It may be a little doom and gloom, so it may never go that far, but Epic and Tim Sweeney are really shady.
Apple is ruthless and I don’t know if a 30% cut is fair, but it has seemingly become the norm for a reason. There are some benefits to only having to worry about a limited number of places to sell something and buy something for that matter.
I feel like epic are shooting themselves in the foot though, if they lose this, they won’t be get to getting money from apple or android customers at all anymore.
If Epic loses their case I’m sure they will make up with Apple and Google so all of them will continue to make more money. Burned bridges get rebuilt pretty fast when there is this much money involved.
Exactly this!
If Epic wins the lawsuit against Apple and Google, the court ruling will set the gaming world on fire.
For the very first time in console history we then would experience a free market not governed by platform owners. The situation would be comparable to PC, with various storefronts fighting for marketshares.
It’ll never happen but in order for Apple to even bother, all social media apps would need to boycott their platform. Until then, Apple loses nothing.
Actually it wouldn’t be the first time. If I am not mistaken consoles were open market before the NES. It was a wild west out there and it is part of the reason there was a video game crash. Nintendo then came in the with their heavily protected “Nintendo Seal of Quality” and gave the world the idea of curated storefronts and getting a cut from all of the game sales.
My personal conspiracy theory is that EPIC did this stunt knowing Apple would overreact (their threats to remove UE software from their storefront). That reaction would spark a revolt among developers doing games for iOS.
I think this post copied off of another site sums it up.
The thing is here, Apple has never once sold, promoted, marketed, or even designed their phone and iOS to be an open ecosystem, not even once. Just because they now have a massive userbase, doesn’t make it right to force them to change that whole philosophy just because now you don’t like it.
It isn’t like Microsoft, who had an open platform (DOS, Windows 3.1, 95), and then slowly started to close doors one by one over the years. (Since people love to bring the Microsoft case in this all the time)
There’s alternatives, Android, Blackberry, etc. But no, they just want to keep having access to that userbase, but not pay Apple a dime. I’m not for or against Apple here, but Epic isn’t fighting that fight for anyone but themselves.
A change in design/paradigm for the iPhone/iOS at this point will have a lot more impact than just publishers. It will impact governments, firms, etc that are using iPhones because of they are easier to maintain/control what’s on it for security purposed. In most government bodies, Android phones are locked from accessing their network altogether.
I don’t see Epic doing a bit dent into this one at all. If Apple does open up somehow, you can be assured, that they’ll be adding quite a bit more barriers to get access to anything critical on the phone, and that 99$ a year will be much more expensive in the end to get certified to put anything on the system itself as now otherwise anything could be a potential security risk.
I’m rooting for EPIC to get far enough with this that Apple has so much public pressure they amend their policies to be more open, but it does seem like this is all a ruse by EPIC imho. They know there is no hope of prevailing in court here. OTOH, I wonder if Apple’s retaliation is itself a legally dubious overreaction. It’s not just against EPIC but also against anyone using UE at all (all of which have some contractual agreements with Apple to be able to house their apps/games on their storefront). Maybe EPIC’s gameplay the whole time was to troll Apple into overreacting and use that to build public support for their campaign to pressure Apple on their policies.
Or Tim Sweeney is just stupid. Also an option I suppose.
I don’t want open on my phone. I don’t want to have some kind of antivirus software like you do for a PC, because there is no decent security in place. PC’s are terrible for this, and Android is starting to get there. No thanks - I just want my phone to work, and it doesn’t have to play games. That isn’t it’s purpose
I hope Epic take a bath on this, and Fortnite and other F2P games are a cancer that could use a cure anyway, but that is a separate discussion
Love what Epic is doing. I’ve always been weirded out about the hate they get. Never had a issue with their PC stuff. Could obviously be better feature wise but the idea of another company entering the market and competing for devs, seems fine to me.
The tech world needs more open platforms and more competing ways to get applications. I doubt they will win in court on this, at least in the US. But hopefully it puts more pressure on Apple and others to stop with this walled garden nonesense. EU seems like something might happen though, their Antitrust laws are a little different I think than the US.
