Epic Games Sends Emails to Fortnite Players Blaming Apple for New Season's Unavailability

[siri_3005]

LOL this is the same company that tried to take games away from Steam with their terrible launcher.

 

[BenedictBellamy]

Fortnite deserves this!

 

[Bobajobbob]

People supporting Apple persistantly quote the stores for the consoles run by Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo as some kind of justification for what Apple is doing with it's store but yet I have not heard of anyone complaining about about the console stores to the same level that customers have been complaining about Apples app store and the console stores have far bigger software companies than Epic using them.

Surely if the console stores were applying the same kind of price structure as Apple does for it's store, the tech media world would be inundated with articles of companies complaining about Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo but the fact is we don't. All we here about is what Apple is doing so therefore is it a case that those 3 companies are doing something right with regards to it's users and business customer whereas Apple is not and thus Apple fans are looking to find excuses where there is none?

My understanding is that the consoles charge an identical fee in their app stores to Apple and Google. I'm guessing that Epic makes more money from the consoles than apple so there is less risk in disrupting their revenues going after Apple than there is from attacking Sony and Microsoft.

I'm also curious what "rent" Epic charges on their app store and whether developers will be asking them for discount.

 

[canesalato]

I'm also curious what "rent" Epic charges on their app store and whether developers will be asking them for discount.

I posted it in this discussion, a few pages ago, but here it is:

From Epic's website:

1) Unreal engine:

• Unreal Engine End User License Agreement for Publishing: This license is free to use and incurs 5% royalties when you monetize your game or other interactive off-the-shelf product and your lifetime gross revenues from that product exceed $1,000,000 USD. -> free until you make 1 million dollars, then 5%
• Unreal Engine End User License Agreement for Creators: This license is free to use and 100% royalty-free; you can use it to create internal or free projects, or to develop linear content or custom projects for clients, but not for publishing off-the-shelf offerings.

2)Epic games store:
When you buy a game on the Epic Games Store, 88% of the price goes directly to developers, versus only 70% on many other stores.

 

[Wildkraut]

Looking forward to today - the saga continues...

 

[Wildkraut]

This is really how I feel about Epic now. Based on their actions, I'll personally boycott anything to do with their business.

I know it won't hurt them one bit, but I have the choice not to deal with bullies and this is truly Epic's position. They are bullying not only Apple, but their own customers and frankly, they continue to look like petulant brats.

Apple will crash so hard... 🤣

 

[leman]

Not allowed to tell anyone that Apple takes 30% - so no freedom of speech as along as Apple is in control?

What do you mean “not allowed to tell”? It’s written in in their terms, that is public knowledge. Also, everyone takes 30%. You sound as if publishing cut is something specific to Apple. Epic Games Store itself takes a 25% cut to provide similar lever of accounting services to game devs, while offering less support or tooling.

 

[robertcoogan]

Epic really looks more like the fool with every passing venting.

Well, I've heard Sweeney is stubborn, but this is more like road raging.

 

[hank moody]

Just move to COD Mobile. It is so much better.

 

[canesalato]

Epic Games Store itself takes a 25% cut to provide similar lever of accounting services to game devs, while offering less support or tooling.

12% (third time i have to write it in 3 pages. )

 

[llllllllll]

In their emails to players they conveniently left out the bit where their Mac app was NOT blocked, but they pulled it anyway to further force an artificial conflict with Apple users.

Indeed. This is not cool.

 

[mlykke]

I think if Apple chooses to take a hard line stand against the consumers and the developers that we will see a huge migration of both away from Apple slowly over time. At this moment iOS and ‘IPadOS’ have an advantage in the market place because they have the largest App Store. However, I believe this moment right now could be the beginning of the end. Apple can decide to open up or remain closed. The new Samsung S7 tablets look like a huge improvement and the google pixels 4a looks like amazing value for money. You better believe I’m doing my research. The ball is in Apple’s court and all of my future business is absolutely on the line.

