All Epic has to do is revert their breaking of ToS to fix this.
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Apple will terminate all Epic Games dev accounts and tool access on August 28th, Epic filing to halt the termination
- Thread starter dex3108
- Start date
Doesn't Apple also sell gift cards on retail stores like Target or Best Buy? It's not 100% the same as digital game keys, but I assume those retail stores also get their cuts from gift card sales.
First:
I don't see why we're putting Apple and Google in the same basket. Their level of control is far from being the same.
Second:
Are walled gardens illegal ? As far as I'm concerned, I'm against it, but I can see the appeal for some people to walled gardens. It has some advantages and downsides.
And no, smartphones are neither a necessity nor your main access point to the world.
You have many options available. There are smartphones not using Google nor Apple services. You have a choice not to buy those.
Their whole point is trying to "fight" against apples bullying of 3rd parties, be it in a shitty way or not. They won't just fold, at least not immediately.
They could have sued without blatantly breaking terms. They know they don't have a legal case.
The notable difference is, as Sweeney himself noted, console makers (well, MS and Sony, at least) sell their products at a $50 per-unit loss (at least in the launch window). Apple sells iPhones at a 500% (5x) markup compared to cost. Mobile apps are extra revenue on top.
Now, I'm with you in that it's pure unadulterated greed on Epic's part. They know Apple users tend to spend way more and way more often on mobile apps than Android users (I think a common breakdown was 70/30 iOS/Android), so even an extra 10% (if, say Apple would reduce the cut from 30% to 20%) would be a shitload of money.
lol yeah breaking rules to fight something you think is wrong will rarely turn out well no matter what it is
a means of distribution to 1.4 billion active devices that are maintained through software that allows them to sell their own software on a storefront and receive payment?
I'm not super pro-corporation but I don't think that the massive infrastructure that has been built and maintained both in hardware, software and worldwide distribution should be hand waved away as offering nothing.
thats like business owners complaining about paying taxes, when it's taxes that built the roads and infrastructures that allowed the business to be able to work and make money in the first place. (let's not mention apple's disgusting dodging of actual taxes, that's another issue)
I don't think it's as easy as lowering the cut to an arbitrary number either, whats to stop another court case that says that number is too high. If Apple built the platform and made it popular with 3rd party apps and very low fees and the later on increased the fees on all apps, that would be a very strong case to say they are abusing their position, but they actually built the App Store and platform in this way.
I mean you can spin this both ways, but in the end its epics responsibility what happens to their engine, their customers and on which platforms its available. They willingly put it at risk with a smear campaign. They could have handles the whole thing like normal companies, just sue and let the legal process resolve it. but instead they chose for mob justice.
I think this isn't true for all consoles and not true for ps4, X1 generation iirc.
I hope Apple will lose this battle and we'll finally get the option to install apps from third party sources, like it has been possible for many years on Android.
Wasn't Apple on the edge of being regulated in that regard anyway?
Wasn't Apple on the edge of being regulated in that regard anyway?
No, you're in the wrong. When you buy a digital key from a retailer, that key was generated and provided by the platform holder, purchased by the third party seller, and the sold to you, that you redeem in the platform holder's, well, platform. Steam allows unlimited key generation as the publisher wishes, but even then, they have guidelines regarding that with the prices.Consoles are different because they're 'owned' by the platform holders. Steam doesnt own 'PC' so they're not as restrictive.
What Tim wants is to have his own Launcher on whatever platform and sell and execute whatever code he sees fit on it. All while harnessing the customer base he didnt build.
That means now that you bought TLOU2, it will only be playable using the Launcher you bought it from, as you bought a License for that store. If that store folds, then you're SOL. You could argue that this could happen to the platform holder as well, but it is understood that this is a less risky proposition as it is implied that platform holder will continue to support it. Also, it would be prone to have Launcher exclusive games which would also suck majorly (which already does on PC).
Epic steals dances from tiktoks and artists and make 100% of the revenue.
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The action that is the topic of this thread is what Epic's lawyers were hoping Apple would do. In order to make the case that Apple is a monopoly that requires regulation requires actions from Apple demonstrating the need for such regulation. People acting like Epic was either surprised or dismayed by these actions missed the whole point of Epic starting whole chain of events. In the end this isn't really about Epic. It's about how much control Apple should be allowed to have over a platform that is intrinsic to so many people's daily lives. If it wasn't Epic it would eventually have been someone else. I wouldn't be very surprised if other companies join Epic in their lawsuit.
