Agreed.
To add to that for a VERY important piece of software: You paid for the development of Microsoft Edge when you bought Windows 10, but what if you want to only use Chrome?
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Epic Games Unlikely to Win Injunction in Ongoing Fortnite Battle With Apple, Jury Trial Possible
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Agreed.
To add to that for a VERY important piece of software: You paid for the development of Microsoft Edge when you bought Windows 10, but what if you want to only use Chrome?
Try developing an app on Android. Then try developing an app on iOS. Then try coming back to me to tell me that Apple doesn't care about developers.
Agreed. Android development is not as nice as iOS development. And I program in both environments.
Epic is just a company with a high ego CEO who failed at negotiating with Apple and now trying to save face.. but got slapped by everyone..
Apple should sue Epic for a damaged reputation, buy the whole company out and reinstate the app in the store again with an IAP of Tim Sweeney character dressed as a clown for $999.
childish? Yes
I will settle for Apple perma-banning Epic and never allowing them on their App Store ever again.
Epic only wants your best. That is your money. The whole game is designed to get as much of stupid kids' pocket money as they can.
Let's put it the other way round. Apple doesn't charge Epic 30%, but Epic has to give them full documentation how to create in-app purchase items for Fortnite, has to give Apple items same access to the app to sell their items, and has to pay Apple the full amount for those in app purchases. Apple hires a small army of in-app item designers, and because we want competition, sells them 10% cheaper than Epic does. This leads to a price war, and instead of getting 70% of $600 million a year, after a year when the prices dropped through the floor, Epic makes half of $100 million sales, and Apple makes the other half.
Many people keep on saying that Epic should create it's own store. Just exactly how is Epic supposed to achieve this with specific regards to ios apps? Epic would need to make an ios app that they would have to put in the app store so that users could download the app which would then direct them to Epics' store. Problem is such an app breaches Apple's app store T&C's, an app is not allowed to direct users to 3rd party payment systems, which is what Epic's store would be, user buying apps from Epic instead of Apple (namely Epic's list of games).
Problem 2, If Epic wanted to make their own ios app store, they cannot because Apple controls the software to be able to do that and they will not allow 3rd party ios app stores.
As consumers, we are always looking for the best deal. If your car breaks down and needs a new starter motor, you just go down to your local car parts dealer and order a new one. What do you think is going to happen if that parts dealer says sorry, we could have sold you that part for $30 but we are not allowed to because the car manufacturer controls what happens to all parts for it's cars. You need to buy it from the offical dealer for $120. Are you going to be happy? no of course not, you will moan and complain like hell because we all know that parts from offical sources are always marked up higher in price. Epic are no different, they want to offer a different experience and choice for customers but they are being told no, hence customers are being told they must use offical source, the app store. Interesting how people will not allow such to occur in the real world but are more than happy to let it happen in the digital world.
Apple is allowed total 100% control of what happens with regards to ios, but yet car manufacturers are not allowed 100% of what happens to their cars one is in the digital word, the other in the real world but both principles are the same yet people say 100% control in the digital world is ok but it is not ok in the real world.
Problem 2, If Epic wanted to make their own ios app store, they cannot because Apple controls the software to be able to do that and they will not allow 3rd party ios app stores.
As consumers, we are always looking for the best deal. If your car breaks down and needs a new starter motor, you just go down to your local car parts dealer and order a new one. What do you think is going to happen if that parts dealer says sorry, we could have sold you that part for $30 but we are not allowed to because the car manufacturer controls what happens to all parts for it's cars. You need to buy it from the offical dealer for $120. Are you going to be happy? no of course not, you will moan and complain like hell because we all know that parts from offical sources are always marked up higher in price. Epic are no different, they want to offer a different experience and choice for customers but they are being told no, hence customers are being told they must use offical source, the app store. Interesting how people will not allow such to occur in the real world but are more than happy to let it happen in the digital world.
Apple is allowed total 100% control of what happens with regards to ios, but yet car manufacturers are not allowed 100% of what happens to their cars one is in the digital word, the other in the real world but both principles are the same yet people say 100% control in the digital world is ok but it is not ok in the real world.
