Android = Windows is the comparison to make here. You can use any store on Windows. It's literally exactly the same.
I'm not going into the "bribing" part of because that's just silly.
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Bloomberg: Apple and Google's app stores are un-American and uncompetitive in their business practices, says Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney
- Thread starter AshenOne
- Start date
I'm not going into the "bribing" part of because that's just silly.
It is open, in the sense that you can sideload, or install your own store.
In practice competing stores haven't found much success.
I have applications that I use regularly, from outside the play sore
so you refuse to compare stores, in a thread, about comparing stores.
That sounds incredibly American, his complaints motivated by his desire to share the money pie is also very American.
Honestly, mingling storefronts is good for the health of business. The opposite might seem convenient but it's a power-imbalance.
Google has been accused of this before. In fact, they were fined by EU because of their disproportional market ownership.
https://www.theguardian.com/technol...-fined-149bn-by-eu-for-advertising-violations
Google has been accused of this before. In fact, they were fined by EU because of their disproportional market ownership.
https://www.theguardian.com/technol...-fined-149bn-by-eu-for-advertising-violations
Actually, that's 100% American.
Outspending the competition is all-American.
Ya because you do the absolute bare minimum and don't invest in anything other than buying exclusives lmao.
It's so dumb because Sweeney knows the 12% cut prevents them from offering store gift cards & paying surcharge fees from merchants that charge extremely high ones like their competition does as those margins would essentially approach 0%.
He's so focused on being JUST a (bog standard, still missing basic features like a Shopping Cart) store that solely exists to give publishers more money, and completely avoids being a good service and platform for everyone to use.
The consumer has a choice to buy an iPhone or not. Also, side loading apps on Android is a thing. He just wants epic game store to grow to mobile platforms and I assume wants to sell apps with his store and tencent definitely wants in on the app market. Motives are not pure. The modern day corporation is a monopoly (including Epic and tencent).
Look he may be a self-serving dickhead, but he's right that it's bullshit. Companies should be able to do things like sell stuff through apps without Apple taking a cut e.g. Comixology don't sell comics through their app because they don't want to give the 30% cut to Apple, users are forced to instead go through the website to make the purchase.
In a world where a huge percentage of digital interactions are done via mobile phone apps, it is fucking bullshit that you get gatekeepers like Apple get to clip the ticket on every single transaction that occurs there.
In a world where a huge percentage of digital interactions are done via mobile phone apps, it is fucking bullshit that you get gatekeepers like Apple get to clip the ticket on every single transaction that occurs there.
Eh, I think Unity has a larger marketshare, and the majority of AAA developers are using their own engines.
No, I refuse to compare "Android" to "EGS". It's "Play Store" running on Android vs "EGS" running on Windows. It's even significantly easier on Windows to install any other store than to sideload apps on Android. It just doesn't make any sense. Epic doesn't prevent you from running applications not bought on their store on your Windows device, do they?
Why you gotta bring nationalist rhetoric into it?
Lots of countries have anti-competition laws. Why call these multinational companies un-American over un-Dutch or un-Australian unless it's to appeal to some jingoistic US exceptionalism?
Also the idea of equating un-American to being bad is borderline xenophobic. Lidl is un-American. IKEA is un-American. A little authentic Polish cafe is un-American. And they're all the better for it.
Lots of countries have anti-competition laws. Why call these multinational companies un-American over un-Dutch or un-Australian unless it's to appeal to some jingoistic US exceptionalism?
Also the idea of equating un-American to being bad is borderline xenophobic. Lidl is un-American. IKEA is un-American. A little authentic Polish cafe is un-American. And they're all the better for it.
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I mean he is the guy that got sad when Alex Jones was banned from Twitter, so....
Well technically speaking on that last bit, android doesn't prevent you from installing or running out of store apps either. It just has it disabled by default due to the fear of virus and malware which you can change if you want to..
Idk if iOs allows install of out of store apps AT ALL or not tough since i never used an iPhone..
Doesn't China/Tencent have something like 40% share of Epic? Doesn't Epic do exclusive deals and essentialy take games away from competing stores?
I'm starting to think Tim has some personal health issues with all his talk. Either that or he's very bitter EGS isn't taking the world by storm and wants to blame everyone else for why that is.
I'm starting to think Tim has some personal health issues with all his talk. Either that or he's very bitter EGS isn't taking the world by storm and wants to blame everyone else for why that is.
Because he tried making the same points in the past with other flawed logic, so why not play the "un-American" nonsense to see if maybe that works where all else has failed.