Yes, known shitbaggery, which is why I strongly dislike Epic and avoid using the EGS like the 'rona, regardless of how many free games they may offer.
While I disagree with many of Apple's business practices, I do find it hard to feel sorry for Epic here. They 100% knew the ToS and what they were signing up for. If they were dissatisfied, there were other things they should have done. Breaching ToS, with a pre-prepared ad campaign targetted at addicted 12 year olds to support them when the shit hit the fan, is not the correct move. That video they released came across as childish and entitled - like one of their addicted 12 year old players throwing a tantrum when mum made him turn off the Xbox to do his school work.
What did Epic expect? Did they think they had the kind of leverage that would make Apple sweat? Apple has never been reliant on gaming. If apple REALLY cared about games, they would have been wildly more aggressive about getting people gaming on Mac OS. They have a totally different market and, yes, games are a big part of their business through iOS, but they are not the be all and end all. Apple can easily live without Fortnight. I am staggered that Epic did not forsee this kind of push back or that Epic somehow thought this was a pissing contest which they would win - it clearly wasn't and smacks of colossal arrogance on their part.
What did Epic expect? Did they think they had the kind of leverage that would make Apple sweat? Apple has never been reliant on gaming. If apple REALLY cared about games, they would have been wildly more aggressive about getting people gaming on Mac OS. They have a totally different market and, yes, games are a big part of their business through iOS, but they are not the be all and end all. Apple can easily live without Fortnight. I am staggered that Epic did not forsee this kind of push back or that Epic somehow thought this was a pissing contest which they would win - it clearly wasn't and smacks of colossal arrogance on their part.
I always found the excuse that you make customers pay for an hardware to be a legitimate reason for the digital download cuts.
That one should be tied to the digital ecosystem. Not the fact that they make a subsidized hardware that quickly become profitable by itself... and at launch that is already profitable thanks to online paywall/accessories or even one game sold.
It's essentially the same as Apple handling Fortnite; people who have the game can still run it but they can't get the game patched or updated with features, essentially rendering it obsolete in time. If someone is already far into development on a game, it may not matter, but why would any developer want to plan their development of a game on an engine that can't get support? It seems like some devs would be stuck in a shitty position for a squabble they have nothing to do with.
Nah, breaking the rules gets their app banned. I'm not sure what the TOS says, but if removing tool access was standard operating procedure for violating the rules, than it would have been done the same time Fortnite got pulled. This is an escalation and rationalizing any form of escalations simply due to breaking the rules justifies a lot of gross shit.
Epic didn't choose to solve the issue with mob justice though, it's still being handled through lawsuits. Them weaponizing their fans was more of a viral marketing move to get everyone to pay attention to this move against Apple and get the early narrative to lean on their side and to let off a loud shot to rally developer support from others who are dissatisfied by Apple (and Google) storefront practices. They wouldn't have dropped the lawsuit if they expected internet outrage to be the key leverage to pressure Apple to change their minds and with the changes they apparently want, they have to challenge Apple in court.
Epic is like the kid that is complaining to their parents (Google and Apple) that they want higher allowance like the other kids parents let them have.
(on a serious note I hope Epic actually wins, allthough their way of doing things has been stupid imo).
(on a serious note I hope Epic actually wins, allthough their way of doing things has been stupid imo).
Yep, I'm going to agree with you here.
Fucking up their own product, I don't care too much, "let them fight" and all, but considering the amount of studios using Unreal, this can fuck over a lot of people.
I would say that if we go down that road, Epic needs to be split up eventually as well. Being the developer of one of the largest games (able to undercut competitors like PUBG who use Unreal Engine and rely on Epic), one of the most common game engine (which gives them a variety of competitive advantages as game dev and store owner) and a storefront (with which they can undercut smaller storefronts like Humble by giving away free games and locking down exclusives and giving benefits to developers using their engine on their platform) is a massive conflict of interest. In fact, haven't they already been sued for more or less this by the PUBG devs?
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It's not bullying is it? Doesn't every marketplace from PlayStation, Nintendo to Microsoft, google and Apple take a cut of online shop sales? They want to cut out the middle man and maintain 100% profit using somebody else's platform the greedy fucks.
Already made billions selling Shiite skins and dlc to 6 year old kids I've got zero sympathy for Epic.
I mean, maybe you can help me out here 'cause I honestly don't know. But I still haven't heard a reasonable argument as to how this even relevant to the topic.
Is this somehow supposed to justify the industry-standard 30% cut for everyone but Apple? Like it's okay for everyone else because they charge a premium for their product?
