Fortnite’s cash cow is Playstation, not iOS, court documents reveal

https://www.theverge.com/2021/4/28/22407939/fortnite-biggest-platform-revenue-playstation-not-ios-iphone

by danso • 5 years ago

204 372 5 years ago

theverge.com

Jyaif• 5 years ago

the game earned more than $700 million from iOS customers over the two years before it was pulled by Apple

I'll save you the math, 30% of $700 million is $210 millions.

$210 millions of pure profit (the bandwidth is essentially free).

It's insanity!

teruakohatu• 5 years ago

At $100 million/year of almost pure profit it is almost a business unit of Apple in and of itself.

ZephyrBlu3• 5 years ago

Eh, I don't know. I think Apple's profit is in the tens of billions. On that scale, $100M/yr is peanuts.

Retric3• 5 years ago

At a minimum their paying over 2% in credit card fees so that’s another 14+ million in expenses.

However, it’s also clear their fixed fees favor independent developers at the cost of major companies. So, finding their actual profit is more complicated than just a fixed percentage of revenue.

cinntaile2• 5 years ago

Do companies the size of Apple really pay 2%? I'd be surprised if they don't have special, cheaper rates that they contractually agreed upon.

donmcronald3• 5 years ago

At a minimum their paying over 2% in credit card fees

I’d be shocked if that were true.

ISL• 5 years ago

Surely maintaining first-class hardware, software, and marketplace ecosystems has at least a little associated cost?

tapoxi• 5 years ago

I mean, they're not exactly giving iPhones out for free

MeinBlutIstBlau• 5 years ago

No way it has 210 million dollars of cost and r&d. It's just a software center.

jankyxenon• 5 years ago

You gotta amortize that cost over all iphone revenue streams (not just one app)

emsy3• 5 years ago

For $210 million (that's only Epic's contribution), they could've created a first-class marketplace ecosystem. In reality, it's neither first-class nor worth whatever they're paying to actually run that department.

echelon2• 5 years ago

The App Store is a gravy train of zero innovation and complete imposition against the rest of the world. The government will eventually step in and shut it down.

Before Steve Jobs decided to control everything, most devices and operating systems supported downloading software from 3rd party sources and running it. After all, you owned the device and you licensed the OS to run your tasks and applications.

Jobs was the villain that came up with this robber baron scheme. It's parasitic.

Tightly and artificially control anything that gets put on the devices your company sells? Genius evil.

Next up we're going to be paying for the content we stream on the Internet. Just wait for the next wave of tech land owners. You'll pay more for certain classes of traffic.

Before you rush to defend it, ask yourself if you'd still be happy if Microsoft had won the war and there was no iPhone.

asdfasgasdgasdg2• 5 years ago

In terms of marginal cost, there is essentially zero. The charge for this service bears no relationship to the cost to deliver it. That's why the app store is so enormously profitable, and it serves as de facto (to me) evidence of market power.

high_priest• 5 years ago

If it wasn't for the predatoric practices with device obsolescence I would disagree.

Apple created the platform that allows this service (Fortnite) to exist and earn it's share of revenue. The fee that is paid is not only for current maintenance and upkeep of the distribution platform (which is their store), but also research, development, security measures and most importantly, it is shared with other departments, giving us the Apple M1 chips in return!

Much worse offender is Valve and Steam, where they don't really have many places to allocate revenue from not only store sales, but also the second-hand market.

8note• 5 years ago

You can say the same about TSMC though, yet they don't extort a tax for every transaction done on a chip they manufactured.

Apple handles the second hand market by not allowing one, don't they? I can't give an app I've bought to my friend

eganist• 5 years ago

The fee that is paid is [...] shared with other departments, giving us the Apple M1 chips in return!

Do you have a source on the claim that profits from the app store explicitly funded development of the m1 chip? That's an interesting claim, and it implies that Apple's hardware division alone is in the red and can't sustain its own r&d.

donmcronald3• 5 years ago

The fee that is paid is not only for current maintenance and upkeep of the distribution platform (which is their store), but also research, development, security measures

There are lots of updaters for the PC that can run from a web server. You can put the update files on Cloudflare or AWS for redundant, highly scalable distribution. The infrastructure is worth basically $0 and there is nothing complex about an updater, especially for a company that already integrates payment processing on so many other platforms.

