Ridley Scott Comments on Epic Games' Parody of His '1984' Ad

[gnasher729]

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Apologies, but I don't know what point you're trying to convey. What does Tencent's ownership stake in Epic have to do with a company using the commercial to promote some social issue?

You can't see this? Apple in 1984 was a tiny company. They hadn't sold a single iPhone. Or a single iPod. Or a single Mac. Tencent is a 750 billion dollar company. They are financing this lawsuit, they are financing this advert. They _can_ say things about things going wrong in China, except that they fully support the system there. Apple in 1984 was nowhere near that position.

 

[boss.king]

BTW. Samsung is now selling a $3,300 phone.

Which phone is that? The Fold 2 is the most expensive I can find but that's $2000.

EDIT: Found it. For anyone else who's curious, it's the Thom Browne edition of the Fold 2, although I think saying they're selling the phone for $3300 is a bit misleading. It's the phone ($2000), a Galaxy Watch 3 ($400) and Galaxy Buds Live ($170), “on-demand concierge support” (whatever that is), and a Founders Card membership ($400 annually) which apparently gives you access to a bunch of golf/country clubs as well as a meal from a Michelin star restaurant.

 

[gnasher729]

How does Apple distinguish between in-app purchases in game apps, and in-app purchases in retail apps? Apple doesn't take a 30% cut of all sales made from the Amazon app, or Starbucks or Grubhub, do they?

So where do they draw the line?

That's explained in the App Store contract that every developer signs, in quite plain English.

 

[TiggrToo]

Epic could release their own Android based handset which has their store built in. Then remove their titles from all other mobile marketplaces. But, I think that they are well aware that move would fall on its face due to low sales etc.

They could also release their own Appstore on Android - but they haven't.

Ultimately I feel that it's that sort of inaction that's going to hurt them.

If the very heart of their Apple complaint is the inability to host a third party Epic Appstore, then it would seem to this gal that the very fact they have never attempted to set one up on Android, demonstrates that Epic are not being honest as to their real intentions - which is to stop Apple and Google from taking 30% of their IAP sales.

 

[UK-MacAddict]

Are they though? 2019 payouts being 35 billion suggest the revenue was 50... so 15 to them. They then spent 16 billion on R&D for iOS and related product. So, maybe... just maybe... it's a fitting number and that's why everyone charges 30%?

You are being daft here. The X is a completely different phone. A huge improvement over the 7. That's why it costs more. At the same time the iPhone X was released, _all iPhones_ without any exception dropped in price. That's like when BMW started its 7 series cars. They were more expensive than the 5 series. And they were worth a lot more money.

BTW. Samsung is now selling a $3,300 phone.

iPhone 7 to X wasn’t a huge leap. Nothing on the iPhone has been a major difference since the 6 onwards.

The X added OLED which had already been around on other phones for the past 8-9 yearsThe stainless steel band was nothing new, the iPhone was 4 was stainless steel only on the X it was polished.

The Face ID wasn’t even new tech it’s Microsoft Xbox Kinect repurposed. They shrunk it down to fit in the phone but the bulk of the research and development behind it was already complete.

 

[69Mustang]

You can't see this? Apple in 1984 was a tiny company. They hadn't sold a single iPhone. Or a single iPod. Or a single Mac. Tencent is a 750 billion dollar company. They are financing this lawsuit, they are financing this advert. They _can_ say things about things going wrong in China, except that they fully support the system there. Apple in 1984 was nowhere near that position.

What does the size of the company have to do with it's ability to highlight injustices in the world? Absolutely nothing. Companies large and small do it all the time. So that I'm clear, neither company had an obligation to use it's marketing and advertising for social justice. They both used it with the hopes of generating more attention and revenue. It's what advertising is primarily used to do. The point is Scott doesn't have a leg to stand on to criticize Epic for doing the same thing he didn't do. The size of Apple and Tencent are immaterial. So no, I can't see that. There's literally nothing to see.

 

[Amazing Iceman]

I think 1% would cover all of it. I don't have any numbers but neither do you. All you are saying is that we all have to trust Apple. We don't. We need the market (alternative app stores) to establish fair pricing.

I don't need exact numbers, just common sense.
So are you one of those people who think businesses are charities?
Credit card companies charge a 2 - 3% transaction fee.
Sales tax in the U.S. goes from 6 - 12% approximately. Other countries charge 18% or more.
Income tax starts at about 10% for the low income contributors and could reach 30% or more.

Let's do business: I'll give you stuff to sell online, you'll make 1% and I'll make 99%.
In your own words 1% should be enough for you, as I'm providing you with the product. You take care of the E-Commerce and billing part. I'll be nice enough to cover the shipping costs. Do we have a deal?

