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Apple to lose Control of App Store?

loop101

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Epic Games boldly added their own payment options to the iOS Fortnite App, and was promptly banned by Apple. Then Google kicked them out of the Play Store for the same reason. Epic recently raised a few billion dollars, it may have been for this legal fight. If Apple and Google are forced to give up control of their App Stores, that would allow for Fastlane businesses to retain Control of their projects.

Epic apparently planned to be kicked out of the App Stores, and had their response ready:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=euiSHuaw6Q4




View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6zaPv-7Ke0
 
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Jon L

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I don't know what will happen, and I don't even have a clear idea on what should happen.

I just know that as a developer, I hate dealing with Apple. Whether or not your app gets approved depends on the clerk you get looking over everything. One clerk will rule one way, and then, when you release a new version, something that was completely fine (or overlooked) before, now becomes the reason they deny your app.

Beyond that, their payment system is horrible, unless you're set up for their standard use cases. Countless people complain about lack of flexibility, to no avail.

All this for 30% of the take? Sounds like a monopoly to me...
 
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Kid

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it may have been for this legal fight.
By the time that legal fight would be over (5 years or so), Fortnite would be obsolete.
So it might reasonable to exclude that*.

Do they want to promote their Epic Store? Most possibly.
Also the revenue from mobile, daily active users, session time, might be falling down, so using it as a leverage while they can is possibility.

* There might be Google vs EU argument, about EU bill to force google to stop destroying competition with Google's Shopping listing. But EU seems to be much more strict (and probably needed money from Google) than US.
 

Hadrian

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Now Facebooks getting Into the fight!

I’m an indie app dev and do like the Apple App Stores quality! But I also hate their inconsistent Review Policy!

Kak has a podcast supporting Apple and Google’s control as they went to the trouble of setting up the darn things... which I respect, but as a dev and an app user I’d still like to see more variety... as in the end quasi-monopolies/cartels stale and act against their customers interests!

It’s def not a black and white issue!
 
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loop101

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Now Facebooks getting Into the fight!

I’m an indie app dev and do like the Apple App Stores quality! But I also hate their inconsistent Review Policy!

Kak has a podcast supporting Apple and Google’s control as they went to the trouble Of setting up the darn things... which I respect but as a dev and an app user I’d still like to see more variety... as in the end monopolies eventually stale and act against their customers interests!

It’s def not black and white...

Maybe Apple could allow users to add non-Apple "App Stores", like an "iOS Epic App Store". Apple could keep them separate from the official App Store, but at least users could add them if they wanted.

As the world goes mobile/cloud, Apple and Google are going to end up with a 30% tax on all commerce, unless something changes.
 
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Hadrian

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Maybe Apple could allow users to add non-Apple "App Stores", like an "iOS Epic App Store". Apple could keep them separate from the official App Store, but at least users could add them if they wanted.

As the world goes mobile/cloud, Apple and Google are going to end up with a 30% tax on all commerce, unless something changes.

Great idea! Actually I’ve been emailing Jeff Bezos every year to create an Amazon smartphone to push the underdeveloped but superb potential of the Amazon App Store!

No answer as yet! :p
 

LordGanon

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Great idea! Actually I’ve been emailing Jeff Bezos every year to create an Amazon smartphone to push the underdeveloped but superb potential of the Amazon App Store!

No answer as yet! :p

Maybe one day he'll make an assistant write you a letter for Christmas with a bag of coal. :D
 

OverByte

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It's a creative move for Epic to attack Apple's brand. The ad is very well done however, I wonder how many people seeing it are old enough to remember the original apple ads (I'm not and only know about them from marketing case studies). I would think only a small proportion of Epic's audience will understand it. However, Apple's marketing team understands and really this move is about seeing if Epic can convince Apple marketing that this is bad enough PR to justify a negotiation.