Apple makes it sound complex and uses it to justify their toll taking.

stock_toaster• 5 years ago

And how does that compare to Sony or Microsoft in this case?

guidedlight• 5 years ago

Exactly. Sony and Microsoft likely take similar 30% cuts. I suspect that contracts with those companies forbid disclosure of that information, which is why Apple is the scapegoat here.

yrral• 5 years ago

It's a bit more nuanced than that.

Per transaction costs:

They run 15% off sales on itunes gift cards, cc "swipe" charges, costs of credit card fraud (employee costs, management overhead).

Platform costs:

Infrastructure to deal with developers, distribution, tax compliance, refunds, policing local governmental policies, customer service, fraud monitoring, etc etc.

realityking2• 5 years ago

This is a good point t I hadn’t considered. The App Store neatly abstracts sales tax/VAT for all markets in which the App Store operates. For a small to mid sized developer that’s a huge boon - especially for those with operations in the EU.

A large player like Epic obviously doesn’t care as they have to built that anyway for their PC store.

azinman22• 5 years ago

And how much do agents make representing talent? Or middle men make to distribute liquor?

You’re ignoring the entire history of distribution companies for software (especially games!) and their historical charges. 30% (1st year only then drops to 15%) is way less than the historical price. The fact that the product experience is so good and seem less makes it SEEM like it should be free, but you’re ignoring the entire history and all the work done to get to this point.

tedunangst• 5 years ago

How much profit did Epic make on their $490 million cut?

croon8• 5 years ago

You mean on their product over every other product on the appstore?

Compared to the appstore over.... nothing else on that platform.

One is profit from a product, one is profit from capture.

jbverschoor4• 5 years ago

Fortnite is selling digital items. PURE PROFIT. How is that not insanity?

selfhoster114• 5 years ago

That too, is insanity. Two negatives don't cancel out, they are both just as insane.

sam0x172• 5 years ago

I'm sort of astonished anyone at the Verge found this surprising. No young person I know _wants_ to play Fortnite on iOS -- they all prefer consoles or PC. If they bothered to ask one, they'd know this.

azinman22• 5 years ago

Except neither are out and about with you, or are in your pocket while you’re scrolling insta in your bed. I find it surprising, but then again I don’t know much about fortnite specifically.

ZephyrBlu3• 5 years ago

If you're playing games you're not out and about or lying in bed.

mastazi• 5 years ago

This reminds me of the "you guys have phones right?" incident: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MmkHAlhCvWg

Obviously, just because younger demographics on average spend more time on mobile devices, that doesn't mean that they consider phones the superior choice for gaming.

chmod775• 5 years ago

I have seen that clip multiple times, so I know what is coming and must come, but that sense of anticipation followed by what I can only describe as second-hand mortification is never lessened.

nicklecompte• 5 years ago

Just a bad headline - the specifics (~40% PlayStation and ~10% iOS) is itself interesting and not a priori obvious.

And PC revenues are quite a bit less than iOS revenues (which isn’t very surprising either because gaming PCs are expensive compared to an iPad, but it does somewhat contradict your anecdote).

asdfasgasdgasdg2• 5 years ago

My sense is that on PC people have largely moved on from Fortnite. I'm sure there are still many who play but warzone is the focus these days.

aroman6• 5 years ago

I think you missed the point.

Many young people only have access to iOS devices for their gaming needs, so playing on iOS == playing Fortnite. Sure, if they had the option to play on a dedicated gaming device, many would prefer it, but many do not have access to the alternative.

mikepurvis• 5 years ago

I bet the phone players spend less in-game because their priority would be saving up for a console before buying a ton of v-bucks.

So the role of the phone client may be less as a cash cow directly, but more as an on-ramp to get people into the game on a device they already have, but they don't become spenders until they've graduated off of it.

sam0x172• 5 years ago

Right but in that scenario their usage of Fortnite on iOS won't follow normal market behavior. e.g. a cash injection to the public (stimulus, etc) would result in a bunch of iOS players converting to PC/console.

Similarly, more than 0.07% of the population of the U.S. is incarcerated. That doesn't mean they want to be there.

pacifika• 5 years ago

but iOS revenue is higher than PC.

myko4• 5 years ago

Nobody _wants_ to play games on mobile devices, not even kids

syntheticnature• 5 years ago

I'd argue that mobile-first games can work well.

