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Epic Games Asks Court to Allow Fortnite Back on the App Store
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Apple is not a monopoly. There are at least a few competing platforms with their own stores. If Epic doesn’t like Apple’s store policies or how much they take as a fee, they should remove their app. Offer it elsewhere.
This is getting ridiculous.
This is getting ridiculous.
Yes. The big difference is that IBM competed in the software and hardware peripheral markets, so their policies advantaged their own products and their platform literally locked out other software and hardware providers. Apple does not do that. Also, on IBM, I remember that the government regularly threatened but never brought suit.
Now network effects and tieing business models are the holy hell of antitrust and I hardly think anyone, least of all EPIC, has figured it out.
I think EPIC is trying to make the case that not only is iOS a monopoly (absurd IMHO), but that the payment system is also a monopoly (also absurd, you can access an enormous number of payments systems on iOS through the web). They seem to have some confused theory that, as best as I can tell, because they have a freemium business model, that Fortnite is not the actual product (because it is $0 and Apple does not directly compete with it), that the product is some combo of epic store and vbucks. As if people would buy vbucks if there was no Fortnite...
So, presumably because the epic store, vbucks and Fortnite are all tied, Epic is trying to disentangle them for the purposes of claiming that some component overlaps with some component of Apple and thus they are in direct competition. But as I see it, the store, vbucks and Fortnite are the same product and Apple does not compete with that product.
In the same way, the app store, iOS and the hardware are essentially components of the same product as each protects the integrity of the whole and does not work without the other components. In my view, they can not be disentangled. As such, Apple is reasonable to partner with others to improve the quality of their product and that the app store is simply a more efficient, dynamic and fair partnering mechanism to improve and add features to their products. Because Apple services are needed to protect the integrity of their product, and that customers LOVE this and pay a premium for this, deconstructing Apple's products would create customer harm and harm a vast number of Apple's partners.
That all said, this is unlikely to go on like IBM. At the end of the day this is probably going to come down to Epic not being able to demonstrate a monopoly, nor anti-competitive behavior, and burdened by the fact that they are heavily Chinese owned.
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Right, and I'm not on Epic's side in that regard either.
The Apple-Epic fight was being discussed on the This Week In Tech podcast last week, and one of the guests, Cory Doctorow, said something like (paraphrasing from memory) "No whistle-blower I've ever known has had clean hands. It's never just that their boss is corrupt, it's that their boss is corrupt and they got passed over for a promotion, or something like that. If we ignored them because of their motives, the world would be a worse place."
I don't care about Epic's motives and I don't care about their end-game. The fact that I can't run my own apps on my own phone is a bunch of user-hostile crap, and I'm glad that Epic is turning up the heat.
Apple's rule is that digital services can't be purchased in-app except via Apple's IAPs, and they can't tell customers to go to their site to buy them directly. Netflix, Spotify, and Amazon all follow that rule. I tried downloading each app. Netflix and Spotify both say something like "sorry, you can't sign up within the app" with no further explanation. Amazon uses IAPs, but they used to not. Epic is subject to the same rules.
I was misinformed before and thought Amazon and Netflix had some special treatment, evidently not.
I can't see them counting it as a separate market. iPhones and 'droids are competitors with each other. People even switch back and forth.
Apple has millions of loyal customers Precisely because they like the way Apple products work. They don’t want for Apple to change how they facilitate access to apps. If you want to see change in iOS, take a survey. Share your feedback, but don’t expect anything. It’s not a democracy. Apple can run the business as they see fit, within legal boundaries. Don’t like it, buy an android or a rotary phone or whatever you want. Publish your apps elsewhere. Pretty simple.
Look who’s crying and now want to crawl their way back in? Get over urself Epic. Where are your balls now? Go suffer you greedy Baffoon. I have no sympathy, let them rot.
Just a week after Apple terminated Epic Games' developer account, Epic has filed for a preliminary injunction that would both allow Fortnite back on the App Store and restore access to its developer account.
In the filing, Epic Games says it was willing to challenge Apple "because it was the right thing to do" and "it was better positioned than many other companies to weather the storm." Epic describes Apple as a "monopolist" who maintains its dominant position by "explicitly prohibiting any competitive entry" to both app distribution and in-app payment processing markets.
Epic mentions that it's "likely to suffer irreparable harm" if Fortnite is not made available on the App Store and that "the balance of harms tips strongly in Epic’s favor," citing that daily iOS active users have already declined by over 60% since the app's initial removal from the App Store.
Fortnite introduced a direct payment option in mid-August that skirted Apple's in-app purchase system by allowing payments directly to Epic Games. Apple shortly after pulled the app from the App Store for disregarding App Store policies, which has lead to a lawsuit from Epic and a quickly escalating legal fight between the two companies.