Ultimately, I really doubt anything changes for 99.9% of developers, they will be stuck using Apples payment system and locked into Apple store. Apple is not known for openness in its platforms and continue to parrot that this is necessary to give the best experience. Consumers seem to not care and devs don't really have a choice.

I give slightly above 3% chance that Epic and some larger publishers can negotiate a deal from this, though I'm not sure what that would be. However, I would bet that nothing changes, Apple says if you don't like it don't use our platform and Epic realizes that even with the 30% cut it's not worth pulling out.

Even if Apple allowed installation from third party app stores (which I think is highly highly unlikely, they have legit reasons not to do this), it wouldn't matter since 99% of iOS consumers are going to get their apps solely from Apple store.

They built the platform and they get to decide the rules. I'm not a lawyer and don't follow it closely enough but to my knowledge all the major platforms have successfully avoid anti-trust and cries of monopoly for some time. The last major anti-trust loss I remember in tech was with MS and internet explorer.

Maybe something changes in 5 years, until then give Apple 30% or get off their platform.
 
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OverByte

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As the world goes mobile/cloud, Apple and Google are going to end up with a 30% tax on all commerce, unless something changes.

Not going to happen. Apple and Google are able to get away with charging fees on in-app purchases because they control the infrastructure those apps have to use and are the gatekeepers to apps on those platforms.

As long as ecommerce stores are hosted on www they (apple/google) won't be able to control this. And if you are thinking that AWS/GCP could enforce this for any shops hosted on those platforms they would lose that business immediately as there are too many alternatives. The reason those cloud platforms are enticing for developers/businesses is because of the infrastructure itself (and the CTS) not because it has control over an audience. The audience access control is why this works on iOS/Android.
 
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loop101

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Apple and Google are able to get away with charging fees on in-app purchases because they control the infrastructure those apps have to be hosted on and are the gatekeepers to apps on those platforms.

I can't buy a book on my iOS Kindle App because Apple wanted to charge Amazon 30% for each book purchase. Those books are not hosted on Apple servers. If I want to sell a red cape in an iOS superhero game, Apple will demand 30%, even if I am just changing the cape's color in my code. Apple wants 30% of every sale done inside an app.

I wonder if Apple's 30% tax is preventing someone from making a car buying/selling app.
 

OverByte

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I can't buy a book on my iOS Kindle App because Apple wanted to charge Amazon 30% for each book purchase. Those books are not hosted on Apple servers. If I want to sell a red cape in an iOS superhero game, Apple will demand 30%, even if I am just changing the cape's color in my code. Apple wants 30% of every sale done inside an app.

I wonder if Apple's 30% tax is preventing someone from making a car buying/selling app.

All these examples are through apps. You can still buy the books on amazon.com. You said all commerce (in the post I responded to) which is not the same as all in-app purchases.

I edited my original post to clarify what I meant by "hosting" which is really to say hosting the installation and some of the infrastructure.
 
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Jon L

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Now Facebooks getting Into the fight!

I’m an indie app dev and do like the Apple App Stores quality! But I also hate their inconsistent Review Policy!

Kak has a podcast supporting Apple and Google’s control as they went to the trouble of setting up the darn things... which I respect, but as a dev and an app user I’d still like to see more variety... as in the end quasi-monopolies/cartels stale and act against their customers interests!

It’s def not a black and white issue!
I get where @Kak is coming from. The problem with monopolies is that the economy progresses up to the point where the monopoly asserts is power and stifles progress. I don't think we want this. It will reduce our overall economic development.

This is a balancing act. Should a company be allowed to take over all economic activity in the US? Clearly no. I don't think even Kak would argue that is a good idea. Should they rule an entire industry? No. Should they be allowed to rule their own $10M domain? Yup. I don't think anyone would care about a $10M monopoly. Nor should they.

So. Where do we draw the line?

I think we should start drawing it at the point that Google and Apple are at. What that looks like in practice though - no clue.