That said, I've yet to truly enjoy playing a port of a console or PC game on mobile. The control compromises, if nothing else, are just too large.

johnnyanmac16• 5 years ago

It's fine if they include controller support, then it's just an alternative screen for playing a game.

But very few did, until very recently (in the grand sceheme of things. It didn't help that native controller support for Android took until a few years back).

simonw• 5 years ago

I guess I'm the rounding error here then: I like games which I can dip into for twenty minutes and that live in my pocket.

aroman6• 5 years ago

I'm pretty sure you're being sarcastic, but if not, this is wrong. If you were swayed by the article's point that Fortnite made "only" $700M on iOS, consider that revenue from mobile gaming accounts for half of the revenue for the entire video game industry, across all platforms — console and PC combined.

Source: https://www.statista.com/topics/1906/mobile-gaming/

edit: fixed source

TenJack• 5 years ago

Just to clarify, are you saying Fortnite made as much as half the total of the e tire gaming industry on iOS?

Wowfunhappy• 5 years ago

“Game” is an overloaded term that encompasses too many types of experiences.

Relatively few people want to play games like Fortnite on their phones. A great many people want to play crossword puzzles.

ekianjo• 5 years ago

Exception: Lichess

airstrike2• 5 years ago

I really do _want_ to play Vainglory on my mobile devices, but unfortunately SEMC decided to spend all their money creating an esports scene for the game out of thin air and nearly went bankrupt in the process, which in turn led them to sort of abandon the game in a half-broken state and go for the Hail Mary play with Catalyst Black

</rant>

freebuju• 5 years ago

To date MOBA has never recovered from this dumpster fire. All the alternatives that have since cropped up feel inferior to what SEMC had accomplished with Vainglory.

croon8• 5 years ago

LoL: Wild Rift is surprisingly competent, and matches last around 15 minutes, speaking as a (former) dota player who hasn't played the regular LoL.

samatman• 5 years ago

I do most of my gaming on... my watch.

Yes, my watch. I have 2048, an Arkanoid clone, Pong, and a fun little strategy game called Tiny Armies.

Now, to be clear, I do very little gaming. Don't own a desktop or console, the only games I play on my laptop are occasional web-based games (usually when something shows up on HN and I'm bored). I had a phase of playing games on my tablet but I just kinda fell out of the habit, and for whatever reason, the only phone game I've played in the last five years is Monument Valley.

I did game on my phone more often in the early Teens: Doodle Jump, something called Bit Trip Beat, Osmos, and yes, Flappy Bird. Just kinda stopped doing it.

So when I'm standing in line, or watching video and kind of bored with it but not so bored I'll stop watching, I do some casual gaming on my watch.

elefanten2• 5 years ago

That’s the answer. You play casual games. OP should have written that nobody wants to play core games on a phone.

floatingatoll• 5 years ago

I want to play mobile games on mobile. Frenzic is a gold star example of a game that plays best on a handheld touchscreen. (It's also been out of print for years, sadly.)

fitzroy• 5 years ago

A sequel is coming to Apple Arcade:

https://blog.iconfactory.com/2021/04/frenzic-overtime-coming...

asiachick• 5 years ago

I see kids constantly playing games on their phones or tablets. Minecraft is/was huge on mobile.

myko4• 5 years ago

Good point - I've seen that too, but most of those kids moved on to playing Minecraft on Xbox and only use mobile devices if they have to (ie, aren't home)

lasagnaphil• 5 years ago

Yeah, but if the kids’ parents don’t let them buy a Playstation, then they have to make do with what they have. Gaming on a clunky mobile device is still better then no gaming at all.

arthur_sav• 5 years ago

Lol no.

bryanrasmussen• 5 years ago

My 11 year old wants to play Roblox on my phone - but only when we're out and she doesn't have the computer available.

otabdeveloper42• 5 years ago

Speaking from experience: absolutely not true.

Many kids (like my own) prefer the mobile form factor and mobile controls.

That said, they're not playing Fortnite and likely don't even know what Fortnite is.

selfhoster114• 5 years ago

Kids have much smaller fingers, and so can use the touchscreen as a higher-precision input method than touchscreen. For those with adult-sized fingers, the precision sucks.

gambiting2• 5 years ago

I mean, I'd love this to be true, but the mobile market is currently larger than the entire consoles +PC market combined together. Clearly there must be people out there who really enjoy playing games on their phones.

