Apple threatens to kill Unreal Engine on iOS, Fornite may never return

[justpoet]

2 minutes ago, gabrielcarvfer said:

They're not. That's the example you gave. The product is yours, you get to choose what you do with it. In case of your house, you choose materials, architect, engineer, construction type, insulation, equipment, furniture, and replace whenever you want. For cars you get to change basically everything you want, including main components as long as legislation allows, but those are their for 3rd-party life safety.

 

There is no gatekeeper telling that you can't buy something or forcing you from buying exclusively from them. Nobody is forcing anyone to buy iPhones, but Apple is forcing iPhone users from buying apps from them and forcing developers to adhere to their conditions with no bargaining power. If they were not forcing anyone, they would simply allow sideloading to prove it isn't the case.

There are actually a lot of reasons to not do that.  One big one you even mentioned, safety (aka security).  Right to repair is, again, not even close to the right to do an aftermarket hack job yourself.  Just like selling a bundle package of a car where Tesla's/BMW's/InsertCompanyHere infotainment system is the only thing that can connect and display/control all of the vital components and measurements of that brand's car isn't a problem.  Just like with the car, you could decide to never look at it, but that doesn't mean they have to provide you with a third party option to replace it.

[Helpful Tech Witch]

6 minutes ago, gabrielcarvfer said:

 

There is no gatekeeper telling that you can't buy something or forcing you from buying exclusively from them. Nobody is forcing anyone to buy iPhones, but Apple is forcing iPhone users from buying apps from them and forcing developers to adhere to their conditions with no bargaining power. If they were not forcing anyone, they would simply allow sideloading to prove it isn't the case.

FINNALY! Someone who understands my POV!

[AnonymousGuy]

38 minutes ago, Arika S said:

No.... People are trying to define CHOICE. Apple can keep their app store the way it is as long as they provide an alternative way to get apps onto iOS. Either a 3rd party store not controlled by Apple (eg like APKpure for Android) or direct sideloading. The app store will still be the go to for consumers because it has the most support and apps available, BUT there should still be alternatives for developers. 

Disagree, the strength of iOS has always been that your relationship is with Apple, and Apple forms relationships with developers.  This arrangement allows developers to profit off Apple's customers while Apple can protect their reputation for high quality.

 

The crux of this lawsuit isn't whether consumers want a second app store, because a consumer isn't suing.  Epic is suing because they want to profit (more) off of Apple's customers than they already were.

[mr moose]

26 minutes ago, justpoet said:

You're trying to define WHERE/WHEN the choice must be.  The real choice is "do I buy an Iphone or one of hundreds of brands of Android, or something else?"

If you don't want the package, don't buy the product.

we're not saying where that choice should be, monopoly and anti trust laws dictate where and when that choice should exist.   developers didn't choose anything and the customers choice is not even half of the issue. 

[JZStudios]

3 hours ago, harryk said:

When you receive the laptop, Amazon's liability is complete (excepting for return window). With software there is an expectation of updates, bug fixes, repeated downloads etc. Apple provides all of this for free* in perpetuity. The developers pay for this and other services they receive from Apple by giving up a portion of their revenue.

Okay. So you buy a game from Amazon, or any other store. Then you purchase items inside that game, and Amazon, Wal-Mart, Gamestop, whatever, takes 30% of any of those in game purchases. Shit don't work like that.

You took an analogy and explained exactly why Apple taking money from in game purchases is stupid. You're forced to use the app store, and then they take money from purchases within the app, which never happens anywhere else. Mainly because it's fucking stupid.

[JZStudios]

3 hours ago, Zodiark1593 said:

Game consoles?

MS and Sony make a percentage from sales on the storefront, but I doubt they take money from games just being made on the platform or take a cut from in game purchases. They do have paid online stores, but I'm pretty sure you can buy and download stuff, including in game purchases, without paying for the online services.