Edit: keep in mind that the ONLY way to draw the line on a monopoly is with superior power. The only power we have greater than a monopoly at this point is the government. Use at your peril.
 
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Kak

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I will add a little here. I am not going to get in a pissing contest with anyone about this because this is a battle my side will ultimately lose.

The fact of the matter is that Apple owns the Apple app store because they built the phone, I fully support their property rights to own what they built. Monopolies come in two flavors, political and economic. Political monopolies survive for as long as the political sentiment exists support them. Think utility companies. Think defense contracts. On the other hand, economic monopolies are a temporary condition. They never last forever, even if you are pissed off about the last 5 years or 10 years or whatever.

Irrespective of whether the regulation of monopolies is good policy, I happen to think that it is not, the law as written uses consumer benefit as a test to apply "remedy."

Given the fact that there is absolutely zero shortage of consumers lining up and proclaiming from high that Apple's system is better, precisely because of their controls and simplicity, and the fact that a consumer could make the leap to Android if they were offended enough, Apple is NOT a monopoly by the regulator's own definition. They could even claim a bona fide necessity to the controls for their own tech experience, one of the biggest selling points for Apple products.

Rest assured, if consumers were in-fact pissed off enough, and they aren't, it would not be in Apple's best interest to continue to conduct business as usual. If they ignore consumer sentiment, they expose themselves, in a big way, to outside competition.

It is easy, as an app builder, to get frustrated that you have to abide by the terms set forth by a company you want to work with. However, just because you might not like them, just because you might not agree with them, doesn't make them a monopoly. It also doesn't warrant a lynch mob mentality to weaponize the most sinister of monopolies against them... The government. Natural competition is the only fair fix.

Redefining monopoly for your own gain at the expense of others is theft, even if it is "legal."

The majority will disagree with me on this, and that is OK. I hope to one day build something so big that they will inevitably put a similar target on my back. Until then, I will root on Apple and hope they honestly flee the USA for calmer waters.
 
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Neko

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Couldn’t agree more.

Epic is a nasty and anti-consumer company. They are up there with Electronic Arts on the pantheon of companies hated by video-game players (the market they serve).

The CEO managed to reinvent his business several time with great success. So props to him. But I do find like many that he is a dick. A dick that currently profit from the bad parenting and early overexposition of children to screens.

The company now use the wealth it acquired with fortnite to impose it’s will on the market by striking a staggering amount of exclusivity deals with game release and forcing people to use their gaming hub/market.

That hub/market being vastly inferior to the segment giant : Steam (by Valve).

All the while taking shots at Apple for having monopolistic practices. How ironic.
 
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Hadrian

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Great opinions here and even better to see a genuine conversation rather than the Polarisation black/white discourse which seems to be the order of the day lately...

My main concern is a Cartel like ecosystem... as here in Ireland we have a small number of car insurance companies and their prices were almost identical until they were caught out in an investigation last year... now things are getting a little better.... but I'm in agreement with Kak on this:

economic monopolies are a temporary condition

On that point I think there may be a new game in town in the coming years... Progressive Web Apps. I haven't looked into them much yet but they don't need any app stores to use... and developers have full control.


Definitely a few fastlane possibilties in here....
 

LordGanon

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Definitely a few fastlane possibilties in here....

Honestly, I love the idea of Progressive Web Apps. First of all, they just make so much more sense code base-economically. Second of all: I was getting really worried about freedom of speech with the restrictions in Google's and Apple's stores. This is quite a nice workaround.
 

Tourmaline

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@Jon L Apple is not a monopoly. People choose to use Apple instead of other options.

And because there are indeed other options, Apple cannot possibly be a monopoly. There are even entire ecosystems not dependent on Apple, or Google either.

Plus last I checked, most Apple lovers see their tight control as a plus, not a con.

As is most often the case, the government is not the solution. Consumers have power over Apple, and always will. Apple's current offerings are what the consumers demand, far more so than not.
 