You're delusional. Fortnite might be popular but 99% of all iPhone users either don't play Fortnite on their phone or at least they don't buy the phone with that specific purpose in mind. This will not affect Apple in anyway. There will be no mass-exodus from the iPhone or other Apple products based on Epics frankly childish behaviour. You might agree or disagree on wether 30% is too much or not, but you can't ignore the fact that is a quite common number, not only in the tech industry. Apple, Google and a bunch of others charge a 30% commission. But it's the same part a lot of take-out ordering service charge as well. If you go way back to the time where games and software were something you bought in stores, then it would often be much more than 30%.
I'm fine with Epic and others discussing the pricing and I'm fine with Apple and other companies being investigated to see if any laws are broken. But acting like a spoiled brat just because Epic thought Fortnite is so important they could get their way, thats just downright dumb and ignorant on their behalf.
And keep in mind that Epic themselfes charge a commision on their gaming engine and that nobody but Epic is allowed to sell items for Fortnite in their own digital store. In the end this was Epic going all-in with a poor hand of cards.

 

[llllllllll]

Who actually cares?

Fortnite players on iOS and MacOS who are stuck now, obviously.
If you don't care why do you even read and comment in this thread?

 

[canesalato]

Indeed. This is not cool.

From today, the Mac App cannot be notarized anymore, so, at the default security settings, it is indeed blocked. Additionaly, Apple has stated that the ability to run non-notarized Apps will be completely removed from a future version of MacOS.

 

[Colonel Blimp]

I agree that Apple should not be allowed to be the only app store on iOS, thus allowing them to collect 30% fees.

And to those who are saying Epic only wants more money, they are passing the 2/3 of the 30% savings onto customers.

Apple has become anti-competitive and it sounds like the US Government is about to agree. Other world governments have also begun to launch investigations into the anti competitive behavior.

Wow, a user whose forum avatar is the four-colored Microsoft logo lecturing us on Apple’s anti-competitive behavior? Now that’s rich! 🤣

 

[@Brett]

Havent they been on the App Store more than a year? SHouldnt their fee be 15% now? Just curious

The 15% is for subscriptions not in app purchases.

 

[canesalato]

Wow, a user whose forum avatar is the four-colored Microsoft logo lecturing us on Apple’s anti-competitive behavior? Now that’s rich! 🤣

I would completely agree with you, if this was 1995. ;-)

 

[@Brett]

I agree that Apple should not be allowed to be the only app store on iOS, thus allowing them to collect 30% fees.

And to those who are saying Epic only wants more money, they are passing the 2/3 of the 30% savings onto customers.

Apple has become anti-competitive and it sounds like the US Government is about to agree. Other world governments have also begun to launch investigations into the anti competitive behavior.

Wow. Are you aware MS charges the same fee? And I do not see why a government should be doing with this at all. There are other things to worry about other than messing with private companies. Perhaps us shareholders should consider taking the US government to court.

 

[llllllllll]

I sent a tweet to Epic Games today mentioning the deeper hole that they continue to dig, and how they need to find a good strategy. I'm already upset at them for canceling the development for the newer Unreal Tournament.

Also very much this. It's a shame they let UT languish in this sorry state! 🙁

 

[canesalato]

Perhaps us shareholders should consider taking the US government to court.

Now THAT would be amusing to watch.

 

[123]

The fact is consumers love the App Store, they love the security they get from apple, they love to have 1 payment method for all apps, they love that if they have an issue they can deal solely with apple for a refund.

The only fact here is that these statements are all made up by you and certainly not facts. I don't know anyone who "loves" the app store. People use it because it is there. People want to install their stuff, they don't care about security, payment methods, developer fees etc. There's no emotional connection at all.

If people didn't like the App Store they wouldn't have been buying iPhones for the last 10 years they would have been buying android phones.

Non sequitur. But it's kind of fun to use twisted logic, so let me turn this around: the fact that iOS is constantly losing market share is because people are more and more fed up with the App Store, right?

 

[Colonel Blimp]

I would completely agree with you, if this was 1995. ;-)

Some of us have long memories.

 

[BuffaloTF]

I know you tried to be funny, but this is a completely wrong analogy. The platform is not McDonald's or Burger King but the world you live in. So you could go "buy food" (app) at McDonald's in your hometown (App Store), or you go to Burger King in the next town (sideload without using the AppStore) with a slight inconvenience. Like it works on the Mac.

I'm not interested in EPIC or Fortnite, but since there is no choice on iOS I get what they are aiming for. And NO, Apple can't do what they want, since their userbase has broken a critical number long ago..

It's actually a great analogy.

From Elliott v United Center, with some additions by myself in parenthesis:

Only the relevant market concerns us here.   As Judge Easterbrook wrote for this court in Israel Travel Advis. Serv. v. Israel Iden. Tours, 61 F.3d 1250 (7th Cir.1995), "a market is defined to aid in identifying any ability to raise price by curtailing output."  Id. at 1252.   In what market, then, does the United Center (Apple) have this kind of power?   Elliott replies, the market for food concessions within and around the United Center itself:  the fewer the food concessions, the higher the price the United Center can charge for food its patrons consume, and the more consumers will suffer.

