Microsoft Statement in Support of Epic [pdf]

https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/21810025/statement_support_microsoft.pdf

by jarsin • 6 years ago

107 70 6 years ago

Someone• 6 years ago

It may be (and, I guess, probably is) written with Microsoft’s help or even be mostly written by them, but I think that’s a personal statement by somebody who claims authority by specifying his job.

I also do not read anything there that will affect this round of this fight, which is about the question whether an urgent ruling has to be made that Apple should _now_ be forced to chance its stance.

microtherion• 6 years ago

I think that’s a personal statement

I doubt that a major company would let someone at this level of management make such a "personal statement" without signing off on it internally. Even as an individual contributor at such a company, you would invite quite a bit of trouble with this.

hnick2• 6 years ago

Yes zero chance. As a lowly developer, even if I get asked a question directly by the media about something the company did I'm not allowed to answer per the stated rules. I have to direct them to the department of spin or whatever it's called.

EricE• 6 years ago

If they feel so strongly about it let Epic open a store inside the Xbox.

What? Didn’t think so.

SheinhardtWigCo• 6 years ago

The Xbox isn’t marketed as a general purpose computer, nor is it integral to the economy.

Voliokis2• 6 years ago

Apple's misbehavior includes locking out competitors to their own apps. This is as if Microsoft started removing Halo competitors from the Xbox (which they don't do). Just because of that the case is much, much stronger against Apple than it might be against Microsoft.

api3• 6 years ago

I have always seen iOS devices as consoles, or at least closer to consoles than PCs. Anything with a locked App Store and a locked boot loader is a console by definition. MacOS is a general purpose computer OS.

Considered as a console iOS is actually more open and capable than most.

vincengomes• 6 years ago

iPhone is neither a general purpose computer, nor is it integral to the economy

AnIdiotOnTheNet2• 6 years ago

Everyone making this "general purpose computer" argument is disingenuously taking care to define the term specifically to rule out game consoles while covering the iPhone. The fact is that modern gaming consoles are general purpose computers complete with media center capabilities, operating systems, application stores, multitasking, networking, web browsing, streaming, etc.

Just like the case of the iPhone, the only thing that makes them appear otherwise is what software their respective owner companies choose to allow or disallow.

stale2002• 6 years ago

If xBox ever gets to the same total market size as the iPhone, in terms of raw numbers, revenue, ect then maybe it should be.

The iPhone is has 10 times a larger market than Internet Explorer did when it lost the anti trust case, for comparison.

shrewduser• 6 years ago

Does Microsoft get a 30% cut of all subscriptions and items bought via apps on Xbox?

ppseafield• 6 years ago

AFAICT yes. From what I could find, it seems they dropped the Microsoft App Store from 30% to 5%, but their % take for games is still 30%, including in-app purchases.

[0] https://9to5mac.com/2019/03/06/microsoft-store-revenue-share...

[1] https://blogs.windows.com/windowsdeveloper/2019/03/06/update...

[2] https://www.ign.com/articles/2019/10/07/report-steams-30-cut...

[3] https://query.prod.cms.rt.microsoft.com/cms/api/am/binary/RE...

hnick2• 6 years ago

The letter is only in regards to the Unreal Engine being blocked. It will directly impact Microsoft and other game developers not directly involved in this fight.

They did not mention Fortnite or alternate stores at all.

jbverschoor2• 6 years ago

That's 100% at Epic's fault. First of all, they willingly put their customers at risk. Second of all, they could've put the engine business in a different entity, keeping it safe from their games business

8note• 6 years ago

Last I knew you could buy games for the Xbox from people other than Microsoft.

Best Buy, for instance

waiseristy• 6 years ago

Ah, but Microsoft still takes a cut of that sale, it just happens at a different part of the chain. On top of that, Xbox live takes a 30% cut of all micro transactions, just like Apple.

nodamage5• 6 years ago

Except you can't get your game on the shelf without Microsoft's explicit (contractual) approval, and (of course) paying them a royalty for each copy sold.

anoncake4• 6 years ago

MS, understandably, feels differently about other companies' anticompetetive behavior than its own.

Terretta• 6 years ago

Yes. If iPhone as appliance doesn’t stick, Xbox as appliance shouldn’t either. Both are vertically integrated and curated experiences on digital rights managed “consoles”.

Epic may have thrown Unreal Engine under the bus, but Microsoft needs the law to recognize it and Apple compete as fully integrated experiences not unbundled hardware separate from app stores.

That said, a lot of games money is going to iOS that used to funnel to consoles. So they’re of two minds.

The PR move is support Epic. The business move is keep consoles vertically integrated and own curation.

/2c

zaksoup• 6 years ago

I'm not sure that Microsoft sees it that way. The direction they're going with XCloud and XBox Game Pass seems to me that they're interested in strongly diversifying on software as a service while selling XBox hardware as commodity priced entrypoints into their software ecosystem. The only reason XCloud isn't launching on iOS is because Apple denied it, not for Microsoft's lack of trying.

quelsolaar2• 6 years ago

I'm extremely surprised that Apple would engage in something that could in court be perceived as retaliatory against someone who is filing a complaint regarding anti competitive behavior.

The definition of anti trust is to use your position in one market to gain an unfair advantage in an other market. By denying Epic access in the game engine market, Apple is trying to get Epic to fold in the game distribution market. Thats text book antitrust behavior.

It is shocking to me that Apples lawyers, would allow Apple to so blatantly threaten Epic in this way. They are providing a clear example of anti competitive behavior, for Epic to use in future litigation. You would think Apple has good enough lawyers to put a stop to this self defeating behavior.