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Jon L

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@Jon L Apple is not a monopoly. People choose to use Apple instead of other options.

And because there are indeed other options, Apple cannot possibly be a monopoly. There are even entire ecosystems not dependent on Apple, or Google either.

Plus last I checked, most Apple lovers see their tight control as a plus, not a con.

As is most often the case, the government is not the solution. Consumers have power over Apple, and always will. Apple's current offerings are what the consumers demand, far more so than not.
I think we will agree to disagree on the monopoly part. I just googled the definition of the word 'monopoly.' Its plainly obvious to me that a *market* (if Apple wrote all the apps themselves, I'd have zero issue with them) with 100,000,000 users in the US alone, who use no other mobile device, that is controlled exclusively by one company, is a monopoly. If its not to you, that's fine.

I think the real question is what to do about it. I don't have an answer for you. You think I'm for government intervention. I'm not. I am, however, concerned about what monopoly power does to overall free-market innovation. I think it stifles it. I'm ok with some stifling of innovation in the interest of rewarding monopolies with the fruits of their labor. I'm not ok with large amounts of stifling of innovation. Where that line gets drawn? I don't know.
 

Kid

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I thought that i will will make arguments and tell you that even if Apple would charge 90% it still would be their business.

Instead of that i'd ask:
Would you like someone to dictate You what to do with your business?

You might say: i make $10k a month so that's different!
But how?
If i would have one client in barber shop i wouldn't like anyone to tell me how to serve that client.
If i'd serve 3 billion users, i would have same feelings.

If you want to dictate businesses what they should and shouldn't do then go to China.
Their gov does it everyday, no matter the size.


And last thing.
You see Epic, Microsoft, now Facebook joining forces.
Do you think they do that because they value You as a customer?
No.
They do that because they see opportunity to destroy competitor, in whose position they would love to be, if they could.
 

Kevin88660

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Imagine if you are an app creator or internet business service provider.

After two years you have spend money and time and validated your concept in a niche.

A giant company (worth hundreds of billions) noticed you. They copied your business idea, charge it for free and burn cash, poach your managers with 3x pay.

Good luck fighting it with your bank loan on your house refinancing.

For every successful acquisition story that you sell, a business owner who sold his company to a giant, there could be 20 more promising start-ups that have been killed by them. They were just not in the news.

Having a few giants with “almost infinite” resources is not a good playing field for entrepreneurs.

People do not think it is a problem until it hurts them.
 
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Kevin88660

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Imagine if you are an app creator or internet business service provider.

After two years you have spend money and time and validated your concept in a niche.

A giant company (worth hundreds of billions) noticed you. They copied your business idea, charge it for free and burn cash, poach your managers with 3x pay.

Good luck fighting it with your bank loan on your house refinancing.

For every successful acquisition story that you sell, a business owner who sold his company to a giant, there could be 20 more promising start-ups that have been killed by them. They were just not in the news.

Having a few giants with “almost infinite” resources is not a good playing field for entrepreneurs.

People do not think it is a problem until it hurts them.
Having them overcharging services is really a smaller issue.

Killing entrepreneurship is a bigger one.
 

Tourmaline

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I think we will agree to disagree on the monopoly part. I just googled the definition of the word 'monopoly.' Its plainly obvious to me that a *market* (if Apple wrote all the apps themselves, I'd have zero issue with them) with 100,000,000 users in the US alone, who use no other mobile device, that is controlled exclusively by one company, is a monopoly. If its not to you, that's fine.

According to Number of Android users in the US | Statista there are 130 million Android users in the USA.

How then can either Apple or Google be a monopoly?

If you want to claim, oligarchy, then maybe that could be done.

