As a developer, I love having only 1 place to upload my app, and having hosting, payments, etc handled for me. But most importantly tax remittance. I would hardly call it a disservice, I would say their cut is well-deserved and makes my life a lot easier.
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Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney Calls Apple's App Store a 'Disservice to Developers'
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The fact that he complains that he wants MORE money on top of the millions that he has already made is an EPIC fail. Ha, see what I did there?
Microsoft actually takes a 12% fee for windows games and 0% fee for everything else.
And why would developers pay 30% + 12% fee? In the epic store you keep 88% of the revenue, steam or Microsoft isn’t taking a cut.
Well to be fair, I don’t Mind if I could use one store for all my games. I would rather have steam on my iPhone or Xbox as I have a big game library. And would no longer need to purchase things twice
Before the App Store... What other significant digital platform existed? As far as I can remember, there was none.
Also, all that VISA and MasterCard have to do is move a transaction from one point to another one. Basically nothing as complex as a software hosting platform and all that's involved around it.
I haven't been active on the App Store for quite a few years, but when I was I sold 920,000 apps, this was enough for me to buy a house, I wouldn't call that a disservice! There is no way someone like me could have ever reached out to enough people to do that, I didn't have to do any marketing etc, I just learned how to code, uploaded the app and over 4 or 5 years people bought it and it changed my life.
The App Store has changed a lot, discovery is almost impossible for small devs with no budget, but that isn't to denigrate what it has allowed so many people to achieve.
The App Store has changed a lot, discovery is almost impossible for small devs with no budget, but that isn't to denigrate what it has allowed so many people to achieve.
Notice how in all these discussions, it’s always about Apple vs developers, but no one has thought about just what end users think about all this?
It's defended by developers because you are equating it to only being a credit/debit card terminal processing a transaction.
It is not.
It's advertising. It's OS development. It's assistance with coding. It's code validation. It's customer service. It's customer support. It's filing and paying your taxes for you in each country your app makes a sale in, and providing you a buttoned up statement so you don't run afoul with the law. It's a consumer guarantee of a safe sale. It's easy to manage. And yes, it's also a card terminal.
Those services aren't free.
Water is wet. He seems to have a problem with taking any amount of money from Apple. Maybe he should be in a different business?
Most likely like the Apple life guard at the cesspool. Having had friends with other brand phones complaining about their experiences with apps and security, I'm comfortable with Apple ejecting dickmode developers that want to crash the whole thing on the rocks so they can extort more money from users. If you can't live with a life guard, it's not the users that are at fault, it's you...
These types of cases aren't always about end users e.g., the Microsoft case in the 1990s was more about the impact on computer makers, Netscape, etc.
Most developers understand what that 30% is paying for in terms of tools and support they get from Apple.
Bs. Apple could have gone the feature phone route and their May not be a route for any developer to profit off of apps. Apple made it possible for you morons to make money
Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney has called Apple's App Store, which has helped app makers earn over $260 billion since its launch, a "disservice to developers" that forces them to treat their apps as "sub-par."
Sweeney made the comments in an exclusive interview with the Financial Times, where he repeated Epic Games' previous talking points about Apple and how it is "anti-competitive" and "monopolistic." Sweeney said that Apple has "won fairly" in persuading customers to buy its hardware products but claims that forcing customers to use the App Store is unfair.
According to Sweeney, Apple uses its fair advantage in hardware to "gain an unfair advantage over competitors and other markets. And that breaks all the competitive dynamics that kept the tech industry healthy in the past."
Sweeney criticized the App Store as a platform itself, saying that despite Apple's attempt to market it as a service, it's actually a "disservice to developers." "The app store is not a service. The app store is a disservice to developers. The app store forces developers to treat their software in a sub-par way to give customers a sub-par experience to charge uncompetitive handling and processing fees to inflate the price of digital goods," the CEO of Epic Games said.
Apple has said that the App Store since its launch has helped developers earn over $260 billion and has fostered an iOS app economy that has created over 2.2 million jobs in the U.S. alone.
Epic Games has been embroiled in a massive lawsuit against Apple, concerning the App Store, that started in 2020 and is now entering its second year. The suit and its history may be confusing for some, but we have all the details in our guide.