Cthulhu_• 5 years ago

It's about availability as well; a lot of people don't have a console or a TV for said console, or the space for those. Another lot of people share it within a family.

swiley• 5 years ago

People would if they had physical buttons The Gameboy and switch show that mobile gaming could be popular.

puranjay2• 5 years ago

It wouldn’t be HN without a hilariously out of touch yet confident statement.

I know this won’t be a popular comment but I used to come here because it was open to new ideas. Increasingly, popular comments here are reaffirmations of the community’s biases.

I would really hate if HN turned into yet another Reddit-like echochamber

ziml776• 5 years ago

Saying that you have an unpopular opinion for something that is almost certainly a popular one is exactly the kind of comment you'd find on Reddit.

I do agree though that people should be careful about creating echo chambers. Not every opinion needs to be weighted the same, but it's important to be open to differences between people.

mmmmmbop• 5 years ago

Please check out the HN guidelines. They discourage posting comments saying that HN is turning into Reddit.

johnchristopher4• 5 years ago

I loved Tomb Raider Go on Android, superbrother sword and sorcery, that Reigns game and a normal lost phone. And Father and son https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=it.tuomuseo.fa...

I am not claiming it's the best format for these games but playing it on my phone was easy and great.

There's also a solo card game, the name escapes me, I spent hours on it (edit: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.tinytoucht...).

My phone is the most available device and games are cheaper than Switch games if easy-to-pick-up is a criteria.

Anyway, it depends on what you like :).

(I didn't like an old man's tale at all, I thought it was ripoff).

edit: if some people on HN get my preferences from this post I am all ears for mobile game suggestions :).

rob74• 5 years ago

Yeah, games designed for mobile devices work great on mobile devices. But Fortnite (at least the "battle royale" version) is a multiplayer shooter game, where you're much better off playing with a controller or with keyboard/mouse...

palsecam2• 5 years ago

There's also a solo card game, the name escapes me, I spent hours on it.

Solitaire maybe? The classic Solitaire (Klondike Solitaire) is quite playable on phones, even in portrait mode. Self-plug: you can enjoy it in this mobile-first PWA (progressive web app) of mine: https://FreeSolitaire.win/

throwaway123x2• 5 years ago

Tomb Raider Go is great! One of the few games on mobile that were worth paying money for. Can you recommend any others like it?

ezconnect• 5 years ago

Mobile phones are the most affordable console on earth. It's like game and watch of the 80s

ols3• 5 years ago

40 years old kid here. iPad Pro is a perfect machine to run a casual shooter like Fortnite, I’ve spent hundreds of hours playing it this way.

AnIdiotOnTheNet10• 5 years ago

My mental image of playing a (3rd? 1st?) person shooter on a table is like, is horrible. How do the controls work? Do you just pair some controller and prop up your iPad on a surface in front of you? Or is the controller attachable like a Switch?

AlwaysRock• 5 years ago

Kids play games on the platforms that are available to them. I used to play playstation on a tiny screen that mounted onto the back of a playstation because it was the only option to play in the car and when my parents dragged me along to boring events.

I didnt love the tiny screen but given the option between no playstation and playstation I was going to play on the tiny screen.

Shadonototro3• 5 years ago

isn't it because it is not on the iOS store anymore?

ascagnel_2• 5 years ago

Per the article, the numbers cover March 2018 thru July 2020, when Fortnite was on the iOS store.

Shadonototro3• 5 years ago

Yeap, the title is trash as expected

I play by the rule of the clickbait titles

FearlessNebula2• 5 years ago

I'll add you to the list of corporate babies whining about Apple along with Epic, Spotify, and Tile. My tiniest violin is reserved for the billion dollar companies

Shadonototro3• 5 years ago

i'm playing mine right now, i enjoy the collapse of the USD and their en/sino civilization

long live your stonks, gotta go up

noobermin4• 5 years ago

As others have said, it would be good if game devs figure this out. When Nintendo announced it would be getting out of consoles I was distraught as I loved the switch, but Animal Crossing convinced them otherwise, thank god.

staticman22• 5 years ago

Nintendo never said they were getting out of consoles.

noobermin4• 5 years ago

Required a little bit of googling, but here[0] is one article that expresses the attitude nintendo had at the end of 2019 and early 2020 pre-pandemic that coincided with the release of ACNH. They didn't say they were getting out of consoles but they were planning to pivot to mobile, which did poorly especially compared to ACNH and the switch in general which was a hit in the midst of lockdowns.