[mr moose]

4 minutes ago, AnonymousGuy said:

Disagree, the strength of iOS has always been that your relationship is with Apple, and Apple forms relationships with developers.  This arrangement allows developers to profit off Apple's customers while Apple can protect their reputation for high quality.

 

The crux of this lawsuit isn't whether consumers want a second app store, because a consumer isn't suing.  Epic is suing because they want to profit (more) off of Apple's customers than they already were.

And here in lies the problem, you are focusing on the customers.  It's not the customers who are demanding anything,, they aren't bringing the suit, its the developers who are demanding a second option. 

 

I don't like Epic, but the  in-app revenue which is solely their work and their right is not apples to take.

[ACEHACK]

hey guys so to add to this, i hope epic uses this :

so watch this and tell me how does lying to congress make you feel. enjoy. 

oh the most important part is 9:44 but watch the whole thing.

 

i am just gonna point out an example https://www.macrumors.com/2020/06/16/apple-threatens-to-remove-hey-from-app-store/

[Kisai]

23 minutes ago, ACEHACK said:

hey guys so to add to this, i hope epic uses this :

so watch this and tell me how does lying to congress make you feel. enjoy. 

oh the most important part is 9:44 but watch the whole thing.

 

i am just gonna point out an example https://www.macrumors.com/2020/06/16/apple-threatens-to-remove-hey-from-app-store/

Lying about what? Epic if anything plotted to do this.

 

[Arika]

30 minutes ago, AnonymousGuy said:

Disagree, the strength of iOS has always been that your relationship is with Apple, and Apple forms relationships with developers.  This arrangement allows developers to profit off Apple's customers while Apple can protect their reputation for high quality.

The inclusion of options for developers doesn't diminish the strengths of the OS..If anything it bolsters it. it opens the doors for more developers, especially indie devs who literally cannot afford to lose 30% and then once they have a foothold and money in reserve, then they would be able to release on the app store as well and get even more customers.

 

The existence of 3rd party app stores on Android has done nothing to the strength or security of the platform. in fact, most of the exploits have come from the official play store. same with iOS, it wasn't that long ago that there was malware on the apple app store, the place people assume is 100% safe because Apple controls it.

[ACEHACK]

6 minutes ago, Kisai said:

Lying about what? Epic if anything plotted to do this.

 

this was on july 29 what are you even talking about. if you watched the video at 9:44, you would hear this line. "has apple ever retaliated against or disadvantaged a developer who went public about their frustrations with the app store ?  sir we dont retaliate or bully people."... i am not typing the whole thing dammit. watch the video .

i also said this is far from the first time , and even showed you a recent example. hey mail.

re·tal·i·ate

/rəˈtalēˌāt/

verb

 

1. make an attack or assault in return for a similar attack.

 

[DeScruff]

Ya know. With how prepared that 1984 Ad Epic was... I am calling it here:
Epic is planning on launching EGS for iOS. - and I wouldn't doubt its all prepared already in the minimal state it needs to be to just work, like the PC version was when it launched.

It wouldn't surprise me one bit if EPIC saw all the money Apple is making off their app store, and thought. "Why aren't we in on that... Mobile gamers won't whine as much as PC players about which app store a game comes from..." - queue Raid Shadow Legends, and all those games that Youtubers take sponsorships from becoming EGS exclusives.

And if Apple still refuses Unreal stuff on the appstore even after all this, EPIC can say "Look we got exclusives WITHOUT buying exclusivity rights!"

[ACEHACK]

1 minute ago, DeScruff said:

Ya know. With how prepared that 1984 Ad Epic was... I am calling it here:
Epic is planning on launching EGS for iOS. - and I wouldn't doubt its all prepared already in the minimal state it needs to be to just work, like the PC version was when it launched.

It wouldn't surprise me one bit if EPIC saw all the money Apple is making off their app store, and thought. "Why aren't we in on that... Mobile gamers won't whine as much as PC players about which app store a game comes from..." - queue Raid Shadow Legends, and all those games that Youtubers take sponsorships from becoming EGS exclusives.

