Epic Games Appeals Ruling in Apple Lawsuit, Claims Court Made Errors

[huge_apple_fangirl]

It always cracks me up when people talk as if Epic is a publicly traded company.

It’s not? Well I guess that explains why Sweeney hasn’t received any pushback from shareholders. Still, the broader point is that he is letting his personal issues with Apple drive Epic’s behavior, even when the only party he is harming is Epic itself.

 

[schlitzz]

Looks like Sweeney has been biting a pillow, a lot.

 

[TracesOfArsenic]

As they should appeal! It's not like Apple doesn't stomp its feet and behave like a petulant child when decisions go against them and they're only ever interested in their own financials, not the good of the user.

 

[suns93]

Epic CAN compete, and Apple, Google, Microsoft, Sony, AND Nintendo have provided fairly clear steps on how to do so. First, create a hardware reference platform. If you want, you can license it to others, but that’s not required. Second, create an OS for that reference platform. Again, you CAN license it, but it’s not required. Third, create an App Store. You’re free to allow other App Stores on your OS if you like, but again, not required.

THEN, get millions upon millions of folks to buy that hardware and you’re done! It won’t be easy, it took Apple many many years to get where they are today. However, every year they wait is a year they could be making progress.

Couldn’t agree more, and unfortunately this aspect/context is often left out of the debate. In Judge Rodger’s ruling in September, they define the relevant market to be “digital mobile gaming transactions”, with no mention that such a market cannot exist without hardware manufacturers. Nor that it could not exist without an OS - an extremely expensive product that Apple collects no direct revenue from.

 

[TimHalfCooked]

As a developer and a consumer, I'm with Epic on this one.

Apple absolutely has a monopoly and should not be able to operate it currently does. All that money they make on their insane 30% cut and they still cant moderate the App Store.

 

[Unregistered 4U]

As they should appeal! It's not like Apple doesn't stomp its feet and behave like a petulant child when decisions go against them and they're only ever interested in their own financials, not the good of the user.

I don’t know any company that isn’t interested in their own financials. Those that aren’t aren’t companies for very long.

 

[suns93]

The sweet irony in all of this is discovering that Epic Games Store is running at a huge loss.

But ultimately, this isn’t going anywhere. You can’t be found to have a monopoly of your own product, you have a monopoly of a market. Apple has 55%, historically at the very lowest end of what could be considered a monopoly, and all other indicators show the market is thriving - frequent innovation and high growth.

I don’t see how Apple doesn’t win the appeal on the ruling regarding anti-steering. It was inconsistent with the overall ruling that there’s no monopoly. Either there is no monopoly and thus Apple gets to put reasonable rules in place because there are alternative options, or not. And placing an upmost importance on protecting payment processes is literally the keystone holding the entire App Store together. And given the frequent and high profile instances of data leaks, Apple does not have a difficult argument to make that they must lock that down.

 

[Cosmosent]

IMO, Epic's strategy has been, from the get-go, flawed !

They should have focused on suppression of third-party App Innovation (by Apple), found prime examples of that, & used that as the core of their Argument !

NOT Rocket Science, if they had gone that route, they would have easily found some, & their case against Apple would have been much stronger.

As I see it, they have little to NO chance of success.

And, I doubt Apple worries much about Epic.

I'm sure they're much more concerned about what hasn't become Mainstream Knowledge yet, & which will on June 7th !

 

[suns93]

As a developer and a consumer, I'm with Epic on this one.

Apple absolutely has a monopoly and should not be able to operate it currently does. All that money they make on their insane 30% cut and they still cant moderate the App Store.

Just curious, what do you believe Apple has a monopoly of?

 

[TimHalfCooked]

I don’t know any company that isn’t interested in their own financials. Those that aren’t aren’t companies for very long.

Companies exist to make money, I'm not arguing that. Making money by exploiting those creating that income for you is what I am highlighting here.

Apple allowing 3rd party payment processing isn't going cause them to cease being a company.

 

[suns93]

Why is Apple wasting money on a lawsuit with Epic and not just buying Epic?

Buying out competitors that are bringing suits against you is a huge red flag. That’s true monopolistic behavior, as opposed to what Epic is arguing.

 

[Unregistered 4U]

Companies exist to make money, I'm not arguing that. Making money by exploiting those creating that income for you is what I am highlighting here.

Apple allowing 3rd party payment processing isn't going cause them to cease being a company.

Every company makes money by exploiting those creating income for them. I haven’t heard of any multi-million dollar company paying all their employees in the hundreds of thousands which would be more in line with how much income those employees are creating.

 

[suns93]

Companies exist to make money, I'm not arguing that. Making money by exploiting those creating that income for you is what I am highlighting here.

Apple allowing 3rd party payment processing isn't going cause them to cease being a company.

How is Apple exploiting the developers? By taking an industry standard cut for the services Apple renders the developers?

