It's less than the 12% the use on their own store for payment processing + other stuff.
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Epic: Apple has blocked your ability to update Fortnite on the App Store
- Thread starter dex3108
- Start date
It's less than the 12% the use on their own store for payment processing + other stuff.
I'm not really rooting for them to lose in court, but the victim playing part really is so pathetic.
I'm not trying to be rude but no.
Sony alone has sold 100+ million consoles this gen, in no way is that niche.
It doesn't matter. The court will set a precedent which will be able to be applied to every closed software platform.
Sony own ~50% of the console market - that's MORE ubiquitous than Apple at ~30% of the mobile market.
"Monopoly" accusations and law have nothing to do with the absolute numbers of devices, they are whether your have a monopoly of your particular sector no matter how niche your sector happens to be.
If it's illegal to create a closed platform and run your own store on it because it is a "monopoly" of your own platform well... that's bad, bad news for console gaming. If 30% of a market also counts as a "monopoly" then again, bad news for consoles.
The issue is that none of the arguments that Apple have any kind of monopoly make any kind of sense, it's just Epic trying to brainwash people so they can cut Apple out of their own platform and make more money.
Except that is technically against the rules as well...apparently? Shit's vague.
Basically, WordPress was doing this, but then they were told they couldn't...and then were told they were okay again.
They all should reduce the cut.
should all of them allow other stores? maybe, maybe not.
But the cut needs to go down.
Only as long as there is no indication in any way in the iOS version of how you can buy V-Bucks. iOS apps can't bypass Apple's payment structure by telling people how to go make purchases outside of the store to get something inside of the app. And I don't think this would be a good solution for consumers.
And Epic already did, so it's not like they're asking anything of anybody else they didn't already do.
Gaming is by far the largest entertainment medium by revenue and consoles are a huge chunk of that. GTAV's launch hit $1 billion revenue faster than any entertainment product in history, including movies, and that was exclusively on consoles.
Epic will have no trouble arguing that the console gaming market is large enough to meet the "public interest" standard.
No mention of Google Play Store, Xbox, PS Store, Nintendo all asking for 30%... I wonder why?
Dog-piling on Apple in the current climate?
Is it just that they are targeting their most lucrative consumers? (young children on phones buying IAPs - shiny trinkets designed to lure them in)
So Apple should just let Fortnite on their store, distribute the probably 10GB game to millions and millions of their customers worldwide every single point release, over and over again, for free for all time to Epic, giving Epic access to possibly the most lucrative market, and not ask for anything in return?
That just seems like the stupidest business decision any company could make, never mind a company that generally doesn't make stupid business decisions like Apple. Of course they are not going to do it, because it means probably losing millions of dollars per month distributing Fortnite for Epic for free so Epic can make millions and millions of dollars from it with no store overhead.
Are Epic stupid enough to think this will work? Probably not, they probably know an App Store with free apps and 0%-overhead-IAPs is completely untenable business model for Apple or any company, and the real play is to push past that and to expanding Epic Games Store to more platforms.
Epic Games Store is currently on 'open platforms' (Windows/Mac)...and the strategy is probably just "where else can we sneak EGS on, which closed platform is profitable yet potentially vulnerable to a little bit of chaos if we shake things up?..."
Dog-piling on Apple in the current climate?
Is it just that they are targeting their most lucrative consumers? (young children on phones buying IAPs - shiny trinkets designed to lure them in)
So Apple should just let Fortnite on their store, distribute the probably 10GB game to millions and millions of their customers worldwide every single point release, over and over again, for free for all time to Epic, giving Epic access to possibly the most lucrative market, and not ask for anything in return?
That just seems like the stupidest business decision any company could make, never mind a company that generally doesn't make stupid business decisions like Apple. Of course they are not going to do it, because it means probably losing millions of dollars per month distributing Fortnite for Epic for free so Epic can make millions and millions of dollars from it with no store overhead.
Are Epic stupid enough to think this will work? Probably not, they probably know an App Store with free apps and 0%-overhead-IAPs is completely untenable business model for Apple or any company, and the real play is to push past that and to expanding Epic Games Store to more platforms.
Epic Games Store is currently on 'open platforms' (Windows/Mac)...and the strategy is probably just "where else can we sneak EGS on, which closed platform is profitable yet potentially vulnerable to a little bit of chaos if we shake things up?..."
The difference with MS and Sony, they actively subsidize the cost of the console with software sales (which is inline with the business model). Apple's profit margins for their products are insanely high (which is not inline with the business model).
Many of the players of Fortnite on mobile are literal children who don't decide what kind of phone they get.
It's kicked off the Google Play Store for exactly the same reasons.
It's obviously conjecture, but I'm pretty sure that neither Apple or Google host the full application on their stores. After you launch, it has to download the bulk of the game before you can play it, so I have to assume it's downloading that data from the Epic servers directly. All you really download from the store is a launcher like an MMO.