And if Apple still refuses Unreal stuff on the appstore even after all this, EPIC can say "Look we got exclusives WITHOUT buying exclusivity rights!"

honestly love or hate epic it would be great, because more competition for devs.

[Kisai]

42 minutes ago, ACEHACK said:

this was on july 29 what are you even talking about. if you watched the video at 9:44, you would hear this line. "has apple ever retaliated against or disadvantaged a developer who went public about their frustrations with the app store ?  sir we dont retaliate or bully people."... i am not typing the whole thing dammit. watch the video .

i also said this is far from the first time , and even showed you a recent example. hey mail.

re·tal·i·ate

/rəˈtalēˌāt/

verb

 

1. make an attack or assault in return for a similar attack.

 

Sounds to me like they deliberately violated the rules, but were able to find some middleground somewhere. I'm not sure why you'd want to pay for email in this day and age. Either you're an outlook/office365 user, or you're a gmail/outlook.com(formerly known as hotmail)  user. If you're using something else, you likely either don't use email enough to care, or you're comfortable enough using your ISP's email address that you lose when you switch services.

 

[mr moose]

20 minutes ago, DeScruff said:

Ya know. With how prepared that 1984 Ad Epic was... I am calling it here:
Epic is planning on launching EGS for iOS. - and I wouldn't doubt its all prepared already in the minimal state it needs to be to just work, like the PC version was when it launched.

It wouldn't surprise me one bit if EPIC saw all the money Apple is making off their app store, and thought. "Why aren't we in on that... Mobile gamers won't whine as much as PC players about which app store a game comes from..." - queue Raid Shadow Legends, and all those games that Youtubers take sponsorships from becoming EGS exclusives.

And if Apple still refuses Unreal stuff on the appstore even after all this, EPIC can say "Look we got exclusives WITHOUT buying exclusivity rights!"

 

I don't think epic are going to make much money from their own store in that scenario,  if they win the case against apple claiming lack of options then go and try to do exactly the same thing  they will have set the precedent for other developers/consumer suing them over exclusives.

 

I think its fair to say Epic have money in their eyes,  but it's not fair to say they are taking it from apple because it wasn't apples in the first place.

 

[DeScruff]

1 hour ago, JZStudios said:

MS and Sony make a percentage from sales on the storefront, but I doubt they take money from games just being made on the platform or take a cut from in game purchases. They do have paid online stores, but I'm pretty sure you can buy and download stuff, including in game purchases, without paying for the online services.

Nope they do get a percentage. I don't know the exact number off the top of my head. You know how every game says "Incensed by Nintendo/Sony/Microsoft" - Yeah that is what it means.

Sony lost $240-300 with every PS3 sold at first. Every system does that to varying degrees. Microsoft was losing ~$126 on every Xbox 360 at launch (That turned around within a year apparently) The Wii was the last console with a launch price that sold for a profit. The WiiU was Nintendo's first console to be sold for a loss, but the loss was so minimal, buying 1 game covered it.
They do that to make their money back on games sold, and not just first party games.

_{That is actually one of the reasons the 3DO was so expensive. The 3DO company who wasn't a hardware manufacturer licensed out the manufacturing of the system to Panasonic, Goldstar (LG), and Sanyo. But because those companies did not see a lick of profit from any games sold on the console, they had to make their profit from the machine it's self. - And on top of that 3DO's fee was super cheap. It was... $3 per disc compared to the $15-20 from Nintendo and Sega at the time. Aaaaaaand thats how you get shovelware like Plumbers don't wear Ties.}

 

 

[ACEHACK]

9 minutes ago, Kisai said:

Sounds to me like they deliberately violated the rules, but were able to find some middleground somewhere. I'm not sure why you'd want to pay for email in this day and age. Either you're an outlook/office365 user, or you're a gmail/outlook.com(formerly known as hotmail)  user. If you're using something else, you likely either don't use email enough to care, or you're comfortable enough using your ISP's email address that you lose when you switch services.