I guess I don't understand what one has to do with the other.
(Also, a little Googling shows Apple making 40% profit for each iPhone sold, not 500%. But I understand that's a lot more that consoles even still.)
I would also add Epìc to the mix (and Tencent), they should split the engine business and the games one.
I'm not sure about them having a legal case, but it's pretty plain to see they're banking on public pressure regardless. I don't agree with their methods at all on this, both of these companies are bad. But I don't think they will just back off now. They probably will rather exclude apple hardware from all things unreal than just folding, at least that's where my bets would go.
They might, but that would also result in them screwing over all of their engine licensees that develop for Mac and iOS. And depending on how things go, they could open themselves to lawsuits from their affected licensees for effectively killing future UE Mac support through their own idiocy.
It definitely shouldn't.
But if someone didn't want to put their stuff on that store and would rather pay for the infrastructure and distribution network themselves, then they should be able to.
Just like Levi's sells their clothes at JCPenney, Kohls, Amazon, and in their own stores, Epic, and anyone else for that matter, should have the option of distributing their IPAs directly to iOS users and handle the payments of any app not sourced from the App Store.
Usually they just sort it out and get back on some agreeable terms. Epic can't afford not being on apple devices. It's not just mobile devices we are talking about. Mac is a very popular vfx and cgi development platform. And unreal is used by a lot of non-gaming companies as well. Epic's board won't be happy with this going on for more than a few weeks.
Console gaming can be defined as a separate market that is controlled by three companies. If the judges rule in favor of Epic then console gaming will most definitely be next.
If the developers are just planning the game on UE4 and they ditch UE4s or Apple platforms then it's Epic's and Apple's loss at the same time (Epic will lose royalties from potential income from sales, Apple from 30% cut). Everyone loses in this case.
I absolutely agree, and I take no stance for Epic in this particular situation although I think that the oligopoly market in the smartphone business needs to be adressed, somehow. I have zero faith in that Tim Sweeney agrees on that, though.
lol Epic's revenue is a rounding error for apple and google. what are you trying to achieve splitting companies of that size?
This shit don't work, and I can't believe you believe it. As others have said, Epic could have just let the lawsuit play out. The massive in-game V-buck sale, and the short video they released are both absolutely disgusting coming from a company that doesn't give two shits for the people playing the game. They want kids...KIDS to stick up for them and earn them that 30% cut. For fucking what? Like they'll ever give their players anything in return. This entire thing is gross.
"Thanks for getting us that 30%, now keep using your parent's credit cards to buy our $20 skins!"
Anti-competitive practices are fine if you're merely a several billion dollar company? (tencent is at like 370 bil btw)
what anti-competitive practices are we talking about? why would they not happen anymore if we split up Epic? you'd have to split up a shit load of companies too. Many products would probably cease to exist.
Splitting up companies is done to avoid monopolistic behaviours, which Epic has exactly zero.
See my post above about Fortnite/Unreal Engine/EGS representing competitive advantages for Epic over individual companies in those verticals. Note that anti-competitive behavior is not necessarily restricted to monopolies.
Regardless of what you feel about this Apple v Epic feud, opinions like this sounds very elitist. Yes, it is almost a necessity and a main access point to the world. In my country many kids need to walk uphill and climb a tree to get a phone signal to access study materials, all thanks to Covid moving everything to online learning. Even in normal, non-Covid situation, lots of job applications have moved to online only process, requiring you to have e-mail to access those job application sites.
In places where public computing infrastructure (like a library) is non-existent, a smartphone is the easiest device to access internet where broadband landlines are spotty and/or prohibitively expensive. For a lot of struggling people around the world, a smartphone is the only computing device available in their household that enables them to earn livelihood. They need smartphones to communicate with coworkers via Whatsapp, or sell their products and services via online marketplace.
And yes, we have many options available. For them, the only option available is the cheapest option. In many cases it's an $50 Android smartphone.
I wanted to highlight this post. Monopolistic structures in anything, is not good in the long term (it can be in the short term), and EPIC is clearly choosing that as their argument, in their attempt to disrupt Apple's App Store. It's a very interesting debate, corporate ownership on one hand and free competition on the other.
But Apple definitely wouldn't care given that they hold all the cards and would be willing to take that loss, just like Epic was calculating the loss of Fortnite mobile income versus all their other revenue streams, including PC, consoles, and UE4.
If Apple was losing big and gambling it all on Epic eventually folding, Epic could call their bluff as well. Apple would have to know this would hurt Epic more than them even if it isn't enough to make Epic back down.
