I'm breaking up with all of you - Apple restricts Cloud gaming services

[TechyBen]

2 hours ago, Twilight said:

nothing? i very vocally dislike microsoft but i'm not calling every windows user here an idiot am i? if i say a product/service is stupid in my opinion that doesn't mean i judge people who buy/use those products/services... 

Streaming is not a brand. It's doing something remotly.

 

Are you saying there is never a good use case for game streaming... ever? You called it stupid, not "sub par"... not "I don't like it" but "dumb"... so...

 

[mr moose]

6 hours ago, Twilight said:

do you "own" games on steam? software from the microsoft store? apps from the play store? unless you have a physical copy of something (you know, a software disc, that relic from boomer times) you don't own it. the companies you purchased the digital content from can just poof terminate your account and it's gone. 

Under Australian consumer law a piece of software that can be bought is considered a product for consumer law purposes, that means I own my product, I am legally allowed to resell it, The company  who sold it to me must not do anything to make it unusable after purchase.  This does not mean I get to break copyright law or some other laws regarding intellectual property, however it does mean I own it as a consumer.

 

EDIT just to clarify, being on a physical medium or downloaded as digital content does not matter, the law applies to both equally.

 

 

[Ashley MLP Fangirl]

23 minutes ago, TechyBen said:

Streaming is not a brand. It's doing something remotly.

i am aware. 

 

23 minutes ago, TechyBen said:

Are you saying there is never a good use case for game streaming... ever? You called it stupid, not "sub par"... not "I don't like it" but "dumb"... so...

it's sub-optimal, has lag issues, and budget hardware will give you a better experience anyway. a concole that costs $300 will outperform any streaming service. 

 

and it doesn't have a cost advantage either because you have to pay for the service, games and a good internet plan. all of that combined over the lifecycle of a typical console (4 to 6 years) is waaaay more than a console costs.

 

it's a stupid idea and everything i've seen so far proves me right. 

 

does that mean that you are dumb if you subscribe to a service like that? of course not, that's your money and your choice. i'm just saying that all products currently available are in my opinion worse than "traditional" alternatives that already exist.

[Dabombinable]

6 hours ago, WereCatf said:

It's fine if you don't have any use for such, but you're arguably the dumb one if you can't see why others would want to use game-streaming.

Especially if you can use it with games you already own.

[Guest]

Game streaming services have much bigger problems than this I think. Like working.

[ItsaB3AR]

On 3/26/2020 at 3:21 PM, Twilight said:

do you "own" games on steam? software from the microsoft store? apps from the play store? unless you have a physical copy of something (you know, a software disc, that relic from boomer times) you don't own it. the companies you purchased the digital content from can just poof terminate your account and it's gone. 

For real, a couple of weeks ago Stem servers went down and I realized how much we rely on them to allow us to play "our games".

[TechyBen]

33 minutes ago, ItsaB3AR said:

For real, a couple of weeks ago Stem servers went down and I realized how much we rely on them to allow us to play "our games".

What games?

Mine launch from the .exe files.

[williamcll]

8 hours ago, ItsaB3AR said:

For real, a couple of weeks ago Stem servers went down and I realized how much we rely on them to allow us to play "our games".

Offline mode ahoy.

[hishnash]

On 3/27/2020 at 4:03 AM, williamcll said:

app developers can’t stream games that are not developed by them

This is not true the limitation is not about what game (or application) you are streaming but more about the money.

You are not permitted to have apps on the app store that ask the user to pay for digital goods in in the app unless you do that payment through the app store. 

So if you have a game streaming server you need to ensure that the user is not then prompted for a credit card inside the app. Note Steam have their streaming service on iOS they do this by ensuring that you can't `buy` games while using the streaming service you can only connect to your compute and play your existing games.

Apples reasoning for not permitting digital purchases through apps I would expect is manifold:

1) Apple would like their 15% to 30% cut.

2) Apple do not want users to get used to entering credit card details into apps and then needing to explain to `dumb` users that apple is not at fault for their money being stolen.

3) Tax, apple operate around the world this means that there is a large number of complex tax law to comply with, if apple make it `easy` for developers to `not comply` with local tax law they can be seen as being `complicit` in tax fraud in those nations. (physical goods are different since the goods need to be delivered to your address so tax will be collected regardless)

You can create a game streaming service and release an app on the app store but you must ensure that users will not be asked for a credit card while within this application.

[mr moose]

I find the whole forcing users to pay for 3rd party services through IOS or android to be very repugnant.  At what point does it not become a monopoly when your phone manufacturer gets to levee an unavoidable 15- 30% fee.

[kaiju_wars]

On 3/26/2020 at 1:55 PM, Twilight said:

i called nobody dumb? when did i call people dumb? 