 

bruh why are you so ignorant, there is hundreds of this kind of services, albeit sure most paid ones are on your domain name, but there is also a market for this. look at protonmail, the same thing. and thats not even the point,  the point is there is documented incidents of apple abusing 3rd party devs to do as what they please. thats antitrust violation period. 

 

tim apple just lied to congress about retaliation and here we are.

 

they punished epic games for fortnite but pulling the license, thats a different business sector so you cant just do that. 

 

apple should not be allowed to force you to use in app purchase if you have a web store. and certainly not giving especial treatments. 

 

apple should not be allowed to block a hosting app like for cloud gaming, when they have apple arcade. also that argument is dumb , and can be made against netflix hulu youtube and what have you. since their all intractable content. 

 

how about the one that apple makes a competing app that doesnt need to follow its own rules like iTunes apple music vs spotify. 

 

do you want me to mention more, cause there is a hundreds more bs from apple that can be considered antitrust violation. 

[mr moose]

4 minutes ago, DeScruff said:

Nope they do get a percentage. I don't know the exact number off the top of my head. You know how every game says "Incensed by Nintendo/Sony/Microsoft" - Yeah that is what it means.

Sony lost $240-300 with every PS3 sold at first. Every system does that to varying degrees. Microsoft was losing ~$126 on every Xbox 360 at launch (That turned around within a year apparently) The Wii was the last console with a launch price that sold for a profit. The WiiU was Nintendo's first console to be sold for a loss, but the loss was so minimal, buying 1 game covered it.
They do that to make their money back on games sold, and not just first party games.

_{That is actually one of the reasons the 3DO was so expensive. The 3DO company who wasn't a hardware manufacturer licensed out the manufacturing of the system to Panasonic, Goldstar (LG), and Sanyo. But because those companies did not see a lick of profit from any games sold on the console, they had to make their profit from the machine it's self. - And on top of that 3DO's fee was super cheap. It was... $3 per disc compared to the $15-20 from Nintendo and Sega at the time. Aaaaaaand thats how you get shovelware like Plumbers don't wear Ties.}

 

 

So if you make an ingame purchase on a console game, how much does MS or Sony get from that in game purchase?  can in game purchases be made outside of that consoles home store/account?

[DeScruff]

32 minutes ago, mr moose said:

 

I don't think epic are going to make much money from their own store in that scenario,  if they win the case against apple claiming lack of options then go and try to do exactly the same thing  they will have set the precedent for other developers/consumer suing them over exclusives.

 

I think its fair to say Epic have money in their eyes,  but it's not fair to say they are taking it from apple because it wasn't apples in the first place.

 

Dunno they could do the same thing they do on PC right now which is what? 15%?
Maybe I haven't paid enough attention but are they arguing they shouldn't have to pay at all? or that 30% is too high? - Which was the same thing they were arguing against Steam about >_>

Also it be hard to claim they have a monopoly in my scenario, since other storefronts could and probably would popup, but Epic would be there right away, and offering a lower % fee, hence why I was saying all those games jumping ship - if they weren't already banned from the appstore for using unreal (which some of them are. EDIT: Some are using Unity it seems) - and Epic would probably offer a better deal for Unreal games... Just like they do on PC.

 

16 minutes ago, mr moose said:

So if you make an ingame purchase on a console game, how much does MS or Sony get from that in game purchase?  can in game purchases be made outside of that consoles home store/account?