But people do not go to the United Center (iOS) to buy food (play Fortnite);  they go to watch a basketball game, a hockey game, or some other special event (using a variety of apps).   The United Center (Apple) can recoup the cost of putting on the event in any of a number of ways.   It can charge very high ticket prices, and allow unlimited numbers of food concessions in and around the stadium, or it can charge somewhat lower ticket prices and restrict the number of concessions (thereby earning some of its profits from the food sales).   No one argues that the United Center (Apple) is monopolizing the market for snack food (video games) in near west Chicago, because such an argument would be ludicrous on its face.   The United Center is obviously not monopolizing the market for peanuts (Fortnite):  it is staying strictly out of the peanut (Fortnite) business.   True, its ban means that those with a craving for peanuts (Fortnite) must satisfy it either before or after the game, but both price and output of peanuts (Fortnite V-Bucks) in any geographic area that would be meaningful under the antitrust laws (at least Chicago, we presume) are totally unaffected by the United Center’s policies (in fact, Epic was dumb enough to lower the price in this event, and then give themselves 10% more revenue on each sale, to eliminate their contention that it's about the 30%).

The logic of Elliott’s argument would mean that exclusive restaurants could no longer require customers to purchase their wines only at the establishment, because the restaurant would be "monopolizing" the sale of wine within its interior.   Movie theaters, which traditionally (and notoriously) earn a substantial portion of their revenue from the sales of candies, popcorn, and soda, would be required by the antitrust laws to allow patrons to bring their own food.   The fact that there is more than one exclusive restaurant, and more than one movie theater, does not distinguish these examples from the case before us, although we anticipate that Elliott would argue that it does.

.........snip.........

The serious point here is that the United Center is certainly a popular facility in Chicago.   It serves, over the course of a year, millions of customers, and it is undoubtedly a prime spot for vendors of all kinds to ply their wares.   But this implies that the relevant market should be expanded to all other comparable places in the Chicago area.   Absent collusion, even if each stadium or arena had a policy similar to the United Center’s policy, there would be no violation of the antitrust laws.   In such an expanded market, furthermore, it is very doubtful that the United Center has any significant market power.   And we have explicitly rejected the proposition that a firm can be said to have monopoly power in its own product, absent proof that the product itself has no economic substitutes.   See Digital Equip. Corp. v. Uniq Digital Technologies, Inc., 73 F.3d 756, 761 (7th Cir.1996);  see also Bendix Corp. v. Balax, Inc., 471 F.2d 149, 160-61 (7th Cir.1972).

 

[TiggrToo]

People supporting Apple persistantly quote the stores for the consoles run by Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo as some kind of justification for what Apple is doing with it's store but yet I have not heard of anyone complaining about about the console stores to the same level that customers have been complaining about Apples app store and the console stores have far bigger software companies than Epic using them.

Surely if the console stores were applying the same kind of price structure as Apple does for it's store, the tech media world would be inundated with articles of companies complaining about Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo but the fact is we don't. All we here about is what Apple is doing so therefore is it a case that those 3 companies are doing something right with regards to it's users and business customer whereas Apple is not and thus Apple fans are looking to find excuses where there is none?

Epic’s battle for “open platforms” ignores consoles’ massive closed market

Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo demand the same platform control—and the same 30% fee.

arstechnica.com

 

[m11rphy]

The only fact here is that these statements are all made up by you and certainly not facts. I don't know anyone who "loves" the app store. People use it because it is there. People want to install their stuff, they don't care about security, payment methods, developer fees etc. There's no emotional connection at all.


Non sequitur. But it's kind of fun to use twisted logic, so let me turn this around: the fact that iOS is constantly losing market share is because people are more and more fed up with the App Store, right?

You really think people don't care about security?

Market share may go down, yet service revenue goes up quarter on quarter proving that people are buying in to apples closed walled garden more and more

Additionally iPhone satisfaction rate being the highest in the industry would imply that people are more than happy with the app installation method on iPhones

Apple Continues to Top Overall Smartphone Customer Satisfaction Index

Apple's iPhones continue to rank highest when it comes to customer satisfaction, according to new data shared today by the American Customer...

www.macrumors.com