Epic has refused to back down from the direct purchase option added to Fortnite, and Apple won't allow the app in the App Store while the direct payment option remains. Apple told Epic that it's ready to "welcome Fortnite back onto iOS" if Epic removes the direct payment option and returned to the status quo while the legal battle plays out in court, but Epic has refused.
The preliminary injunction was filed on Friday in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, and the hearing will take place on September 28.
Article Link: Epic Games Asks Court to Allow Fortnite Back on the App Store
Amazon does get special treatment. If you're a prime member and you rent a video, there will be an option to pay via Amazon rather than Apple, bypassing Apple's normal fee. This would normally never be allowed, but it was negotiated as part of a larger deal between the companies.
Edit: See The Verge's story on this https://www.theverge.com/2020/4/3/21206400/apple-tax-amazon-tv-prime-30-percent-developers
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I think its all on Tim from Epic. No lawyer would have let their client send a letter to Tim Cook that accidentally says “android” instead of “ios.”
You say this is about fairness, but if it just takes an investment into Epic to make this lawsuit go away, Apple and Google would gladly do that to avoid the bad PR.
Hardly fair.
Those 1980’s hobbyists didn’t make a lot of money - many of the most successful ended up going to work at other companies as employees. Was fun, though. I did some of that to help fund my first year in college.
You could not be more correct about this. Soooo many people arguing against Apple do not seem to realize this point. If Apple did license the software out to other hardware manufacturers like Microsoft and Google do, there would be more of a case against Apple preventing other software from being installed outside of the App Store (more similar to the Microsoft antitrust case). Apple is under no legal obligation whatsoever to allow any third party apps at all in the current App Store. They didn’t have the App Store in the first year the original iPhone was released and they almost didn’t have one at all. Steve Jobs thought web apps would do! Could you imagine? lol
All that being said, I do think Apple needs to be a lot more consistent and transparent with how they apply their guidelines because it does seem as though they don’t apply them evenly in all situations. Again, they’re not really under any obligation to do so, but it would likely make developers and consumers more informed.
You're able to speak for millions of customers? What about the ones who want X app to function as they do in other platforms? Yes, Apple can run their business how they like - that doesn't mean people aren't entitled to want it to change.
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Let me clarify; competition in iOS (through payment options, even stores if that's what people want).
That is 100% false. If you rent a movie on Prime Video on iOS (or Apple TV) and select to pay it in-app, you are going through the IAP system.
It's not as black and white as that. Over their lifetime we've seen iOS & Android come closer to each other and I think we're now in this grey area where all the different nuances are now being defined. For me I don't mind just using in app purchases as a user (it's more convenient, safer...) but where I draw the line is when the platform vendor makes decisions on my behalf of what to allow in the App Store under the guise of protecting me when it can often be for their own commercial gain. That's the fundamental issue here, for me.
Remember when apple tried to trick people into believing the iPad is your next computer. False advertising!
And if that’s what you care about, and given that you say ios and android are otherwise pretty close to each other, switch to android and use whatever App Store you want.
Does any store state what their markup is? Fee, markup, overhead, whatever you want to call it. The answer is no. you don't know how much cheaper that loaf of bread would be if you bought it strait from Wonder. Or how much your favorite ice cream would be if you got it from the manufacture.
Yes, digital is different, as you can get this software direct on a PC/Mac platform. But, Apple nor Google is treating it as a General Computing platform. They treat it as a console. It's mobile, its a phone, everything else it does is extra. They made the OS, they made (in Apple's case, and in Pixel for Google) the device. They are not treating it as a "do what you want consumer device". You want to hack the device. Go for it, if you are able. But, you get no help from them to do it. You want to install your own software. Go for it, if you are able. But, if you use the Apple AppStore or GooglePlay store. You pay them their cut/fee/markup/whatever. If your selling something there and what $10 to go to you. Then you sell it on the App/Play store for $13. That's it. That simple. Don't give me this BS about you want to charge less for the "customer". YOU WANT TO MAKE MORE and USE the "STORES" to get you all those billions of customers. EPIC wants a FREE RIDE, and to make more money riding too.
Epic describes Apple as a "monopolist" who maintains its dominant position by "explicitly prohibiting any competitive entry" to both app distribution and in-app payment processing markets.
Does Epic really think people are this dumb? You can’t have a MONOPOLY if you don’t have a great majority of the market share.
Apple does not, and probably never will have, anything close to a monopoly in the digital gaming industry.
And this tripe about irrepairable harm if Fornite isn’t allowed in the App Store? iOS was only a fraction of Epic’s massive profits from four other major gaming platforms.
