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Epic Games vs. Apple: Timeline of Events Surrounding Fortnite's Removal From App Store
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30% is an arbitrary number, and relative only to the individual/company that is making that cut in the first place. That percentage might be high to some, low to others.
Epic are making big bucks from, essentially, getting people to gamble on items and purchase intangible goods. You really believe that 30% of a segment of their revenue is high?
No-one is forcing them to continue develop for Apple products, and no-one forced them to sign up to become an Apple developer. They don't like it, there are plenty of other avenues.
there's a thing called antitrust law. in fact the reason why you don't recall a big fuss when the App Store was tiny is exactly that at that time Apple did not have any market power. now it can be argued it does.
The question now is what's the relevant market, what's Apple's and Google's market share in that market -- are they dominant i.e. do they have market power, and if so, whether or not Apple and Google are abusing of their dominant position.
let's not forget Apple Arcade is a thing so that makes the App store an infrastructure for a market in which Apple themselves compete in.
Could they have not filed the lawsuit without breaking App Store and Play Store policies?
It's funny peoples taking sides with one company over an other one. They all want the same thing: Take the more money they can and maximize their profits. None of them cares about the customer besides taking more of their money.
An interesting thought (at least to me) is that the scenarios where no cut is taken on In-App Purchases is when the app is acting as a middle man between the customer and a business / service / creator. Things like restaurants, private taxis and even tipping content creators.
In the current scenario it’s just Fortnite items, created and sold exclusively by Epic. Would this be different if the currency players are buying is to purchase items created and sold by other players and users? I just wondered if it’s different when it’s individuals are losing their cut instead of billion dollar corporations.
In the current scenario it’s just Fortnite items, created and sold exclusively by Epic. Would this be different if the currency players are buying is to purchase items created and sold by other players and users? I just wondered if it’s different when it’s individuals are losing their cut instead of billion dollar corporations.
and I want Apple to remain in charge of security of the apps... i do care about prices but I care about safety and security first
too hard for you to understand what’s at stake?
that is the core of the issue. are there other avenues? are they substitutes of the App store? what market are we talking about?
I guess it can be argued that the market is "videogaming" so Apple's share is actually relatively low as there are several other big players in the same market.
on the other hand, if the market was "mobile gaming" then Apple would have a larger share of that market.
if the market was "smartphone gaming" then Apple is a dominant player in that market.
again the issue is what the market is. and to reiterate, the fact that Apple has TOS and contracts with developers doesn't mean anything in terms of antitrust law. a contract between two private parties is note above the law.
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I'm guessing they needed Apple to take action, i.e. show their hand.
12% is the cut for games that don't use the Unreal Engine. 5% is the cut for games that do. They give special preference for developers that are also paying money to use their engine, a practice which I'm sure would continue if Epic ran their own iOS/iPadOS app store.
Apple could argue that since Fortnite is free to play, Apple is just collecting their share of what would otherwise be Fortnite's sale price, as for any other app.
I think Epic might argue that Apple wants monopoly over the in-app payment system. and that cannot be about safety.
App store policies could be changed by this dispute and have effects on smaller developers, too.
Media coverage of the lawsuit being filed would amount to a single article that might get a half hour of attention. But by intentionally breaking the rules they baited Apple and Google into defending their policies and remove Fortnite to create a whole day of media coverage.
Is that Apple's problem? Again, they're not stopping anyone else from opening their own platform, store, and undercutting their fees.
In theory it makes sense but there is already a delivery fee and sometimes a service fee with food delivery services. With taxi based services, the fee is just the faire of the ride. If Apple charged these companies 30% then no doubt these services fees and delivery prices would go way up and the consumer would be seriously screwed.
It doesn't matter what Epic is selling, and that is the GD point
What is Apple doing to deserve its share of 30%?
You can't like Epic is rich getting rich off the game before selling worthless stuff in the store. Epic gives their game away, you can play it without ever making a single purchase. Those "worthless" content sales fund the game in its entirety.
Epic provides the development of their platform, the creative work, the servers, the network bandwidth, and has their own payment processing system capable of charging 3% fees which are industry standard outside of "app stores". After Apple takes their 30%, then you still have the government taking their 20%. So now any developer on the App store gets 50% and they are the ones with all of the expenses.
What is Apple providing? Not much. If Apple can't fund their development kit costs off the developer fees or the cost of selling their products, they should raise developer fees. Maybe they should charge companies for the bandwidth of distributing their apps so that free apps aren't freeloaders. They provide a distribution system, but I hate to break it to you... unlike Walmart needing physical space and people to stock the shelves, digital distribution is dirt cheap, tens of thousands of downloads can cost Apple only $1-2 in expenses.... not to mention companies like Epic ALREADY have that infrastructure and wouldn't mind doing it themselves.
Apple is now advertising the iPad as a computer, they should start acting like it is a computer. You pay $1000 for it, you should be able to run whatever you want on it without Apple's blessing. A developer should pay the "tax" up front to be on the platform if you are so desperate for money (news flash, Windows and Linux also give their tools away for free - it is a benefit to Apple to have a huge ecosystem of Apps).
The fact that everyone standardized on 30% isn't a defense either. There has been anti-trust action against companies that operated on a wink and a nod. If they all know it will become a price war if they decrease their rates, and can blame each other for why they are so high - and developers have no options, and customers have no option to leave to something with a lower hidden tax, then they've accomplished what they need.
Further hurting their argument is the fact that they don't get involved on physical goods, as if there is a real, tangible difference... and that they let Amazon direct sell digital goods in order to let them on the platform.
And pointing to the drop from 30% to 15% in the second year of a subscription doesn't help either. Oh look, isn't Tim Cook merciful. Most games are popular with their users for the first few months and then they move on. Apple knows they are milking them for everything they are worth in the most profitable period of an App's lifetime, and then letting them have the scraps when they have a drop off in customers.
Exactly, I’ve seen it all over the news. Smart to build what appears to be so far overwhelming public support.
In-App purchases are stupid to begin with, and just provide a mechanism to offset low-balling the original purchase price, since everyone has been conditioned over the years to expect everything to be free (or at least really cheap). Being able to provide some kind of token purchase in order to get hold of financial and marketing information that can be monetized is what this is really about.
As a starting point or as a tiebreaker, I side with the weaker of the two parties as that’s generally best for me in the long run.
well if somebody sues Apple, I'm pretty sure that becomes Apple's problem 🤣
You could end this entire post here, because this is the crux of the argument.
'Deserve' is subjective in this topic; everyone is going to come up with a different percentage. It doesn't matter whether it's 1% or 99% - Epic willingly became an Apple certified developer released content under the acknowledgement that the fee was 30%.
Is this true? Did Epic also update Fortnite to bypass IAP on those stores as well? Do those stores have the same policy as Apple and Google? I don't really follow the consoles so I'm unfamiliar with how Microsoft/Sony run their app stores.
Even if their would be other stores, there would be nothing forcing you to shop on them if you prefer to "play it safe" and remain on the app store. I think Apple is overplaying the security it provides as an argument to remain the gatekeeper.
It as been far from perfect on iOS, there as been a large number of malignant apps over time. Is MacOS really that worst ?