Don't bother arguing my guy.  You support Apple in any conceivable way.  You are now calling everyone dumb for just calling game streaming dumb as a result.  

 

Exaggeration of how some people act here, obviously.

[Rohith_Kumar_Sp]

Those who are stuck at apple ecosystem. Get out now

 

[Curious Pineapple]

11 minutes ago, Rohith_Kumar_Sp said:

Those who are stuck at apple ecosystem. Get out now

 

But Apple do nothing wrong!

[Ashley MLP Fangirl]

1 hour ago, Rohith_Kumar_Sp said:

Those who are stuck at apple ecosystem. Get out now

why

[kaiju_wars]

1 hour ago, Rohith_Kumar_Sp said:

Those who are stuck at apple ecosystem. Get out now

 

Honestly I switch back and forth on android and iOS a lot.  I don't care about game streaming... and I just like iOS.  Lmao

 

[hishnash]

12 hours ago, mr moose said:

I find the whole forcing users to pay for 3rd party services through IOS or android to be very repugnant.  At what point does it not become a monopoly when your phone manufacturer gets to levee an unavoidable 15- 30% fee.

I agree that always taking 15 to 30% is a lot. Depending how how the user finds your application you as a developer are getting something for this.
 

The largest one of this is:

Local Sales tax paperwork handling (for all the nations of the work).  As someone who has build payment systems to handle sales tax (just in EU) I do consider this a very valuable service. Other sales platforms that provide this (globally) tend to charge 10% to 15%.  Doing this yourself globally in many cases requires you to pay for lawyers and accountants in multiple nations around the world and operate bank accounts in those nations, comply with other sales rules such are returns etc and provide that in the local language.

Of course you might say as a developer you don't care about passing on sales tax in nations you don't live in but you are breaking the law if you do this.

 

I believe if apple or google were to let you handle this yourself they would limit your applications sale/use to nations were you have based your company (so that apple or google are not liable for your tax fraud).

 

But i do like that apps don't prompt for you card details every 30 seconds (since do you trust an app developer to really handle you card details securely). Maybe apple and google could leverage their respective ApplePay/Android Pay solutions for this in such a way that the apps to not get your real card numbers?

I think what they could do (and not break the laws around the world) is let apps link to websites were you can pay the developer, (that is detached enough that they can say they were not involved in the transaction so are not aiding and abating tax fraud), still does not let game streaming service work since they would be promoting for cards within the application.
 

[mr moose]

1 hour ago, hishnash said:

I agree that always taking 15 to 30% is a lot. Depending how how the user finds your application you as a developer are getting something for this.
 

The largest one of this is:

Local Sales tax paperwork handling (for all the nations of the work).  As someone who has build payment systems to handle sales tax (just in EU) I do consider this a very valuable service. Other sales platforms that provide this (globally) tend to charge 10% to 15%.  Doing this yourself globally in many cases requires you to pay for lawyers and accountants in multiple nations around the world and operate bank accounts in those nations, comply with other sales rules such are returns etc and provide that in the local language.

Of course you might say as a developer you don't care about passing on sales tax in nations you don't live in but you are breaking the law if you do this.

 

I believe if apple or google were to let you handle this yourself they would limit your applications sale/use to nations were you have based your company (so that apple or google are not liable for your tax fraud).

 

But i do like that apps don't prompt for you card details every 30 seconds (since do you trust an app developer to really handle you card details securely). Maybe apple and google could leverage their respective ApplePay/Android Pay solutions for this in such a way that the apps to not get your real card numbers?

I think what they could do (and not break the laws around the world) is let apps link to websites were you can pay the developer, (that is detached enough that they can say they were not involved in the transaction so are not aiding and abating tax fraud), still does not let game streaming service work since they would be promoting for cards within the application.
 

There is a difference between a company offering a method to deal with sales tax and a company not allowing you to deal with it yourself.  This is not about tax, or about prompting for card details.   If legality was the reason then you wouldn't be able to have Netflix on windows without going through the windows store.  It's basically apple (and google) not permitting apps in the app store unless they can scrape a fee.

[hishnash]

1 hour ago, mr moose said:

There is a difference between a company offering a method to deal with sales tax and a company not allowing you to deal with it yourself.  This is not about tax, or about prompting for card details.   If legality was the reason then you wouldn't be able to have Netflix on windows without going through the windows store.  It's basically apple (and google) not permitting apps in the app store unless they can scrape a fee.

 

Non of Netflix apps collect card details in the app they all expect you to sign up on the website. (Netflix have iOS apps).

Apps in the app store are being `provided` by the app store.

 

Legally it very different from an application you download from the internet onto your PC and install. 