DethNinja• 6 years ago

Technically, Apple is completely in the wrong here and in any country with a sane justice system they would lose this case due to blatant anticompetitive behaviour.

However, Apple is also one of the largest companies of USA and a quite successful one. At that size they must have considerably good lobbying efforts, political class might also have connections to Apple through shares etc. They might go and say that enabling third party vendors will cause thousands to lose their jobs at Apple. They basically got a huge amount of political influence and I’m sure they will use it for this case.

How much political influence Epic games have? Zero? Perhaps not zero but definitely not at the level of Apple. Hence, this case might not be a straightforward win for Epic.

It is good though, perhaps some of the fortnite players will understand why antitrust laws are needed and perhaps influence the justice system once they grow up.

quelsolaar2• 6 years ago

I agree. I wrote a long thing about it: https://twitter.com/EskilSteenberg/status/129752027579013939...

I think Epic has been smart to do a lot of PR on this. They need public support since this will become political. I'm surprised that Epic hasn't filed in the EU too.

kick• 6 years ago

Technically,

You're using this word wrong.

s2794• 6 years ago

Why should a court intervene in the contracting of two private parties? Epic started this fight by intentionally breaching an existing contract with Apple, only so they can get better terms.

Microsoft does the same as Apple, it makes money off micro-transactions and the ability for its competitors to sell on Xbox/Microsoft store, use trade dress, and be included in those hideous green media cases.

Last I checked Epic, Steam, Origin, uPlay, Google, Amazon, SetApp, most retailers, etc... do the same practice to varying degrees. Shrewd business practice != injustice/anticompetitive practices, just because a company has a large market share or is personally abhorrent to you.

eqtn• 6 years ago

Then Epic should have gone to the court without pulling the stunt

s2794• 6 years ago

Agreed!

swiley• 6 years ago

It’s good for iPhone users though. Hopefully we’ll finally be allowed to compile apps ourselves and install them without approval (and without having to reinstall them every few days.)

misnome3• 6 years ago

The definition of anti trust is to use your position in one market to gain an unfair advantage in an other market

What is the "other market" in this scenario?

nodamage5• 6 years ago

The definition of anti trust is to use your position in one market to gain an unfair advantage in an other market.

Your definition is missing a key point, which is you have to possess sufficient market power in the primary market in order to use to gain an advantage. If you lack market power, it doesn't matter what you do because you lack the ability to coerce consumers. As the Supreme Court put it:

If one of a dozen food stores in a community were to refuse to sell flour unless the buyer also took sugar it would hardly tend to restrain competition in sugar if its competitors were ready and able to sell flour by itself. (Northern Pac. R. Co. v. United States)

It is shocking to me that Apples lawyers, would allow Apple to so blatantly threaten Epic in this way. They are providing a clear example of anti competitive behavior, for Epic to use in future litigation.

Epic violated the terms of Apple's developer agreement by deliberately hiding their payment processing code to get it past app review. Hiding functionality is considered an egregious violation of the developer program and grounds for termination of your entire account. Apple has the right to terminate their contract for that violation alone, regardless of whether you think the terms relating to in-app purchases are lawful or not.

Framing this as retaliatory or a threat is hyperbole. One party violated the terms of a contract, so the other party is exercising their right to terminate.

You would think Apple has good enough lawyers to put a stop to this self defeating behavior.

Do you really think you have a better grasp of antitrust law than their legal team?

myhf• 6 years ago

Do you really think you have a better grasp of antitrust law than their legal team?

Obviously Apple's legal team does not understand antitrust law. It is impossible to get someone to understand something, when their salary depends upon not understanding it.

danielscrubs2• 6 years ago

Apple succeeded in what Google has failed with, namely to put value on quality apps. A few small missteps and it will become like Android or Windows Phone.

dybber• 6 years ago

Quality and crap can’t coexist?

They should only be vetting the privacy and security of apps, and let users decide what is crap.

danielscrubs2• 6 years ago

It can’t because marketing lies and flooding the market with semi functional apps is the end result. The app market is spread out economically but neither users (has to buy a lot of apps to try them out, and because it’s a risk will lower the amount willing to pay) nor developers becomes happy (no clear path through the bad apps).

fxtentacle• 6 years ago

I'm extremely glad to see that Microsoft is publicly stating in court what many indie developers already thought: Apple is throwing millions of unrelated game companies under the bus, just to get their revenge on Epic.

In my opinion, it doesn't get any more retaliatory than that, which means Apple is most likely very far down the wrong side of antitrust law.

misnome3• 6 years ago

I still don't understand what "Denying access to the SDK" is supposed to mean. Aren't the iOS and Mac development tools free to download without a developer account? Isn't publishing on the app stores the only thing that not having an active corporate account prevents? Apple haven't said that they'll block anyone using Unreal Engine, right? I thought this was just about signing keys, in which case other people using the engine should be fine...

In fact, does anyone else who deliberately tries to sneak things past the review process get to keep their developer account _and_ the offending version of the app available? Couldn't this just be Apple going "see, we treat them the same as everyone else"?

smileybarry• 6 years ago

They're free to download, but IIRC you're still abiding by their EULA. Apple are threatening to revoke Epic's EULA license. If that happens, Epic would be using the SDK "illegally". (This is all speculation, IANAL, feel free to correct me if you have a better legal understanding of this)

Microsoft Statement in Support of Epic [pdf]

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