[0] https://sea.mashable.com/tech/1799/the-switch-might-be-the-l...

Hard to find old news articles from back then as google highlights the most recent news ofc.

tjbiddle• 5 years ago

iOS was 7% of their revenue at $700 million in 2 years.

Had no idea Fortnite was a $5B/year game. That's ludicrous.

AdamJacobMuller• 5 years ago

I did the math and came up with that figure and it was so ridiculous that I spent a hot minute trying to figure out how I did the math wrong.

keraf• 5 years ago

It's huge but having worked in the industry, I'm not surprised :-)

The landscape of video games in the past (+/-) 10 years changed quite a bit. Nowadays, it's the biggest type of money making entertainment product (by a magnitude more than movie) and the acquisitions of studios start a multi million figures, up to billions. Seeing suits in gamedev studios now became a common occurrence.

puranjay2• 5 years ago

I wonder how much money GTA 6 would make. Isn’t GTA 5 already the most profitable single IP in history?

coldpie• 5 years ago

Video games are the #1 entertainment choice for young people (born 1997-2007). TV and Movies are #5 on their list.[1] Avengers Infinity War is the most profitable movie and opened with a box office of $2B. So, $5B/yr for Fortnite doesn't seem wildly out of range to me for an ongoing entertainment property.

[1] https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/business/story/20...

mrguyorama3• 5 years ago

What's even more fun is remembering this is a "Free" game

jbverschoor4• 5 years ago

Which is the reason why they were willing to get banned from the App Store. They'd never risk that otherwise. I wouldn't be surprised if there was a collaboration between companies to to this.

notsureaboutpg• 5 years ago

So what? Obviously a company entirely reliant on mobile users wouldn't be able to stand up to the mobile duopoly. That's entirely why opinion is split about the issue

jbverschoor4• 5 years ago

From a user's perspective for example. I pay extra to install office through the app store. I'd happily pay extra to have the app store manage adobe and zoom.

eqtn2• 5 years ago

I wish I had an option to cancel or renew netflix from the app store subscription page or play store subscription page. They can charge me the extra 15%. Now if i need netflix for a month, I have to open netflix from browser. Click restart membership, select the plan, enter the cvv, then it opens an embedded frame for the bank's website to enter the OneTimePassword from bank(sometimes I get session error here and have to repeat the whole process) to subscribe.

periheli0n3• 5 years ago

Maybe Epic going up against the App Store is just warming up for going up against Sony's and Microsoft's stores, who ask for the same 30% cut like Apple does.

kwanbix• 5 years ago

One difference, if I am not mistaken, is that Sony and Microsoft loose money on each console sold, at least on the first years, so they make money by the % to developers.

Apple makes lots of money on each iPhone sold.

CharlesW• 5 years ago

Sincere question because I can't connect the dots: How is that relevant? If Apple went to a razor/blades model, would everyone on HN be fine with that? Why?

Spivak2• 5 years ago

Would you be okay with Apple taking a 30% cut if they sold iOS devices at a loss? This seems like a really odd argument since it means that you think some fixed per-unit loss is enough to justify taking 30% of all 3rd-party sales in perpetuity.

ziml776• 5 years ago

I doubt it. If you read the case they're making against Apple they actually do say why the iPhone and consoles are different. Their reasoning is that consoles are sold at a loss and the manufacturer needs to take those fees to support that sales model. If Epic tried to take on Microsoft or Sony, their own assertion in the Apple case would be used against them.

AlexandrB4• 5 years ago

To me, this is a really weird argument. Why is Sony's business model Epic's problem? They're still taking a 30% cut. If Apple started selling phones at a loss would they now be in the clear in Epic's mind? Is there a minimum "loss" required? Like is losing $0.01 per iPhone enough to make taking a 30% ok?

Finally, what about Nintendo? They famously usually sell consoles at break-even or a small profit. Why isn't Epic suing them?

DHPersonal• 5 years ago

I disagree. I think they’d be overjoyed if they could have free distribution on all platforms and that this case would set a precedent in Epic’s favor to pursue a similar outcome with the other platforms.

cochne• 5 years ago

I think as soon as you start looking at this as a spectrum question and not a binary question, this argument falls apart.