As far as I am aware, you can't directly buy microtransactions/DLC outside of a console's storefront. Whenever Ive bought anything I get an email saying "Thank you for your purchase from PSN" or whatever sooo.
According these articles Microsoft and Sony make ~30% off every micro transaction on their storefronts. (And of course they make money on the XBL/PSN subscription required to play those games online)
https://venturebeat.com/2018/07/19/fortnite-helps-xbox-revenue-jumps-39-to-2-29-billion/
https://www.pushsquare.com/news/2020/08/playstation_makes_more_money_from_dlc_microtransactions_than_anything_else

 

[mr moose]

3 minutes ago, DeScruff said:

Dunno they could do the same thing they do on PC right now which is what? 15%?
Maybe I haven't paied enough attention but are they arguing they shouldn't have to pay at all? or that 30% is too high? - Which was the same thing they were arguing against Steam about >_>

Also it be hard to claim they have a monopoly in my scenario, since other storefronts could and probably would popup, but Epic would be there right away, and offering a lower fee, hence why I was saying all those games jumping ship (If they weren't already banned from the appstore for using unreal) - and Epic would probably offer a better deal for Unreal games... Just like they do on PC.

 

As far as I am aware, you can't directly buy microtransactions/DLC outside of a console's storefront. Whenever Ive bought anything I get an email saying "Thank you for your purchase from PSN" or whatever sooo.
According these articles Microsoft and Sony make ~30% off every micro transaction on their storefronts. (And of course they make money on the XBL/PSN subscription required to play those games online)
https://venturebeat.com/2018/07/19/fortnite-helps-xbox-revenue-jumps-39-to-2-29-billion/
https://www.pushsquare.com/news/2020/08/playstation_makes_more_money_from_dlc_microtransactions_than_anything_else

 

 

Even though I would treat console differently to phones (one is luxury for a specific purpose the other is an essential tool), I don;t like that either network would have such a high percentage for an in-app purchase. That's just too high for what is essentially only a transaction fee.

 

I can see why epic get pissed, and I am also starting to see why console games are so damned expensive.  The consumer is definitely getting screw in that deal.  Given that, then how could anyone be in favor of it, let alone try to argue a change/more competition won't benefit consumers.

 

 

[Mihle]

8 hours ago, Quinnell said:

Damn dude.  Apple is taking the gloves off.

I don't think they have had the gloves on the last year's. It's more like they switched out the small hammer with a  bigger one.

[LogicalDrm]

*** Thread cleaned ***

 

Some pointless posts removed.

[AnonymousGuy]

1 hour ago, DeScruff said:

Also it be hard to claim they have a monopoly in my scenario, since other storefronts could and probably would popup, but Epic would be there right away, and offering a lower % fee, hence why I was saying all those games jumping ship -

 

Sounds awful to me.  Oh yeah let me install 15 app stores on my phone because every developer wants to do their own thing.  Annnd we're back to the trash of PC games where every store has their own "exclusive" titles.

[Sauron]

8 hours ago, JZStudios said:

I don't know. Imagine making a game for the PC or consoles and you're forced to give up 30% of your revenue simply because people have to use a stupid storefront to download anything. And considering technically Fortnite is free and Epic put in support for in game purchases, not app store purchases, to go straight to Epic, Apple is basically stealing money. You can't really argue that it's an app store sale when it's an in-game purchase.

Is it good for consumers? Not explicitly. But smaller devs might get some more money.

I didn't say it's fair for Apple to do so, in fact I said the exact opposite - but this REALLY has nothing to do with costumers and Epic is hardly a "small dev". And honestly I wouldn't shed a lot of tears for "small devs" throwing up yet another clash of clans clone riddled with microtransactions getting some of that money stolen by Apple, even though again I don't think Apple should be allowed to do it.

8 hours ago, JZStudios said:

It's a possibility. There's some games on EGS that are slightly cheaper because of the better profit sharing margins.

Are microtransactions in Fortnite cheaper on PC?

[Sauron]

33 minutes ago, AnonymousGuy said:

Sounds awful to me.  Oh yeah let me install 15 app stores on my phone because every developer wants to do their own thing.  Annnd we're back to the trash of PC games where every store has their own "exclusive" titles.

It's almost like we should make DRM illegal and force companies to provide the same distribution deal to every storefront that wants it...