Article Link: Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney Calls Apple's App Store a 'Disservice to Developers'
So, what's the magic number, Tim? Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony all have app stores, why aren't you suing them? Is Apple supposed to provide the App Store for free? We have no idea what it costs to run the App Store, but Apple does. And most apps only pay 15% because they don't earn more than a million dollars.
He's just another lying jerk trying to line his own pockets. I'm sick of him. Time to go away and whine somewhere else.
He's just another lying jerk trying to line his own pockets. I'm sick of him. Time to go away and whine somewhere else.
They could have but that may have put Apple out of the phone business fairly quickly as Android and possibly Windows Phone grabbed (more of) that market.
If it’s such a problem, why does the Google Playstore exists? It is Apple that made bet on this when others had not interest in doing so. For all its faults, I rather have the AppStore than open junk economy that other platforms offer. The depth and variety of apps is amazing.
I just think Tim Sweeney has a lust for power and money and is filled with grudges because it’s not his platform that’s in control.
I just think Tim Sweeney has a lust for power and money and is filled with grudges because it’s not his platform that’s in control.
Honestly, what more do you want? Software used to cost $40, or even hundreds of dollars. Operating systems used to cost money, productivity suites used to cost money. Now they're all either free or low-cost. Google and Apple have driven down the cost of software so effectively that even Microsoft had to lower its prices...and it was originally a software company.
I'm not going to complain that apps cost a few bucks because I'm old enough to have some perspective on what software USED TO cost.
It costs way more to sell on the Epic game store than on the AppStore and Steam. You are listing just one of the fees involved with Epic and ignoring the rest. Epic is the most expensive by far because they don’t do anything for their fee other than let you list on their store. So we have to 12.5% to Epic 2.5% + 30p to the payment gateway, an undiscloseable % to the licensing server, and hosting costs. For Apple we just pay 15% all in and used to pay 30% all in. Even at 30% it was a bargain.
If that 30% cut wasn’t already in place for Steam, Xbox market place, Playstation store which were around before the iPhone had an App Store . If it wasn’t the fact that the companies making the largest stink about this 30% cut were well known for their own anticompetitive behaviors (Spotify doing everything in its power to screw over the artists on their platform, Epic offering free licensing (up to 5 Million vs the standard 1 Million) for their unreal engine if you sell your game on their store front only or with their business partners), if it wasn’t the fact that Epic hasn’t made this case against gaming console manufacturers. If it wasn’t the fact they made such a large amount of money on the platform before they kick started this move. I would agree Apple was being greedy.
Is there a conversation about the commissioning fee that needs to be had? Maybe. Is there a conversation about what a hardware device manufacturer is allowed to say what is and is not allowed on their hardware? Maybe.
Is Epic Games the company we want leading this charge? No. Is Spotify? No.
Oh really? Android didn't succeed until it copied iOS. And Windows Phone was a market failure.
Apple gets untold buckets of raw cash rained onto it every day by people buying iPhones with exactly those restrictions.
And remember that it’s only 15% for those doing under a megabuck per year in app revenue.
And it doesn’t strike me as highway robbery either. R&D isn’t free. The OS doesn’t write itself, the APIs don’t document themselves. Just because Sweeney wants to use them for free doesn’t mean Apple has to let him.
Let Sweeney build a phone, write an OS, and get millions to buy it, and he can establish whatever royalties policies he wants on it.
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This worldwide push by the "Coalition for App Fairness" will have very little consumer benefit. It's about billion dollar corporations trying to take power and money from trillion dollar corporations. Sweeney comments show that he has no respect for the amazing work that iOS developers have done in the current system.
Apple didn't just take a chance on online stores, but on physical stores as well. Remember the popular wisdom on brick-and-mortar stores? Gateway was taking a pounding, and everyone thought Apple was foolish to open physical stores.
Does Tim Sweeney remember when software developers were lucky to keep 20-30% after the publisher, distributor and retailer all took their cut?
Now developers keep 70-85% and have access to a huge customer base. As developers we have it much better than the days of packaged retail software.
Now developers keep 70-85% and have access to a huge customer base. As developers we have it much better than the days of packaged retail software.