Lets say console charges 30% to increase profit from -a% to +b%

Lets say Apple charges 30% to increase profit from +x% to +y%

The argument boils down to "One should be allowed to charge if it makes something unprofitable profitable. Therefore consoles should be allowed to charge but Apple should not."

But wouldn't this argument imply it is also wrong for consoles to charge in excess of what makes their profit greater than 0%? Or is there some fixed small amount of profit for which this is ok, say 5%, and Apple's profit from phones alone already exceeds this small number?

manigandham9• 5 years ago

Other platforms have multiple stores (or physical disks). Apple does not. That's the fundamental problem.

periheli0n3• 5 years ago

Microsoft doesn’t, Sony doesn’t, and IIRC Nintendo doesn’t, either. Epic might have chosen the App Store and Google Play as low-risk targets to gauge their chances going up against other stores, where a lot more money is to be earned.

johnnyanmac16• 5 years ago

Big caveat: in 10 years, the PS5 store and the XSX store will likely start to be superceeded by the gen 10 consoles. Epic would need to port their stores each generation, as well as ensure every game they host works (IF they are allowed to work). Making a storefront takes a considerable time and they'd need to make huge jumps every generation to port that work.

an IOS or android Epic Games Store will likely exist in a decade (of if not, it won't be because Apple/Google go bankrupt so much as Epic themself pulls out). it's a much more worthwhile endeavor, because they aren't tied to a single piece of hardware. Paying 30% for the console makers to handle their generational leap for them is likely worth it, so I doubt Epic will see much follow up here.

Now for other companies, who knows? As we see with Android, just because other store exist doesn't mean the native store doesn't have a massive advantadge. So it may not be worth the work even if competitors were allowed.

bongobingo2• 5 years ago

I am suing Epic because I am unable to sell cosmetic items in the Fortnite store. Epic has a monopoly on it, and doesn’t allow third parties to sell within their store. This needs to change.

meheleventyone3• 5 years ago

You joke but I 100% expect Epic to start allowing this sort of thing particularly with all the Creative stuff being jammed into Fortnite. In the same manner that they have Itch.io on the Epic Store.

bongobingo2• 5 years ago

They need to allow me to operate my own store, or I’m suing.

rmac• 5 years ago

This comment is important and timely, as Australia and other countries start to crack down on "app stores" like google's and apple's. I smell gov intervention:

https://www.accc.gov.au/media-release/dominance-of-apple-and...

eqtn2• 5 years ago

Are there any Indian iOS devs here? I have a query. Does the 30% cut apple takes include the 18% tax to the government? Also, Apple takes only 15% cut from subscriptions after 1st year, then who pays the 18% tax(apple or the developer)?

brian_herman• 5 years ago

https://www.exportgenius.in/india-import-duty/apple-iphone

philliphaydon4• 5 years ago

I might be the only person who doesn’t want epic to win.

coldcode• 5 years ago

You are not. If Epic wins kiss free App Store apps goodbye as Apple will surely charge everyone to put things in their store. After all neither Walmart nor Amazon allows you to sell your products there and give them 0%. I see no economic difference, a store is a store; storekeepers are allowed to make money with your products. Just because it's a pile of bits makes no difference.

If I want to sell art in a gallery, the gallery probably takes 50%; sure I could sell it online, but no one will see it, whereas the gallery brings customers to the art.

Epic wants profit without cost at Apple's expense, and if Apple if forced to accept this, then everyone else will suffer, except Epic.

You could make an argument that 30% is too high, but it's not a binary choice, 30% vs 0%. Epic thinks that it is.

iudqnolq• 5 years ago

Neither app store is free to publish

stevehawk2• 5 years ago

I think you're sort of wrong here. Epic would likely be just fine with sideloading Fortnite and handling the distribution themselves (like they did with Android). What they're contesting is that only Apple is allowed to sell software on the phone, and in doing so also collects 30% of the cost. Apple could just get out of the way but chooses not to.

elliekelly• 5 years ago

If Epic wins I would gladly pay Apple for access to the app store. Apple’s review process and the standards they implement provide a lot of value to me. My fear if Epic wins is the iPhone app store becoming like the Mac app store: mostly empty. Because if there’s a way to escape compliance with Apple’s standards and still distribute your app then many developers will take the easy road.

