they're somehow doing better with that lawsuit than they did against Apple.
But critically, none of this was ever really about Fortnite, from Sweeney's point of view. I'm quite convinced that the real objective, all along, has been to force Apple to open up that beautifully manicured walled garden, so that Sweeney and Co. could eventually command 100% of the profits from various (low margin?) mobile games that they have been planning but haven't yet released.
But Sweeney gambled on the courts taking his side and lost that bet... at least, in the US. It's entirely possible that his international legal maneuvering will still make it worth his time and effort to go forth and develop those other games. And it's also possible that he has a contingency plan for the US market... time will tell.
For me, I don't really see much value in Sweeney's actions. Not for him, not for Epic and certainly not for those "smaller developers" that he always pretends to be championing. I think, ultimately, Sweeney became uncontrollably drunk with the power that Fortnite's influx of revenue granted him... and "Drunk Sweeney" just really loves to burn through Epic's cash hoard.
As someone who works very hard to support my family, I genuinely have no respect at all for that.
Technically, the App Store was opened on July 10, 2008. That was three years before he became CEO. And the wall of which you speak had EVERYONE pay for it!
Moral of the story - when you come at the king, you best not miss. Epic wagered everything on a reckless gamble (the reasons for this, I detailed numerous times back in 2020), and they are just reaping what they have sown.
I appreciate the positive feedback. Sadly, however, I don't anticipate any actual "fall" coming for Epic, nor for Sweeney. Fortnite continues to rake in billions of dollars for Epic, the majority of which is almost certainly skin sales. Sales of NFL-branded skins reportedly raked in $50 million in November and December of 2021... and that was their third highest income from branded skins, following Marvel and Star Wars. Tim Sweeney himself appears to have a net worth of something like $4.1 billion -- and while that is apparently down from the $7.4 billion he had in 2022, I don't imagine he loses much sleep at night over the difference.
This $73 million legal expense? While it sounds befuddlingly large to you and me, that's pocket change to them.
The only reason Tim Sweeney still has his job is because he owns the majority of his company.
Ironically, 30%-grabbing Tencent owns the next largest chunk.
This is exactly what we expected from them, and how they will respond to all regulation. They will do the absolute bare minimum to the point of capriciousness. They will invent creative ways to follow the exact letter of the law while utterly violating its intent. It’s impressive, honestly.
Considering the onerous stipulations being put on anyone who attempts this, I’m really surprised someone isn’t immediately challenging this. I’m sure Apple’s lawyers made certain it’s all nice and legal, but wow what a way to do it. It honestly works out better for Apple if someone does it that way, because they have to do all the paperwork and Apple gets their cut anyway. Solely for being the creator of the platform that has deigned to allow you to write and distribute software for it. And don’t try to distribute it yourself either, we’re still hanging on to that rule tooth and nail as well.
They don't have to be creative. The ruling from the Judge states they can change a commission.
I beg to differ: I did exactly that, back during the beginning of the pandemic. I gauged the prices of all of the different options for getting multiple kids in my household devices that could enable them to play Fortnite and I then used the government stimulus checks to purchase iPads all the way around, because I simply couldn't yet afford to get them all gaming computers. I played Fortnite on my iMac (admittedly also not a gaming computer, but good enough) while they played on their iPads; I felt like it was a halfway decent bonding experience for a house full of gamer kids (myself included).
So just imagine our collective frustration when Epic promptly sacrificed all of their Apple players at their "alter of injustice and broken contracts."
Yup, Fortnite on an iPad Pro (beginning of the pandemic) was an awesome experience. Easy 120 fps and kids could play together if you had mutliple ipads.
One thing that explored enough is that while Sweeny is happy to take advantage of Apple's distribution of his "freemium software" to pitch his fake "v-bucks" currency to kids, the same kids had no recourse when Sweeny blew off the platform because consumers technically didn't pay for the software. He stranded many of his customers, during the pandemic, in a massively dickish move.
Fortnite is a great product plagued with IMHO a predatory business model. I'm glad Apple won.
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Someone has to pay all the thousands of code testers Apple employs to protect you from the thousands of malware exploits that criminals have tried to get onto your phone. And they do it well. Side load at your own risk!