 

[Amazing Iceman]

Well, Epic manage to host their own App Store and make a profit on 12% sales commission for third party apps. Which doesn't really surprise me, because it's not such a hard thing to do.

Really? If they are the Developers and it's their App Store:
According to you, they make a profit of 12%. Where does the other 88% go?
If it's all to cover their expenses, then they are a terrible business.
They could make more profit by selling underwear online.

 

[Amazing Iceman]

Some people just don't get it. The 30% apple gets IS NOT ALL PROFIT.

 

[Azrael9]

A disingenuous parody by Epic.

One corporation wanting a bigger cut of the pie from another corporation.

Don't like the taste of the pie. Go bake your own.

'Ehhh.' Indeed.

Azrael.

 

[technole]

The message is very powerful indeed. Pity this guy doesn't see it.

That's Sir Ridley Scott to you, he's not just any guy.

Epic is stupid.

 

[pasamio]

No, they’re being anti-competitive by rent seeking for digital gym classes (for example, which is interesting considering rumours of apple’s own digital fitness service) and changing the rules whenever they like to suit them. It happens and will continue to happen because no one can stop them.

It's not anti-competitive to rent seek on their platform, it is rent seeking and that is the correct derogatory but imposing a 30% fee on all sellers who wish to sell in their marketplace is not anti-competitive because they're not stifling competition by imposing an oppressive barrier to entry. This lawsuit will determine if Apple's App Store requirement, and by extension it's rules, form a monopoly and that Apple has some how used it in an anticompetitive way. I don't think that Epic will be successful because of the flow on effects it would provide.

If enough people decide not to buy Apple products and instead by competing products and embrace smaller players then of course anyone can stop them. Android for the longest time has had the majority of the market, it seems in recent years that Apple has managed to edge over to be the majority of phone sales. Slowly growing your marketshare by providing a better product is not illegal and whilst you might disagree that it is a better product than it's alternative, there exists a smartphone market full of choices competitive with the iPhone and iOS.

We also saw the trouble with Hey, where they had successfully submitted the app only to be stopped in their tracks suddenly.
If Hey hadn’t spoken out their business could have ended. What about the companies and individuals that can’t afford to speak out?

Their $99 per year email business would have ended because their app couldn't get to the App Store? They want to leverage Apple's intellectual property and pay nothing for it. I don't think that's the case for Hey and whilst not having an iOS application would have limited their options for go to market, it's not like Apple didn't provide them with a bunch of options to move forward. After they got their free marketing out of it they complied with the rules and moved on. To be honest it was a brilliant marketing move because even now we're still talking about them. It remains to be seen now if they were actually a viable business but at least now they won't be able to blame Apple for that failure.

 

[sideshowuniqueuser]

Nope, it's Epics move. Hence why the judge denied the TRO.

It never ceased to surprise me folk who replace facts with spin.

Epic caused all this with a deliberate action - they broke it, they need to fix it.

Oh, don't go pretending the judge ruled entirely in Apple's favour.

 

[TiggrToo]

Oh, don't go pretending the judge ruled entirely in Apple's favour.

Where did I state that? However Judge Gonzalez Rogers made it very clear that Epic were responsible for this mayhem:

Let me take it back to first principles. All Epic needs to do is to put a compliant version of Fortnite back on the App Store.

As I stated, folk do like to replace facts with spin.

 

[dannys1]

I do think 30% cut is a bit greedy from Apple. But at the same time nobody is forcing Epic to use the platform.

In this particular case Epic broke the contract end of story, should be nothing here to argue.

What would Epic Games do if a developer did not want to pay the 12% Epic Games Store fee and only gave them 6%?

But it's also 30% on Google Play, it's also 30% on Xbox and Playstation (where they make 80% of their money from Fortnite so funnily enough don't care about having to pay it)

They also still sell digital pixels to kids for more than toy companies who have to design, manufacture, pay licenses, ship, distribute and give the B&M store much more than 30% to sell their product do. They're making far too much money selling things that don't even exist to kids.

 

[dannys1]

I don't understand that argument. Perhaps it would help to know how much Epic would have to spend if they distributed their games through Game Stop or Target or Walmart. They'd need to provide physical copies with packaging. They'd need to ship the packages to the stores. They'd need to monitor the sales. Apple handles all of that for them virtually in the App Store, and Epic has so far done quite well that way. Epic's argument looks to me like greed. They want the benefits of the App Store but want to keep all the revenue for themselves.

As far as their "monopoly" argument, there are (as others have said) plenty of other outlets for their games. If they want access to iOS users, then Apple is within its rights to charge for that access.

Yes also add that physical product argument where they charging kids for different coloured digital pixels about £17, but Funko are able to make money selling an actual product in a shop for £10.

Even funnier is they only knocked off 20% from their new prices whilst telling us all they paid Apple 30% - so they just admitted to actually wanting to just make 10% more profit...