" There was a suggestion that the 30 percent fee Epic is meant to be paying Apple could be put into an escrow account that would be doled out at the end of the legal dispute, which is one potentially way that Fortnite could make it back into the App Store in the near future, but it's not clear if the two companies will agree to that. "
So Epic can have it's Cake and try to eat Apple's too? Not gonna happen.
Frankly, I'm not sure it's smart for Apple to let them back in anytime soon, without evidencing a leadership change.
Epic revealed themselves to be a very dangerous parasite.
So Epic can have it's Cake and try to eat Apple's too? Not gonna happen.
Frankly, I'm not sure it's smart for Apple to let them back in anytime soon, without evidencing a leadership change.
Epic revealed themselves to be a very dangerous parasite.
Although I agree with Apple’s stance on getting their cut (Google too), this move seems too convenient... it almost seems as though there have been some backroom discussions about the potential outcome of all these cases.Also in the news, Google is going to smack Epic Tim Swiney in the teeth.
Google to enforce 30% take from in-app purchases next year
The announcement brings Google Play's policies in line with Apple's App Store policies, which have come under fire from developers and regulators over several issues, including its own 30% cut.www.cnbc.com
No, it’s the other way around. Epic is the best chance smaller developers have at seeing any change happen, even if their motivations are far from pure. You’ve got it completely wrong.
To all of the people saying, “it’s my hardware, I paid for it. Why can’t I run whatever I want on it?” The fact of the matter is that you didn’t just pay for the hardware. You paid for the product iPhone/iPad/whatever, which is a single product comprised of hardware and software. The OS is not open-sourced, nor do they license it to any third parties. They are well within their rights to control their product how they see fit, especially after investing as much as they have in R&D and marketing. If you want to install whatever you want on your device, you are more than welcome to order the off-shelf components for a device, solder them together, load either a licensed OS like Android (paying their fees) or developing your own. I highly doubt many people would take that option, given most people barely know how their phones even operate, so you all can Š.T.F.Û and bow down. There is no monopoly here and Epic and all of the other companies crying foul can eat sh*t and lose a large audience of potential customers. If they don’t already have the talent, they can hire the talent to do so, but none of those companies want to spend the MONEY to do it.
It's a long, long time since I was involved in selling software, and then only on a cottage industry scale, but one deal I encountered from larger distributors was that you gave them X units and when they sold one of those they'd buy a replacement (at a hefty discount). Then there were small stores with a customer who'd read our publicity and walked into the store and ordered it by name... and expected a 50% discount (probably on 30 day terms) for doing nothing.
The 30% markup (plus a developer subscription that seems to be missing a few 0s by my experience) on the Apple store - which gets you into their online store and covers payment processing - always struck me as a freaking bargain.
The downside is that you could invest a lot of money in writing an iOS App and then have no way of selling it if Apple rejected it for unfair reasons (e.g. they thought it competed with an Apple product) - so if Apple had dropped Fortnite for no adequately explored reasons shortly after adding a new Battle Royale-themed game to Apple Arcade then maybe we might have a monopoly abuse case... but the same applies to pretty much any of the major games consoles, and Apple doesn't have anything resembling a monopoly on mobile devices, let alone computer gaming in general... They're allowed to have a monopoly on iPhones...
As I see it, the Apple/Epic thing is about using the "free-to-pay" scam to cut software retailers out of the loop (while also sticking users with rubbish games that are purely designed to push in-app-purchases). The logic goes a bit like this:
King Camp Gillette: Howdy, shopkeeper. I have this exciting new business model where I give away razors and then charge a fortune for the blades. How'd you like to be part of it?
Shopkeeper: Sure seems like a license to print money, I'm in. What's your wholesale price for three gross of blades?
King Camp Gillette: Heck, no - you don't get to sell the blades. I want you to give away the razors!*
Shopkeeper: How many fingers am I holding up?
(* Although a good shopkeeper will make money off all those people coming into the shop to pick up their free razor - doesn't work so well online).