Anyway, If something can be done about the two largest platforms in iOS and Android, then maybe one day it can help change other closed systems like consoles. Especially with consoles moving to all digital and then being more prevelant because of the move to the cloud. Not sure I want a world where Xbox has a billion users because of the cloud but only one storefront for apps. Right now consoles are kinda getting away with being closed digital platforms, especially with physical still hanging around. But once it’s all digital and they are reaching much more users in the cloud. Yikes. Hopefully there will be more options for games in the ecosystem. I guess the nature of cloud gaming will allow more players in the market which I guess will settle it. But Something has to give on these walled gardens and hopefully it’s in consumer and developers favor.
As for iOS and Android, there are a few things I’d say need to happen, allow sideloading without a scary gatekeeper warning. Google Android allows sideloading, but like the Mac it can make it a scary prospect for a uninformed user. And of course iOS has none of that.
Don’t allow APIs to be only used with a storefront. Google I believe has dev APIs that can only be used across the Google Play Store and then also iOS so devs are more likely to use them. But… Not other Android AOSP devices, basically tying the dev ecosystem to their store. Makes it more difficult to put an app on Amazon’s Store for example and of course allows AOSP devices to be harder to make. Need to break that barrier. Was one of the main issues Tim Sweeney had with UWP originally I believe in the Windows 8 days. Microsoft was making a new dev platform which was tied to only the MS Store. And then the further fear of all kind of apps going through only the MS Store, which was never really going to happen on classic windows, although Microsoft did try it with RT. Glad public pressure pushed them away from that. As for Android, Google also pressures OEMs to use their Google Play services or risk losing a lot of business as well, lots of OEMs in that Open Android Coalition or something. Basically have to use Google services and nothing else. I think some companies like Acer who are a part of it tried to make a non Google phone in like China or something and Google said no. Don’t want to risk your Western Market.
And another thing that should happen is if a company wants to use their own in-app transaction system in your store, let them. And maybe go even further, if they even want to do the hosting of the initial download as well, let them. Let them pay a marketing fee for being listed in the store and then the normal developer account fees. But if they are willing to do the heavy lifting of hosting all of the data and downloads, they should get 100% of the money. Marketing fees and development fees for the dev tools should still be paid to the store and platform owner though but not the other fees if they are doing the work.
Anyway, this is way too long of a ramble. Tldr: open app distribution = Good. Closed = bad.
Ok, Xbox joins the fight!
This is more MS trying to put Apple under a bigger microscope right now because of xcloud haha
No small dev should be affected by the apple vs epic dispute.
See a lot of people online mentioning Epic signed up, they knew etc.
It’s such a nonsense argument. Just because you need to agree to something does not make it fair. It does not mean you should not strive for a fairer outcome.
It does mean they waive legal rights to make a case I think.
That said, there is still a whole separate component, which is how Apple retaliated against EPIC for no justifiable reason. Part 1 was EPIC being shitty and then Apple appropriately booting Fortnite. EPIC can whine about that in their lovely marketing campaign, which I legit think is great fwiw…but there is no legal recourse for EPIC I bet.
Part 2 was Apple declaring EPIC could no longer update UE at all (which has nothing at all to do with Fortnite and nothing to do EPIC’s actions wrt in-app purchases). That action is entirely uncalled for and retaliatory with no justification afaik. It targets not EPIC, but any UE licensees that have ever used UE for iOS apps. EPIC did nothing to justify Apple going after their clientele in that fashion.
That 2nd part is what ppl all over the internet aren’t grasping. They are still talking about Fortnite, but MS and other devs working with UE on iOS aren’t responding to that drama, they are responding to Apple’s over reaction.
People siding with Apple all over the internet on this never ceases to amaze me. Do they not want iOS to be an open platform? Just so bizzare.
No, I don’t want iOS to be an open platform. Most open platforms have very, very little security. Yes, please give me an open platform like the PC where people can steal my credit card information and identity. /s
If only some people knew how EASY it is to do that kind of thing on a PC. Oh, and now on Android as well, which is why the Gov’t doesn’t allow Android phones on their networks
You can still just only shop at the Apple app store if you are that worried about security.
