Fair enough. Still, I feel like many of these statements shed a bad light on her.
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Epic vs. Apple Injunction Hearing Day
- Thread starter dex3108
- Start date
Fair enough. Still, I feel like many of these statements shed a bad light on her.
Thanks, that makes a lot of sense. I won't assume Epic's lawyers are stupid, Katherine Forrest is the opposite of stupid, so I thought either I didn't understand the argument or she just flubbed on the dates that Epic first participated in the App Store.
my fanfic summary of this injunction/ trial:
"Your honor, Apple has a watertight contract that is non negotiable for entities that want to operate in our marketplace. The 30% cut that we at Apple take, is for the privilege of putting a company's product on our marketplace in exchange for exposure and monetary gain. Offering a direct payment, circumventing the apple store 30% tariff, is in direct violation of our terms and services"
Judge:"... Yeah well, that pretty much puts a ribbon on this thing".
Epic is is judged to be in the wrong and if they ever want to have the opportunity to sell their software in AppStore again they will have to pay, same as every other company.
the common folk rejoice even though they do not have a horse in this race and Apple and Epic will continue to make billions and not pay their due in taxes. Everybody wins!
Fin.
"Your honor, Apple has a watertight contract that is non negotiable for entities that want to operate in our marketplace. The 30% cut that we at Apple take, is for the privilege of putting a company's product on our marketplace in exchange for exposure and monetary gain. Offering a direct payment, circumventing the apple store 30% tariff, is in direct violation of our terms and services"
Judge:"... Yeah well, that pretty much puts a ribbon on this thing".
Epic is is judged to be in the wrong and if they ever want to have the opportunity to sell their software in AppStore again they will have to pay, same as every other company.
the common folk rejoice even though they do not have a horse in this race and Apple and Epic will continue to make billions and not pay their due in taxes. Everybody wins!
Fin.
Sweeney owns at least 51% of epic, he's not going anywhere unless he wants to
Because walled gardens aren't illegal? Epic is trying to argue that a product and ecosystem setting it's service costs is somehow a monopoly of that type of service despite clear indication it is not. Apple is the defined innovator of smartphones and app store, however they are not the only one who is able to offer such a product/ecosystem. This is Epic's main argument and it didn't stick because it's correlated to the actual real world where they are not monopolistic, thankfully a clear point the judge made in the hearing.
There are also huge ramifications related to the industry that can come from a haphazard ruling, and considering Epic's arguments presented, they definitely don't give a shit. Trying to claim 71 million people are out of luck right now is disingenuous due to the fact those same 71 million can easily access alternative measures for playing, Apple is holding a gun to their head saying play on ios. There is no case here from Epic, in part due to the pied piper actions of Tim Sweeney (who has clearly fucked the case up due to his public outcries), but also because they are trying to claim monopolistic behaviours while also they themselves displaying such attitudes.
On top of that, Epic's display of stupidity in breaching the contract intentionally with clearly defined marketing schemes organised many weeks in advance is working against them. They even state that in order to work against an entity you don't agree with you have to prepare, which means they had the intention to breach contract, a big no no in legal world. They have no argument basis there and even try to use the concerts as proof of users missing out on Apple's choice to ban Fortnite.
Epic's flagrant disregard for laws or attempts to brute force their own interests into others is just becoming more and more apparent as time goes on. They want to leech of other's ecosystems and break down their perfectly permissible walled gardens, all while asking the owner to pay for their use of the walled garden. 30% is a high amount, and that can be argued for reducing, however that is not the approach Epic went with, instead landing flat on their face in a sorry attempt for "monopoly" shenanigans.
Bad, but very predictable, turn for Tim Epic's case today. The court does not appear to be enjoying Epic's shenanigans either and refusing to allow the funds from Fortnite to be put into eschrow whilst the dispute is being litigated isn't going to do them any favours.
The judge immediately saying "how come you're fine with Sony, Nintendo and MS taking 30%" lets you know the judge thinks the case has problems on its merits.