But in no way shape or form are Apple, nor Google, monopolies.

monopoly
[məˈnäpəlē]
NOUN
  1. the exclusive possession or control of the supply of or trade in a commodity or service.
    "his likely motive was to protect his regional monopoly on furs"
    • a company or group having exclusive control over a commodity or service.
      "areas where cable companies operate as monopolies"
    • a commodity or service in the exclusive control of a company or group.

The key defining word of a monopoly is exclusive. Apple does not exclusively control the smartphone market, therefore they are not a monopoly.

I cannot agree to disagree about the objective definitions of words. Tomorrow cannot mean yesterday, no matter what some may want to define it to be. Now if someone wishes to redefine the meaning of words for ideological positions, they are free to do so, and I am free to claim their definitions are incoherent and plainly wrong.

I think the real question is what to do about it. I don't have an answer for you. You think I'm for government intervention. I'm not. I am, however, concerned about what monopoly power does to overall free-market innovation. I think it stifles it. I'm ok with some stifling of innovation in the interest of rewarding monopolies with the fruits of their labor. I'm not ok with large amounts of stifling of innovation. Where that line gets drawn? I don't know.

Monopolies seldomly exist for long without government intervention. Without artifical barries to entry created by government, new entrants join the market to take market/profit away from the monopoly in question.

Amazon has an app store. Samsung has an app store. Xiamoi has an app store.

There is no monopoly in the smartphone market, neither in terms of hardware, nor software.

I'd love to see Epic make their own smartphone and their own app store. Perhaps they will. Fortnite alone has the power to support it. Then consumers will decide whether to support Epic, or not, and that is all there is to do about it.
 

biophase

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I'd love to see Epic make their own smartphone and their own app store. Perhaps they will. Fortnite alone has the power to support it. Then consumers will decide whether to support Epic, or not, and that is all there is to do about it.

To me this is the distinction. It would be like me suing PlayStation because I make a game for their platform and I want something against their TOS. Can you sue PlayStation and Xbox and claim they have a monopoly on video games? How is Android and IOS any different?

Fortnite can be played on many consoles and devices. To me, it’s hard to say that they are hampered by the App Store rules.
 
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biophase

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Its plainly obvious to me that a *market* (if Apple wrote all the apps themselves, I'd have zero issue with them) with 100,000,000 users in the US alone, who use no other mobile device, that is controlled exclusively by one company, is a monopoly. If its not to you, that's fine.

The users have a choice in which phones they buy. There isn’t a monopoly in the smart phone market.

Now if you want to say that the Apple ecosystem is a market, then yes there is only one App Store. One place that you can buy apps.

However, is a store within a company a market?

If I open up an Ecom store and only auction third party seller watches. Can a seller tell me to auction cars also? My Ecom store is my market. If they want to auction cars they can start their own store. Does it matter if I have 100 customers or 100 million customers?
 

Jon L

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The users have a choice in which phones they buy. There isn’t a monopoly in the smart phone market.

Now if you want to say that the Apple ecosystem is a market, then yes there is only one App Store. One place that you can buy apps.

However, is a store within a company a market?

If I open up an Ecom store and only auction third party seller watches. Can a seller tell me to auction cars also? My Ecom store is my market. If they want to auction cars they can start their own store. Does it matter if I have 100 customers or 100 million customers?

I'm not as troubled by Google's app store for the following reasons:
  • They allow alternative app stores
  • You can offer your apps for installation directly from your website
I find it hard to argue that Google's app store is a monopoly worthy of government attention.

With Apple, I think they stifle innovation to the point that I want the government to at least examine what is going on, and scare Apple into changing course. Apple has built up an ecosystem where they completely control everything. This control is what stifles innovation, and when that happens on a large scale, it damages future economic progress. I as an owner of a custom software company don't build mobile apps partly because I don't want to deal with Apple. They're losing out on my company's ingenuity. Multiply that by a bunch of other people, and you start impacting an economy.

Apple's users do have a choice as to which phone they buy. However, once they make that choice, the ONLY way to access that user to sell them a mobile phone app is through Apple's store. I call that a monopoly.