Yes, but Android is an open platform, so you can can play it there anyway.
In 2018 alone....Apple sold approx. 220M iPhones. Are you mentioning sales of Sony consoles since 1995? Yes, console gaming is niche.
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Why is this at all relevant? That's how they chose to do business; that's their own prerogative. Why should the public opinion change depending where they place their margins?
This is completely arbitrary and vague since it's not always clear how each company operates, where they place their margins and how big they are expected to be. The store cut should be expected to be the same across the board because it's all the same to the rest of the eco-system - i.e. the developers and consumers. It's of no consequence to a developer whether your platform sells hardware at a loss or not. The only relevant factors are a) is the X% cut worth it and b) what can this platform offer for us.
Again, console gaming revenue is massive, easily competing with the entire film industry. Do you feel movies are niche?In 2018 alone....Apple sold approx. 220M iPhones. Are you mentioning sales of Sony consoles since 1995? Yes, console gaming is niche.
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Assuming any of that is legally relevant.
They sell their consoles at a profit. They also charge for basic p2p networking.
I doubt that would stand in court. That's their business choice to be competitive with each other.
How is that difference relevant to anything?
"Apple make more money off their model therefore it's different and it's ok to punish them but not MS, Sony or Nintendo" isn't an argument.
Which is where you run into problems in discussing this. People struggle to separate their personal feelings (especially feelings of "Apple makes too much money, therefore it must be wrong something needs to be done about it") from any actual logical or legal argument.
Nothing stopping Sony charging more for PS5, for example, and making a profit on the hardware. They choose to take a slight loss on hardware to sell more units. Apple choose to sell fewer units but at a higher price. These facts have nothing to do with the monopolistic arguments, they're simply two different approaches to selling hardware that have no logical or legal relation to software selling practices.
Remember companies exist to make money. Apple being better at it than Sony isn't a reason to punish Apple or give Sony a free pass.
And as others have pointed out - they currently sell their consoles for a profit, it's only at launch time they are sold at a loss. So that argument completely falls apart anyway, even if it was logical. They also charge to play online (which is free on iOS).
Plenty of apps do it. I can't movies from amazon in the app. The first time I saw it I was pissed but I've gotten over it.
Epic are fighting a battle that could have severe ramifications to more than just the target, including companies they work with. They put the 30% ahead of developers using their software on a gamble that the courts would side with them when they could have stopped breaking TOS and still taken it to court regardless.
They've decided that during a pandemic they'd rather their young playerbase be on twitter fighting their battles for them, while opting to remove an avenue for those kids to keep themselves entertained and an avenue to socialize with their friends all in an effort to rile them up to fight that battle for them.
Don't even like Apple and have never bought a product of theirs but Epic have shown themselves to be absolute scum in this whole affair.
They've decided that during a pandemic they'd rather their young playerbase be on twitter fighting their battles for them, while opting to remove an avenue for those kids to keep themselves entertained and an avenue to socialize with their friends all in an effort to rile them up to fight that battle for them.
Don't even like Apple and have never bought a product of theirs but Epic have shown themselves to be absolute scum in this whole affair.
The short of it is that the value of virtual goods in a closed economy (in which virtual currency cannot be used to buy real currency or be traded for real goods) is entirely arbitrary and decided by the developer. Closed virtual economies, and the prices of virtual currencies, are designed around what the developer believes will earn the highest revenue from their audience, and thus balancing occurs from a consumer's POV of value/dollar pre-platform cut, not the developer's POV of value/dollar post-cut. This is all just to say that the platform cut does not figure into economy balancing and SKU design, and that savings will not be passed down to the player.
Epic increasing the value/dollar of their currency packs only makes sense in the context of a platform cut. In a hypothetical post-lawsuit world where there is no platform fee, there would be likely no change to value/dollar for consumers for the above reasons.
"If you look at the game industry as a whole, the console market is not a major market, rather it's a niche market if you will."In 2018 alone....Apple sold approx. 220M iPhones. Are you mentioning sales of Sony consoles since 1995? Yes, console gaming is niche.
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Come on, dude. What you're saying is a huge stretch. A multi-billion dollar a year industry is not "niche" by any definition of the word.
I'm sure there are ways to download Fortnite on Android. I download apps that aren't available on Google Play all the time. It's like a PC, and I'm sure it's able to update too. Fortnite started on Android as a non google play app. I wouldn't be surprised if EGS is on Android.
EGS is on Android, but they only have two games...and I think they're both free...
iOS has ~30% of mobile market share.
So iOS has approx 14% of the market share, likely about the same as PS4.
Really struggling to see where this "monopoly" is...
Thank you very much for your response. Now I understand it better.