Epic says this is about protecting small developers... which, frankly, is BS.
Epic charges $100 per game in their store, vs. Apple's $99/yr for access to the store, and the latest tools. This is pretty much a wash, unless you're not regularly releasing games.
Epic charges 12% for their game store. For most developers, those earning less than $1M, Apple charges 15%. So again, pretty much a wash.
Epic doesn't take a fee for DLC if games use their own payment system, but presumably takes the same 12% if you use them (it's not at all clear)... but one of the benefits Apple gives customers is that you don't give your payment details to everyone, decreasing the odds it gets mishandled. Again, smaller devs aren't going to have a lot of DLC, or DLC revenue, and would have to pay someone to handle all the transactions.
Epic also uses its market power to direct large customers to use their store. It waives Unreal Engine fees for anyone using Epic as a payment processor, which would normally be 5% if you go over $1M in sales.... for those large customers:
$1M+ Using unreal:
Apple would be 30%, plus 5% to Epic. + 30% DLC
PC/Steam would be 30% to steam, plus 5% to Epic. + 30% DLC
PC/Epic 12% to Epic for Epic store+Unreal. + 12% DLC
$1M+ Not Unreal:
Apple would be 30%. + 30% DLC
PC/Steam would be 30% to steam. + 30% DLC
PC/Epic 12% to Epic for Epic store. + 12% DLC
The fight, most likely, is over these numbers. Instead of being an extra 3% for a small developer, it's an extra 18-23% for the larger developers. A large enough percent of a large enough pie to fight for.
Does that make Apple evil? Epic would have you think so. But Epic also just needed to layoff a bunch of people, despite Fortnite being a money printing machine, despite their Engine royalties, and despite their own store's fees. Sure, Apple has cash to spare, but should we really be legally forcing Apple to adopt a business model that is failing Epic itself?
I'm not so keen on forcing successful businesses to ruin themselves. Especially when the claimed reasons for doing so don't seem to make any sense, and don't benefit who they claim to benefit. This isn't about helping all the small devs... it's all about Epic wanting a bigger slice from the big devs. They're just trying to get enough small devs riled up that lawmakers think this is a change they need to make.
Doesn't matter to most people what Epic does. There's a duopoly in ecosystems for the most important general-purpose computing device for most people on the planet, and we should demand that people have more free control over devices they own. On iOS, I think that's ability to sideload apps and run other web engines.
> Epic charges $100 per game in their store, vs. Apple's $99/yr for access to the store, and the latest tools.
Plus having to buy development hardware from Apple, which is a pretty significant cost for small developers.
> but one of the benefits Apple gives customers is that you don't give your payment details to everyone, decreasing the odds it gets mishandled.
If they think that's worth an extra 15%, they can compete for it on a level playing field.
> Does that make Apple evil? Epic would have you think so. But Epic also just needed to layoff a bunch of people, despite Fortnite being a money printing machine, despite their Engine royalties, and despite their own store's fees. Sure, Apple has cash to spare, but should we really be legally forcing Apple to adopt a business model that is failing Epic itself?
What kind of backwards logic is this? If company A is swimming in cash, and company B is running out of money, it's far more likely that company A is ripping off its customers than company B. Yes, we should be forcing Apple to compete for customers like everyone else has to. Given real competition the market will converge on a fair rate where a hardworking publisher/store maintainer can make a decent but not excessive profit, and we might see some better stores out of it as well.
I believe the issue is on access to the target operating system (iOS) rather than storefronts.
Steam does not sell iOS software. They sell games for Mac, Windows and Linux which you can buy also directly or at a competitor such as GOG, if the developer chooses to.
To sell into the iOS ecosystem as a Dev you can only do it via Apple so far. Epic wants to sell their own iOS multiplayer games and in app lootboxes without forking 30% to Apple.
I do wonder: anybody knows if Amazon pays Apple for the things I buy through their iOS app?
> I'm not so keen on forcing successful businesses to ruin themselves
I don't really have a problem with that if they can't play nicely with others. Businesses come and go. But ultimately companies need some incentive to not fuck over the consumer, and "forcing successful businesses to ruin themselves" strikes me as a better option than fines at this point.
I don't have to build an Unreal Engine game. You can use Godot or Bevy or Lumberyard or whatever. You can then distribute it over the web to customers.
I have to build an Apple App Store app. Apple controls access to over half of US customers. Not just gamers. All customers of all types.
Epic charges $100 per game in their store, vs. Apple's $99/yr for access to the store, and the latest tools. This is pretty much a wash, unless you're not regularly releasing games.
Epic charges 12% for their game store. For most developers, those earning less than $1M, Apple charges 15%. So again, pretty much a wash.
Epic doesn't take a fee for DLC if games use their own payment system, but presumably takes the same 12% if you use them (it's not at all clear)... but one of the benefits Apple gives customers is that you don't give your payment details to everyone, decreasing the odds it gets mishandled. Again, smaller devs aren't going to have a lot of DLC, or DLC revenue, and would have to pay someone to handle all the transactions.
Epic also uses its market power to direct large customers to use their store. It waives Unreal Engine fees for anyone using Epic as a payment processor, which would normally be 5% if you go over $1M in sales.... for those large customers:
$1M+ Using unreal:
$1M+ Not Unreal: The fight, most likely, is over these numbers. Instead of being an extra 3% for a small developer, it's an extra 18-23% for the larger developers. A large enough percent of a large enough pie to fight for.Does that make Apple evil? Epic would have you think so. But Epic also just needed to layoff a bunch of people, despite Fortnite being a money printing machine, despite their Engine royalties, and despite their own store's fees. Sure, Apple has cash to spare, but should we really be legally forcing Apple to adopt a business model that is failing Epic itself?
I'm not so keen on forcing successful businesses to ruin themselves. Especially when the claimed reasons for doing so don't seem to make any sense, and don't benefit who they claim to benefit. This isn't about helping all the small devs... it's all about Epic wanting a bigger slice from the big devs. They're just trying to get enough small devs riled up that lawmakers think this is a change they need to make.