"Monopoly" depends on how you define a market. The way I defined the market makes Apple a monopoly in the App Store business. If you want to look at the whole cell phone market in the US, then we have a duopoly, maybe. That is questionable because of the issues I pointed out with Google above.

Does it matter if you have 100 customers or 100 million? Yes. Why? The reason people care about monopolies has to do with the total impact they have on the economy. A 100-person monopoly is irrelevant. A monopoly with 100 million users has a material impact on future economic growth.
 

biophase

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Apple's users do have a choice as to which phone they buy. However, once they make that choice, the ONLY way to access that user to sell them a mobile phone app is through Apple's store. I call that a monopoly.

But do you even have the right to access that user? Is it a right or a privilege? I think that would have to be decided first.
 
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Jon L

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But do you even have the right to access that user? Is it a right or a privilege? I think that would have to be decided first.

You have a very nice way of discussing things like this. I appreciate that.

I don't know how to say this logically, but intuitively, I feel that the fact that Apple opened up the app store to 3rd party developers makes the difference here. If they wrote all the apps themselves, I'd have no issue with them. It would still be a monopoly, but it wouldn't be a market.

Instead, Apple opened up a monopolistic market, and it got big enough for me to start thinking that they overstepped what's good for overall competition in the economy.

What's interesting here also is the question of: when do we intervene? Should we have let Hitler just do his thing? His regime would have eventually run out of steam. It might have taken a couple hundred years, but his impact on the world would eventually have drifted off into insignificance. Same thing for North Korea, Rwanda, or any of dozens of other situations where we've had to make a judgement call.

Just like Jeff Bezos said about Amazon, Apple will eventually go out of business. Standard Oil would have, too. So too AT&T.

Where is that line?

In my view, Apple is bumping up against it. Maybe in yours, its not.

Microsoft certainly bumped up against it with Internet Explorer, and reaped the wrath of the government for a bit. They eventually won, but the government's action certainly made them change their business practices. I call that a good outcome.
 

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I'd like add some informations to this thread to help bring some awareness of the situation to fellow forum members.

While not purely entrepreneurial, these informations might help members to see the broader picture and potential consequences, most notably for consumers AND producers.

Let's get started:

The most important point is the fact that EPIC GAMES is 40% owned by Tencent (ref 01)

For those who do not know this company, they developed and run
QQ.com (most important web portal in china),
QQ instant messenger,
WeChat and
Tenpay, to name a few.

Ignoring the fact that Tencent proudly copy existing software and webapps to develop its owns, they enforce censorship and share all personal informations of users to the PRC.

It is also important to note that they acquired a number of game development studio, notably Riot Games, developer of League Of Legends, a game that is still very popular among worldwide youth.

Starting to see a trend yet?

Ok? But what does it have to do with this case?

They produced and/or developed a number of mobile games available on their QQ platform and on various mobile appstores available to western audiences.

It is not far fetched to think they have a very high interest in seing the traditional appstores lower their cuts or starting to authorize third party appstores on their devices.

Next.

Epic Games is very lax when it comes to customer's informations security (Ref 02)

Epic Games is notorious for their lack of security protocols.

No double authenticity checks and
Weak or absent encryption of passwords, payment and personal informations.

Without going over the numerous individual cases of account hacking and loss of thousands of $-€-£ by customers, they had to initiate a massive account banning procedure after over 9 millions accounts were hacked. The forum post regarding this has since been deleted with the entire Epic forum.

Not to mention the frequent security breaches that exposed players accounts and e-mail adresses, as well as several instances of Epic employee sending personal information to the wrong e-mail adresses.

Ok? But what does it have to do with this case?

Correct me If I'm wrong, but I understand that the current "official" appstores act as a third party between app devs and consumers.

This means that (in this case) Apple is the only party that is trusted with your payment informations when a purchase is made on their store, or via in-app purchases.