If an owner of iOS an device really wants the latest seasons of Fortnite, there is a jungle of other hardware options to choose from.
Does Epic really think people are this dumb? You can’t have a MONOPOLY if you don’t have a great majority of the market share.
Apple does not, and probably never will have, anything close to a monopoly in the digital gaming industry.
And this tripe about irrepairable harm if Fornite isn’t allowed in the App Store? iOS was only a fraction of Epic’s massive profits from four other major gaming platforms.
If an owner of iOS an device really wants the latest seasons of Fortnite, there is a jungle of other hardware options to choose from.
That’s where the nuances I mentioned come into play. Forgoing the fact I’d have to repurchase most of the apps I use, I still prefer iOS overall. It’s take on security is still a more trustworthy one than in Android especially because each app is reviewed (for better and for worse). Circling back to my original point, it’s just not as simple as “you want freedom? Go for android!” Etc.
I don't think Apple will use financials to prove that it is a fair commission, they'll use examples from similar app stores like Steam, Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft that charge similar rates to show that the percentage they take is not excessive compared to similar stores.
Why spend all of the money and effort to try to enforce what third parties do with data when instead you can just require them to use your own systems and avoid the entire thing properly? We've seen repeatedly that once someone has your information they're more than capable of losing it, in many cases by being hacked and not even realising they've lost it. Having automated solutions doesn't help that problem unless they're really invasive to the vendor.
Tesla ran into this problem where they tried to run their own Tesla stores but many local and state laws limit their ability to directly sell to the customer, they enforce a third party dealership. In effect those laws are increasing the potential cost of purchasing a vehicle by legally mandating a middle man in the transaction. It's not a good comparison point because the effect would be Apple charging 30% for the license of it's intellectual property and then another App Store on top charging it's incremental take.
Epic want to have their Epic Games Store in the Apple App Store and then that App Store should have the ability to install and manage apps on the device. The Epic Games Store would then be able to charge what ever it wanted to games provided by it's store, potentially even lock down "exclusive" titles just like they've done on the desktop to force customers to install the Epic Games store. This doesn't inherently increase competition, if any thing Epic's actions on the desktop have reduced competition between the stores by using their market power to buy exclusive titles.
They learned from Fortnite on Android what was going to work and what wasn't, side loading was a barrier that was too high to entry for mass market appeal. Putting the Epic Game Store within the App Stores of both Apple and Google with enhanced privileges to replace the native stores.
A game console like the Playstation that uses AMD CPU and GPU to the extent that it can run Linux? That's not a full blown computer at all if it runs Linux! And these iOS devices are custom silicon engineered by Apple with custom SOCs and proprietary instruction sets built on top of ARM, they're definitely full blown computers compared to a gaming console.
The comparison here isn't actually favourable as the consoles enable you to boot into Linux and leverage most of it's functionality because they're fundamentally the same architecture as your own computer. An iPhone has so much custom hardware behind it that whilst with an unlocked boot loader one might get Linux onto it, good luck getting into it's secure enclave, the coprocessors or machine learning learning cores.
Developer is indeed not able to tell the end user whilst using the app the cut but everyone knows what it is because when Apple launched the App Store they stood up on stage and said "we're going to give you 70% and for 30% we'll take care of distribution, updates, credit card processing and related services".
However let's make sure we're setting a level playing field, where does Take Two Games tell you how much it pays to Sony?
I don't think it's a barrier to bringing an action, I do think that they'll use it in their response to the preliminary injunction to say that this entity is plainly hostile and that under normal circumstances such above and beyond hostility would result in Apple revoking their contractual agreements with the entity. I also expect Apple to raise Epic directing customers to contact AppleCare as another prong of this being a case litigated unreasonably and that it has a material impact to Apple when Epic themselves have a remedy they could implement, fully expecting Apple to cite the judge back to herself on that one.
I went looking for this and there was a DOJ action that ended up getting dismissed in the 70's, there were a few legal cases I found where IBM won and some more recent DOJ investigations. I couldn't find a situation where IBM lost a case but it could just be I'm not looking in the right place. Do you have a citation for this you could share?
Their claim comes from Apple having a monopoly within iOS. Probably not strictly a monopoly but I can see what they mean (even if they’re exaggerating, as all legal entities do in such battles).
Look at Steam and xCloud for example. Not 100% sure if the monopoly term applies but they’re essentially saying “give us our cut or you’re out” with no other choice, meaning each service now has to deal with a 30% cut, even if they’re streaming the content. That’s pretty ******, monopoly or not.
How so? The iPad is, in every way, a computer.
Why Amazon got out of the Apple App Store tax, and why other developers won’t
It’s leverage. The reason is leverage.
www.theverge.com