The judge immediately saying "how come you're fine with Sony, Nintendo and MS taking 30%" lets you know the judge thinks the case has problems on its merits.
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I understand how the legal process works. I also understand that this case is a complicated one due to precedent. To say that questioning the continued existence of walled gardens isn't relevant to this case leads me to believe that you don't understand. That, or you're intentionally being disingenuous.
Which is funny a judge saying g that when many people online have said their quite different circumstances. If Epic wins it sets a very good precedent for them or others to the go against console platform holders.
The best part is that in all these threads people have made this exact argument and it's always handwaved away by Epic's supporters saying there's no legal merit to that argument.
Then the actual judge almost immediately brings it up.
Exactly, and epic knows it pretty much looses its entire business if it would set the same standards to consoles and would try to fight that fight.
In the end its epic fighting for epic. They are not fighting for the developer here, or little guy, because if they would, they would have dropped their hotfix so Apple would allow unreal engine back on IOS to protect their customers and continue fighting this legal fight the right way as Apple has made clear it would, but instead they cared more about themselves, took their customers as hostages and continued their marketing spiel, playing victim to their own shootout.
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I think Epic would have been better off going for an attack on Apple's lack of consistency in applying the rules, and on Apple making selective exemptions for certain industries and product niches. Apple absolutely needs to be taken to task for requiring a 30% cut of any money that changes hands, but Epic was the worst company to make that case.
Right, the natural assumption that a precedent would exclude consoles is very shaky, it's not clear the Sherman Act provides any justification for that. As others have said the Sherman Act regulates markets, so it would obviously apply to both the console and smartphone markets.
Now I don't know this judge's judicial philosophy or reasoning, so I have to speculate on why she's bringing this up.
She may be thinking ahead to what will happen if she grants Epic's case as it is. She doesn't know how the precedent wouldn't apply elsewhere, and may not want to cause that much industry wide disruption. Especially if she's inclined to agree with Apple that this is a business dispute rather than an antitrust violation. A lot of judges hate causing this short of judicial disruption over matters small in scale.
Alternatively she may be signaling to Epic, that if they want any chance of winning here, they're either going to have to argue that yes, all walled gardens are antitrust violations (this would undoubtedly strain their relations with all the console manufacturers) or actually tighten up their legal argument as to why this applies to Apple and not others and not just ignore it. The second one would probably be better in the short term for Epic, but I have no clue how to do that.
Then again I'm not Cravath, who Epic pays the big bucks to, so obviously I wouldn't be able to do it lol
Infinity Blade definitely had MTX. You could purchase Gold to buy weapons, gear, items, etc.
Infinity Blade - Wikipedia
Chair Entertainment released four expansions as free updates to the game. The first, released December 20, 2010, added a new enemy, equipment, and microtransactions. It also removed an experience level cap
People have made the argument that there isn't a "console market" but rather a videogames market that encompasses PC, mobile, streaming, browser games, etc. The console market is simply a subset of this larger market.
The problem is that you can similarly argue the same thing about the "smartphone market" simply being a smaller part of an overall "app market". Like games, apps can also be run on tablets, phones, set-top boxes, embedded systems, PCs, Macs, etc.
There's always a chance the Court does something weird and inconsistent about where the Sherman Act applies.
There's a Supreme Court case from the 70s where they ruled baseball gets an antitrust exemption, but other sports do not.
Flood v. Kuhn - Wikipedia
Though you wouldn't want to bet money on it, given how that case is viewed by history.
Well then Epic makes even less sense then lolInfinity Blade definitely had MTX. You could purchase Gold to buy weapons, gear, items, etc.
Infinity Blade - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
Chair Entertainment released four expansions as free updates to the game. The first, released December 20, 2010, added a new enemy, equipment, and microtransactions. It also removed an experience level cap
Yeah, for whatever reason they were happy to split revenues with Apple for nearly a decade.....but just now decided that they have a monopoly. It makes less sense when you consider how absolutely dominant iOS/Apple was back in 2010 (the iPhone 4 era), and Android was only just beginning to make inroads.