Allowing direct to consumer payment means that the app-devs could have a hold on your payment informations.

In the case of legit companies with serious security, it is not a problem. What about Epic ? What about the numerous crappy apps made by shady devs ? What about Tencent ? Do consumers want these companies to have access to their personal and payment informations ?

While I trust that many members here are aware of internet security issues, is this the case of most people ? What about the kids (primary targets of Epic Games) that use their parents credit cards ?

If the devs decide to let customers choose to pay via Apple or Direct purchase, they'll make sure to make the later more affordable (something epic did with this infamous update).

Ok, but people can choose to get their app on the IOS AppStore and ignore third party app stores. It's a non-issue.

Is it ? Maybe you are not familiar with Epic Games Market penetration...

The constraining power of exclusivity deals (ref 03)

The Epic Games Store made an infamous entry in the gaming platforms market by it's heavy usage of exclusivity deals.

While exclusivity deals are common in the video-game industry, most notably with the console market, Epic Games managed to do it in the most obnoxious way.

Not only did they sign exclusivity deals with game that were already released, announced and scheduled, they also snatched game that were due to release on other platforms very close to said dates.

The most outrageous being the last minute exclusivity of the game "Metro : Exodus" that was snatched from the Steam Store 1 day before release.

There were also several cases of crowdfunded games that promised backers with a Steam keys, that changed their plan and switched them to Epic Game Store keys.

Honorable mention to the "Free game every week" program used by Epic to capture market shares. While it doesn't hurt Steam, it crushes the minor platforms. They pretend to "fight unfair monopolies" with one hand while using monopolistic tactics with the other.

Ok? But what does it have to do with this case?

If the whole case ends up with the allowance of third-party appstore on mobiles, why wouldn't Epic Games, Tencent or other companies decide to conquer the app market with exclusivity deals on a massive scale ? They have the ressources.

Consumer could forced to multiply the number of Stores and platforms they use. Some very popular apps might become locked behind shady, insecure or simply inferior platforms.

Those three issues might have severe repercussion on the mobile and app market as we know it if this case ends up favoring Epic Games.

---

I left out the following points that are more closely tied to Epic Games in particular.
While those are not crucial to the case at hand, It helps depict the kind of company that is currently trying to paint itself as the savior of consumer and devs around the globe :

Concerning the irony of this case:
- The reference to Orwell work by a company that is owned at 40% by Tencent (see first point and ref01).
- The positioning of Epic as a defender of consumer and devs. See the points above and below.

Concerning the value Epic is bringing to the world:
- Terrible customer service (ref 04)
- Questionable working conditions (we might get a few ex-employees here, it sounds like a FTE factory) (Ref 05)
- Usage of micro-transactions leaning on gambling mechanics. As a reminder, while there are no statistics regarding the average age of the player base, it is very low. It's highly possible that a majority of player (~60%) are under 18 years old. As of march 2020, Fortnite registered 12.5 millions active players. Overall, the number of registered account is around 250 millions (Ref 06)
- Surprise sales... for the game developers and publishers. Epic decided to do a "mega-sale" to undercut the famous Steam Sales.
However they didn't deem necessary to ask permission to devs first.
But remember, they are "fighting for the devs". (ref 07)

There are so many bad things about this company, feel free to get down the rabbit hole if you want to.


References:

Ref 01






Ref 02



View: https://www.reddit.com/r/F*ckepic/comments/brfexm/they_literately_sent_my_personal_info_to_a_random/



Ref 03


https://www.reddit.com/r/pcgaming/comments/bnpw0r View: https://www.reddit.com/r/pcgaming/comments/bnpw0r/crowdfunded_game_outer_wilds_becomes_epic/



Ref 04

View: https://www.reddit.com/r/F*ckepic/comments/bux6gr/epic_skirts_around_chargebacks_by_refunding_you/


Ref 05


Ref 06




Ref 07

 

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