In which case you should specify with what you agree with, otherwise people will think you agree with everything he said.
on windows, you down load the other store, and run it. On android, you uncheck a checkbox, download the other store, and run it...
If you want to make an argument of the proposition of trying to compete with google's store on android that'd be one thing, but trying to argue its difficult to install another store on android is laughably stupid.
and again, this is a thread comparing app stores, so again, why are you refusing to compare google's app store to EGS
How does that work on game consoles? The flat rate appears to be 30% across the board. Why should Apple who has invested billions into make IOS what it is today, allow anyone to simply piggyback off of their devices and get nothing in return?
I always feel a bit conflicted on these topics because Apple/Google (as well as other platform holders like the "big 3") do deserve a generous cut of anything sold on their platform. They took the risk and invested the billions in developing these things and cultivating an audience.
Likewise, I can see how frustrating it must be for a developer and many of them are struggling as it is. Maybe the right path would be to continue to take 30% from rich shitheads like Tim/Tencent and lower the cut to 10-15% on the first x number of sales for smaller devs.
Likewise, I can see how frustrating it must be for a developer and many of them are struggling as it is. Maybe the right path would be to continue to take 30% from rich shitheads like Tim/Tencent and lower the cut to 10-15% on the first x number of sales for smaller devs.
This nails it for me. It's really easy to talk about how low your margins are when you're not prioritizing the development of your platform in any tangible way.
If he's so upset about the phone duopoly then he should consider investing in companies like pine64 and purism. They're making Linux based phones and could surely use support in getting them going. That and the different distros like PostmarketOS and UBports, etc. The world could be his.
It's as American as it gets. These companies are giving consumers a choice: buy into our platform, or don't. If there is sufficient consumer outcry for an open platform without these restrictions, some firm out there will try to serve that niche and make that profit.
So basically: either people don't care enough for this to be an issue, or they do care and it's an opportunity waiting To be seized and profited from.
So basically: either people don't care enough for this to be an issue, or they do care and it's an opportunity waiting To be seized and profited from.
I'm not going to say he has no point, but 1: He's mostly just mad that he has to pay a cut to Apple and Google, 2: These companies spend tons of money curating, maintaining the OS/storefront, dealing with CC fees, gift card fees, etc and he conveniently forgets about all that, and 3: When you create a platform it's 100% normal for everything to have to go through your ecosystem (consoles, phones, etc) so he shouldn't pick and choose who he complains about.
He loves to pick and choose his complaints, such as Steam's 30%, while conveniently forgetting to mention that his storefront sucks, is missing tons of basic and more advanced features other storefronts (especially Steam) have, lacks multiple payment methods Steam offers (because it costs too much), and has a history of paying companies not to release elsewhere just to entice people to use it. Doesn't sound like someone who champions competition.
He loves to pick and choose his complaints, such as Steam's 30%, while conveniently forgetting to mention that his storefront sucks, is missing tons of basic and more advanced features other storefronts (especially Steam) have, lacks multiple payment methods Steam offers (because it costs too much), and has a history of paying companies not to release elsewhere just to entice people to use it. Doesn't sound like someone who champions competition.
I mean he is obviously right, but he doesn't argue for the little guy or competition from a consumer perspective. He just want's a part of the cake and he is going to approach it in the same way as he did with the Epic Store on PC, if Apple and Google are getting regulated like he wants.
Seeing how EGS is purposefully ignoring the existence of Linux, I would not get my hopes up on that.
I don't think it's fair to compare console makers to Apple and Google. Consoles only exist because of that cut. Apple make a fortune on hardware and Google on services.
Android is also curated just to a lesser degree than iOS. And, as mentioned a few times in this thread, side-loading is super simple to do on Android. It's entirely possible to have another storefront. In fact, Amazon Appstore is one such alternative. Samsung has their own store as well (at least they used to when I had a Galaxy phone), etc etc. The point is kind of lost when you realize there are already choices and people are free to use what they want. Just so happens they mostly use the one that has the best feature set for them, which happens to be the App Store or Google Play.
Excuse me, but your initial quote was:
You said "EGS" is far worse than "Google". Which it is just not. Google Play Store has full curation. EGS has full curation. You can load any app on Android. You can load any app on Windows. It's the same.
Sony sells TVs. And insurance
Microsoft makes most of its money on services. They serve ads in the UI.
But on Android, you do sort of have a choice. You can put the APK of your app anywhere and people can download the app. Epic literally did that with Fortnite.
I mean specifically on the place the stores exist. The consoles themselves, selling them isn't going to be worth doing.