The only place where Apple might be on a sticky wicket is if they favour Apple Music/Apple TV etc. over competing services by bundling them with iDevices (i.e. using their position in one market to gain an advantage in a totally different one). That's probably why they've reputedly given better terms to Spotify, Netflix etc... but those are real services where the whole value is in the constantly updated content, not fake services that are just a ruse to make you rent your software.
you seem to believe in myths as both the PS4 and XB1 as well as every other console at a loss. except the switch as Nintendo has to make something or they will be bought when they go bust. As scaling goes up with production it eventually comes down. Microsoft and Sony sell their controllers, peripherals at a steep profit margin. as they cost 10 bucks to make but sell for 100-200 each. the consoles parts requires R&D and lots and lots of investment. Microsoft took a loss on the windows rt tablet and the surface pro. but it seems they are still in stores. i wonder why that is? deep pockets my friend. they make the money back on subscriptions and services. SONY and Microsoft also have their hands in a lot of other cookie jars where as Nintendo does not. Check your facts bud.
For small developers, the "change" would be that you could no longer sell your app on the same reasonable terms as the big players - who had the resources to run their own online stores and adopt the "freemium" model while spending a fortune on publicity.
epic charges a significant amount less to develop using their software. free actually unless you make alot of money that is but then its still less than 15%. the fed govt takes in excess of 25% when you hit above 30000 a year. 25+30 is 55% of all profit. that takes it down to less than a restaurant worker. how in the actual hell is that reasonable for small developers? apple charges 1000 to gain access to that walled garden and can reject you for any stupid reason. Epic can let go of ios and wait for the players to hit consoles and pc and still works on mac. fortnight can be sideloaded easily and epic can have its own store on any android device easy peasy. I would take the loss and let ios go. epic is going nowhere anytime soon. Apple will get its antitrust case in fed court some day and be split just like Microsoft. Maybe some of those iphone users will buy an android device and find its just as secure and has better encryption than apple iphones. Iphone encryption was broken in record time by hackers. its funny that they say its super secure and has no malware or exploits. and that's just a sad lie that people believe. if you try to compete with them they remove your app. remember when googles apps were removed from the store because apple was making its own apps. yeah that sound monopolistic to me.
when the fed govt takes 10% in taxes and stores(actual store fronts have to store stuff in warehouses) 30% is not fair nor reasonable. for every $10 i make i have to give $4 away untill i make over 30k or so then tax brackets hit. then i keep 4 then give 6 away. real reasonable for sure. smh what's wrong with you people. apple is literally a trillion dollar business. 800 milion a year in revenue for the app store. your fine with trillion dollar companies pushing legislation and pushing reasonable repair shops out as well. yep sure sounds fair and good to me. think for your selves and do some research you'll see its not all peaches. if they cut that in half they would still make money hand over fist reguardless. at least google and Microsoft has the decency to allow dev to dev for free. time is money and when your coding your making literally nothing. fun stuff
android is a free license and is protected by open sources licensing and is built on Linux which is made by Linus tovald who created it and gave it away for free. your silly to think any one pays for linux or could sell it with out fundamentally changing the way open source licenses work. why was Microsoft not allowed to include office or an internet browser with out antitrust issues and then the subsequent split due to its monopolistic practices. yeah your logic makes no sense. apple can do it but anyone else that does it is completely in the wrong. this is why I steer clear of apple products. its not worth it for subpar hardware and ideas that were taken from smaller devs and added to their own software to push them out. smh I hope epic kills it in a battle with an actual jury not a single judge that used to be a lying lawyer with control issues.
Based on Apple's statements, the sale prices of iPhones cover those costs
I'm not saying Apple, Google, etcetera's 30% is necessarily unreasonable (especially since the retailer takes at least 10% on gift cards, possibly more since they discount by 15% sometimes), but some of those expenses you list could be paid for out of the profit on the hardware (for Apple) or other android-related income (for google), making the app stores more profitable and other areas less profitable. My point was that such consistent pricing and offers suggests that either that really is the bare minimum the store operators can survive on (implausible, since console vendors charge the same to support loss making platforms) or there is no real effort to compete (even if there isn't an organised cartel).
You're wrong. Smaller iOS developers have it much better than Android developers (and frankly, other platforms like web and Windows). It sounds like you don't develop on iOS at all and have no clue how good we have it.
Come back to me when you've tried iOS dev.
Epic do not speak for smaller developers. We do not want them destroying the industry.