 

[duanepatrick]

Wow...It's 2022 and this is still ongoing...

 

[TracesOfArsenic]

As a developer and a consumer, I'm with Epic on this one.

Apple absolutely has a monopoly and should not be able to operate it currently does. All that money they make on their insane 30% cut and they still cant moderate the App Store.

I agree with you 100%. The promise of what the App Store was when it launched and you paid 30% is very different to the banana republic version it is now and they're still robbing devs the same fee. It's time Apple saw some punishment for the way they've duped devs and customers.

 

[cmaier]

Apple absolutely has a monopoly

A duly-appointed Article III district court judge sitting in the Northern District of California disagrees with you.

 

[Unregistered 4U]

How is Apple exploiting the developers? By taking an industry standard cut for the services Apple renders the developers?

The first definition of “exploit” is utilize. I think that’s accurate.

 

[svish]

Wonder how this will end!! A long battle continues.

 

[amartinez1660]

Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney said that the ruling wasn't a "win for developers or for consumers,"

Dear Tim Sweeney, let’s give an immediate win to video game developers and video games consumers alike (and even your own), especially those related to the Mac and iOS ecosystem (as this is what the issue is, the iOS App Store) by fully supporting Unreal Engine, your own engine, on the Mac. Especially the newer fancier M1 Pro/Max chipsets with their latest Metal/ML/MediaEngines APIs. MetaHuman, Nanite, Lumen, stability, performance, you name it… are still missing/lacking or somewhat partially there.

There’s nothing to lose, all to win and would probably take a fraction of the cost of this whole lawsuit ordeal. I think but what do I know…

Trains of thought seems to look like this in my imagination:
“So, iOS/Mac and also a big chunk of the general video games development market is owned by Unity… so maybe we should get our supported platforms in check and take advantage of becoming the… nah, too much work, let’s just use these billions to take it to Apple face to face on their own house”

 

[Dezh_1045_Apple_Inc]

Every company makes money by exploiting those creating income for them. I haven’t heard of any multi-million dollar company paying all their employees in the hundreds of thousands which would be more in line with how much income those employees are creating.

The problem is they pay their employees hundreds of thousands like 200k plus except for retail and customer service, their compensation is one of the best out there, their stress and work-life balance, not so much

 

[Homme]

Oh my GOD I wish Apple would just buy them already.

it won’t happen. Apple traditionally buys small, the only (possibly)big company was beats

No matter what, one side will not be satisfied. That’s the nature of war.

only tolerance and an acceptance of tolerance may satisfy both sides

Go Epic!
App Store rules are becoming totally unfair. Specially since there is no other way to download apps.

I’m not surprised seeing posts like this (and that your a newbie)

and BTW it’s not unfair to sideload, that is what makes iOS/iPadOS secure, many people are against it or couldn’t care less about it

 

[vadimnekhai]

Epic CAN compete, and Apple, Google, Microsoft, Sony, AND Nintendo have provided fairly clear steps on how to do so. First, create a hardware reference platform. If you want, you can license it to others, but that’s not required. Second, create an OS for that reference platform. Again, you CAN license it, but it’s not required. Third, create an App Store. You’re free to allow other App Stores on your OS if you like, but again, not required.

THEN, get millions upon millions of folks to buy that hardware and you’re done! It won’t be easy, it took Apple many many years to get where they are today. However, every year they wait is a year they could be making progress.

I created an account to like that comment. I cann’t agree more. Thank you.

 

[thewill586]

Apple should announce that they want to develop a portal in Fornite that supports 3rd party selling skins for $.99 each and bypasses any commissions that Epic would want. They can charge Epic with being a monopoly on Fortnite.

 

[ruka.snow]

I wish I could've used that excuse in school. "Teacher, this is NOT a C paper. You've made errors and I'm going to appeal."

You can do that in school. It is often how teachers are caught out showing favouritism or just plain bullying a child. Exams results can also be appealed. My D in my higher history became an A. The grader couldn't read my handwriting so gave me a D when all four years of taking history I was getting A and merits. In this case the **** that marked me a D had all the papers he checked investigated.

With a judges ruling, even though it is great that Epic lost, if they can prove errors were made then the judge needs to make amendments. If they can't prove any errors then we have an even stronger case for those ****s to be tossed and it'll help the case when small developers sue Epic for trying to damage our businesses.

 

[ruka.snow]

As a developer and a consumer, I'm with Epic on this one.

Apple absolutely has a monopoly and should not be able to operate it currently does. All that money they make on their insane 30% cut and they still cant moderate the App Store.

You can get your 20% or less cut from Epic if you want them to publish a game for you. Or you can go to Apple and Valve and get 70% or more. Used to be lucky to take over 10% by the time the shop and publisher took their cuts. Since Value let us sell on Steam for a 30% cut and then Apple and Google followed it has been the golden age of development.