It was a pretty fun mobile game in the vein of Punch-Out. I guess they just couldn't keep people interested beyond the initial novelty of it. I was really hoping that Infinity Blade Dungeons would be a cool mobile Diablo, but it got canned along with the rest of the series.
It sucks because while Epic did release all the assets for the game to UE, the source still isn't available so no one can port it to newer versions of iOS or other platforms.
Is the game currently unplayable in iOS? I just tried to launch IB2 and it literally crashed/rebooted my iPhone. I've never seen a game do that before.
Epic has a point in that a hardware manufacturer that only allows its own OS on its hardware and imposes restrictions on distribution of software for its OS constitutes a monopoly of sort. However, they have made no compelling argument as to why this practice, common in the tech world and bearing the name "walled garden ecosystem" is actually illegal.
Their argument isn't stupid. Unrealistic, implausible, yes. But it is coherent and sound- if you accept their definition of a market in question
It's an interesting legal question that deserves to be examined on its merits, imho. But that doesn't mean I feel that the ramifications Epic is aiming for are in any way desirable.
I think they said it was too much effort to keep QAing it for newer releases, so that doesn't surprise me.
As much money as they're making on Fortnite, it'd be nice if they could provide some legacy support for Infinity Blade even if it doesn't make that much financial sense.
Funny how Epic went from being one of the premier titles for iOS to being the platform's biggest opponent.
Let's say Apple wins this, would it be possible for Microsoft to go full force in forcing people go to their Store like Valve was afraid of years ago? Would this set some kind of precedent in which it's their OS, so their rules? I'm just trying to see how this affect things other than iOS.
Epic has abandoned just about every game that is not called fortnite.
I often wonder where exactly they would be if they had not so quickly and effortlessly developed a PUBG clone.
Not really, the merits of arguments remain the same, however the stunt Epic pulled actually hurts them more. At the end of the day, the end result will most likely be in apples favor.
It would have just gone on to the main part of the case instead of this injunction. But the legal arguments would have stayed the same, but Epic would have still continued to make money from fornite in the mean time.
The only difference is that Epic wouldn't have a reason to do their stupid PR campaign.
No, Apple winning maintains the status quo and changes nothing in how walled gardens operate.
This would also not be the same situation in the slightest. At no point could you release an app without going through Apple. Microsoft attempting to lock down Windows in a similar manner would be treated differently. The issue is when the wall of the walled garden was built. If it was there from the start (Apple) it will be treated differently if it came after (Hypothetical Windows).
Starting a closed platform is fine. Starting an open one is fine. Starting a closed one and then opening it is also fine. Closing an already open platform after achieving a significant market will most likely be seen as anticompetitive and abuse.
This is exactly why what Apple is doing is legal and not a monopoly. Apple created something in a vacuum. Has not changed pricing since inception and has not created a monopolistic environment with harsher pricing since inception. There is zero reason for any court to rule in epics favor because that precedent basically means creators don't have a right to reap the rewards of their own investment and work. Sony MS Amazon Nintendo EBay any popular store front would be potentially impacted by judging in epics favor.
Its actually in reverse, Epic is the one that wants to avoid a jury trial and wants a quick bench verdict.
Yup. There's virtually zero chance Epic gets a favorable ruling.
I agree with this. There are plenty of things that you likely could get Apple to change including the inconsistency but Epic just fucked the whole thing up
Waiting for however long a Jury trial would go is even worse then an opposing judge's verdict.
Epic has said they wanted to reach a conclusion as fast as possible.
Also Juries are always coin flips.
PS4 has the PS Store where Sony sells movies, yet it allows apps like Amazon Prime, where you can also buy movies (the same ones even) and Sony doesn't get jack.
Now imagine Epic, Capcom, Square Enix, Electronic Arts, Ubisoft, Koei Tecmo, Bandai Namco, Take Two, Sega, and everyone else big and small had their own storefront on PSN and there was nothing that Sony could do to regulate the content purchasable on any of them.