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Epic Games Asks Apple to Restore Fortnite in South Korea Following Ban on In-App Purchase Requirement [Update]
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For the sake of argument, let’s just assume I know nothing and I asked you to educate me about monopoly. How would you go about educating me? Deflecting won’t do you any favors. If you say something in public forums that you can’t defend, somebody will eventually call you on it. That’s why we have “reply” buttons here.
Heh. If I did that by accident, I’m happy to admit. It won’t hurt me either way, one way or another.
One guy complain people can blame that guy being picky or whatever. Three thousand guys complain about the same issue it better be something wrong with it. Here, that’s the case. App Store policy is problematic and needs to be regulated. Ezpz. Most people don’t complain, more likely they don’t care than they are happy with it. Silent majority.
Developers have choice? Yeah technically. Either Google or apple, neither of which are superior over the other. I dunno if you ever developed games on iOS or Android but those devs they feel the pain and need to raise the awareness and pressure apple to fix the problem. Why they don’t go to the other side? Maybe there is no other side they are willing or even able to go to. You tell those devs to f themselves and leave. You are demoralising them by telling them to dodge the issue, which is never how society move forward.
I don’t want to repeat the physical store analogy debate. It’s pointless. Yes I’m not old enough to remember that (maybe a good thing), but that’s irrelevant.
August 31, 2021
Today — "Epic Games Asks Apple to Restore Fortnite in South Korea Following Ban on In-App Purchase Requirement".
I wouldn't be surprised if Apple had reinstated their account that we would have indeed seen an article titled "Epic Games is moving its headquarters to South Korea." 😂
South Korea Passes Bill Banning Apple From Requiring Developers to Use App Store In-App Purchase System
Today — "Epic Games Asks Apple to Restore Fortnite in South Korea Following Ban on In-App Purchase Requirement".
I wouldn't be surprised if Apple had reinstated their account that we would have indeed seen an article titled "Epic Games is moving its headquarters to South Korea." 😂
They don’t have a monopoly. Please know a little something about the topic before you post. Further having a monopoly is not a crime or even wrong
Apple’s recent spying investments don’t really spark optimism about its platform security and privacy.
You can buy VBucks on any platform and they show on your iOS device no problem. This includes buying gift cards from grocery stores to buying the bucks on a PlayStation (or any other device/platform). Apple has only blocked adding a third party payment method on their own iOS platform. Honestly, I believe this is fair practice from Apple. After all Apple provides the platform, support, hosting and the store for developers. Why should Apple distribute software and loose money while developers get higher revenue?Ah good point.
But couldn't I buy VBucks elsewhere and have them show up in the iOS app?
Forgive me as I've only played Fortnite on the PC. And not very much.
I just know that you can buy VBucks giftcards at the freakin' grocery store... so you can obviously buy VBucks in places other than in the app. Clearly Apple's IAP isn't the only way to buy this digital currency.
That's why I was wondering why Epic didn't just let people buy VBucks from their own website or store or whatever.
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Hey, I want every single store in the world to sell my stuff but they can’t get anything out of it them selves. Yes that’s right, I want it all. It’s me me me. This is the reason why South Korean court decision isn’t reasonable one. For some reason it also only applies to Apple and Google. What about Samsung store? Oh… they left their own puppy out… how nice.
Apple can always ban the in-app purchases altogether. In all honesty, that would be awesome. No more micropayments which in a long run turn “free” to costing more than a AAA console game.
Economists and people with common sense would certainly disagree.
Yea, no. Thanks for admitting but I assure you it wasn’t by mistake. I deal with young and entitled developers all the time. They simply refuse to think more than two steps at a time and that includes some brilliant young fellas too. I am not blaming them for being young and inexperienced but there is a reason why engineers are generally not business analyst. Business, operations and spending money to make money are all foreign concepts to them.
Things don’t end with creating an app. There is marketing, distribution, customer service, COGS and all kinds of businessy stuff these developers ignore until it’s too late.
3,000 complaining developers mean the rest of the 340,000+ developers don't complain. They are actually in favor of the IAP. Those who don’t complain understand that economies of scale is how Apple can host hundreds of thousands developers and serve millions of developers of any size for fraction of the cost each developer would have to assume if they were to do all that on their own.
Truth is, your idea how the world should be doesn’t align with how the world sustains itself. You aren’t owed anything. Business is business. It always has been no matter what century you are talking about.
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Huawei pays developers to port apps to their platforms.
Apple’s investments are reimbursed by the fact that developers are willing to join their ecosystem. If they think that is insufficient, they can charge based on API calls.
Business analyst and a guy with common sense here. I can attest that most people misuse or misinterpret the meaning of monopoly. You are one of them.
The same people with “common sense” who have been dead wrong about Apple for decades and counting?
Just don’t offer a way to buy coins. Users would know what’s up. Just like Amazon only gives samples in their kindle purchases. And Audible titles can only be redeemed via credits. Where do you get the real thing? It’s up to the user to figure it out. Same with coins.
I literally have a degree in Econometrics, and another degree in Electrical Engineering, are you kidding me?
But you don’t understand. Epic wants to have its cake and eat it too. Free access to the store and no other form of costs. Despite that some other form of costs (per API call, hosting) will definitely come from this.
Although I agree Apple should introduce distribution fee, which is fair because services like Netflix and Spotify aren’t paying Apple anything right now, I can see Epic then sues again for third party App Store.
You are putting words in their mouths. Epic never uttered a word about not willing to pay Apple a fixed fee independent of revenue and/or an server/API usage fee.
Huawei pays developers for only the first two years. After the third year, the rate goes to regular 30% just like it is in every other platform. The only reason they even do that is because they need to get developers away from Google.
Developers are willing to join Apple’s ecosystem because there is a big paying customer base that translates to more revenue opportunities and it is a much streamlined process to support more devices at a time with minimal resources. 30% fee covers many things which includes API development.
Your heart is in the right place but it is clear to everyone that developers are willing to pay…well…nothing. That’s the end game.
Ok, so let’s see. Just don’t offer App Store downloads cause users will figure out how to get their favourite games, whether free or with a fee. Wait, is this not possible?
The App Store does very little “promotion” unless you pay them for search ads or are fortunate enough to get featured. That’s but a sliver of apps, and thus most are left to do marketing on their own anyway.
Most of the larger companies asking for this would be happy to host their app binaries and content on their own servers (most apps already do the latter anyway), removing Apple from the equation completely, if Apple would allow them to do so. Most companies already do this for other platforms and have done so for years, if not decades. It’s not like this is uncharted territory.
Apple has already hinted that in the event that third party payments are allowed, they would simply find another way to continue to bill developers regardless.
So even if Epic could switch to PayPal or some other payment provider, Apple would still expect them to pay 30% of IAP revenue.