 

Since they store providers are distributing the applications at minimum they would need to remove any application the breaches tax laws (and in many regions they would need to do this auditing...).

 

Nations would see it as being complicit if they opened it up now. (if they had been open from day one maybe it would be different).  If your a nation state is is not possible for you to legally go after a developer in another nation but you can go after apple/google since they have staff and stores and retail in your nation.

 

[mr moose]

12 minutes ago, hishnash said:

 

 

Legally it very different from an application you download from the internet onto your PC and install. 

 

Link to the law that says anything along those lines.

12 minutes ago, hishnash said:

Since they store providers are distributing the applications at minimum they would need to remove any application the breaches tax laws (and in many regions they would need to do this auditing...).

The store is just that, a  store that sells software.  If the software is illegal and they know it then they would have to remove it,  but just like every other retail site for software they are not responsible for vetting the legality of apps,  they maybe asked to remove them from their store the same way a retail store can be asked not to stock illegal weapons, but not to determine the legality themselves.

12 minutes ago, hishnash said:

Nations would see it as being complicit if they opened it up now. (if they had been open from day one maybe it would be different).  If your a nation state is is not possible for you to legally go after a developer in another nation but you can go after apple/google since they have staff and stores and retail in your nation.

 

I don't know where you got the idea that apple/google all of a sudden have become the police for applications, they are just a retail store, nothing else and they have same obligations as any other retail store.

 

 

 

 

[ZacoAttaco]

On 3/27/2020 at 8:35 AM, Twilight said:

does that mean that you are dumb if you subscribe to a service like that? of course not, that's your money and your choice. i'm just saying that all products currently available are in my opinion worse than "traditional" alternatives that already exist.

Yeah I think this is the point. I know it's cliche, but the technology just isn't there yet. It's an inferior product compared to owning the actual hardware and there's no cost benefit at the moment. If the service became cheaper to use than I could see it appealing to some people.

 

I don't like this move from Apple either. Like @BuckGup pointed out, I think it'll be temporary. Either legislation will force them to change their guidelines or they'll come round to it like in-home streaming. Sometimes they'll do this when they're waiting for their own implementation of a similar service to be completed too. 

[Guest]

Where's that Halo App? I can't find it on my iPhone.

More halo trilogy = more happy.

[mon1ka]

On 3/27/2020 at 1:09 AM, Twilight said:

game streaming is dumb, and i'm not gonna switch platforms because Apple has guidelines like this. 

i agree with this 100%

[Ashley MLP Fangirl]

30 minutes ago, ZacoAttaco said:

Sometimes they'll do this when they're waiting for their own implementation of a similar service to be completed too. 

that is a very interesting thought. what if they are planning something similar with Apple Arcade.... 

[hishnash]

1 hour ago, mr moose said:

nothing else and they have same obligations as any other retail store.

Retail law (at least in the EU) is such that if you say run a market and there are lots and lots of market stalls you are required to ensure that everyone who operates in your market has a proper company etc. Since are making money (charging rent for the market stalls) you are deemed to be complicit if you don't do at least the simplest of checks. (in some nations you will also need to report this sales activity as well).

So yes Apple/Google do have an obligation to check (not in all nations but it really just needs one), and they check they would do is to check that you the app provider have a legal entirety in the nation you are trying to sell the app in, this is the simple easy check they could do (they already check you are a legal entirety so they already know this info).

 

But they would then limit you to sell only in that one nation (or if your a large enough company and have multiple sub-sideries).

[mr moose]

3 hours ago, hishnash said:

Retail law (at least in the EU) is such that if you say run a market and there are lots and lots of market stalls you are required to ensure that everyone who operates in your market has a proper company etc. Since are making money (charging rent for the market stalls) you are deemed to be complicit if you don't do at least the simplest of checks. (in some nations you will also need to report this sales activity as well).

 

Again, where is the relevant law?

3 hours ago, hishnash said:

So yes Apple/Google do have an obligation to check (not in all nations but it really just needs one), and they check they would do is to check that you the app provider have a legal entirety in the nation you are trying to sell the app in, this is the simple easy check they could do (they already check you are a legal entirety so they already know this info).

 

But they would then limit you to sell only in that one nation (or if your a large enough company and have multiple sub-sideries).

 

If apple have an obligation to insure all apps are working within the law then ebay has an obligation to ensure all sellers are selling legal product.  They do not and do not get taken to court over dodgy online sellers either.  I will humbly retract my statements if you can link to a law that outlines this, however I haven't seen one.

 

I shouldn't have to find evidence that something does not exist, but I have anyway, even if it is a news article:

 

https://www.forbes.com/sites/ericgoldman/2013/08/19/app-stores-arent-liable-for-third-party-apps/#1755e70b6a2c