IshKebab• 5 years ago

Apple will surely charge everyone to put things in their store

Apple already charges everyone to put things in their store. $100 per year.

manigandham9• 5 years ago

Why not give consumers the choice to shop at whatever store they want?

johnnyanmac16• 5 years ago

If Epic wins kiss free App Store apps goodbye as Apple will surely charge everyone to put things in their store

The goal here isn't to remove the 30%, it's to give the option for someone to develop an alternative way to host their apps, typically by use of their own store.

As we see on Android and even PC: many, many, many developers are fine paying 30% for that visibility, even if FreeDroid or Itch.io will let them keep 100% of their profits. This won't change much except for the billionaire companies who have the capacity to advertise themselves and deem 30% too much.

sbuk4• 5 years ago

Not at all. There isn’t much second or even third order thinking around these issues and the precedents set to retail as a whole. It's clear to anyone that looks at this on merit as to what Epic are trying to do and, much like Facebook, they just don’t care about the consumer or the little man, despite what they say. Quite the contrary, it’s all about the bottom line.

A lot of discussion has gone into what the 30% covers - it is arguably too high. At the same time, it would be interesting to see what Epic sees as the cost impact of hosting and distribution along with the cost of data security and what protection for their customers privacy they will put in place, were they permitted to have their own store.

ganoushoreilly• 5 years ago

You could go as far and look at the costs to run their own store on Pc.

philliphaydon4• 5 years ago

I’m impartial to the 30%, but I don’t want Apple to allow payments to be done via other vendors other than Apple. I trust Apple with my credit card, but I don’t trust epic.

My biggest fear, although I don’t think it will ever happen, is apple being forced to support other stores on iPhone, and someone like Facebook moves their app over due to it allowing them to farm data, or games moving over using their own credit card provider and not knowing where my details are going.

AnIdiotOnTheNet10• 5 years ago

No, I don't either. Apple is not a monopoly, so as far as I am concerned they have a right to charge whatever they want in their AppStore and make it the exclusive way to get software on their product. If you don't like it, don't support it with your money. I honestly cannot make sense of the reasoning for any other conclusion.

zamadatix• 5 years ago

You don't need to be a monopoly to violate antitrust laws, which is what Epic is actually claiming in the case.

ctvo3• 5 years ago

Maybe the regulatory move here is to ensure on each iPhone box and prominently at each Apple Store there's clear warning to consumers that paying 1,500 USD for a phone also means you'll only be allowed to use apps available from the AppStore.

johnnyanmac16• 5 years ago

If you don't like it, don't support it with your money. I honestly cannot make sense of the reasoning for any other conclusion.

Android has several different stores you can host on, and Epic is making their own store for Android. Google Play store still has far, far, far , far more marketshare than any other storefront. It's not even close. But I appreciate the OPTION for developers to forgoe that for whatever reason. Be it to support open source development (FDroid's MO), host content Google won't allow (adult apps tends to be the most common one, but I used some modded Youtube apps back in the day), etc. It's not an option 95% of people make, but contingency plans are always appreciated

using your logic, I don't understand why you would find the mere existence of these splinter stores offensive. don't support them with your money.

moksly2• 5 years ago

I don’t think anyone who uses an iOS device wants epic to win. Most of us are specifically in the walled garden because we just want our tech to work.

Would I rather have an open source system, including for my phone, that works as well as Apple things? Sure, but there is no such thing.

denis1• 5 years ago

I want Epic to win. It's fine if you want to have Apple as an option. It's not fine to have Apple as the only option. Apple should either allow 3rd party IAPs or 3rd party app stores. Having neither is Apple abusing it's power and forcing it on consumers.

manigandham9• 5 years ago

The whole point of more choice is that you can choose. Why would this affect you?

sangnoir• 5 years ago

This is a false dichotomy - you don't have to choose between a locked-down walled garden and a chaotic free-for-all. There is a lot of space in-between.

raydev4• 5 years ago

I have been an iOS developer for more than a decade and I will never buy another brand of phone unless Apple manages to ruin the ecosystem.

I want Epic to win. Devs should be able to distribute their apps to consumers without Apple dictating style guidelines or which features are/aren't allowed on a general purpose computer. The iPhone and iPad are general purpose computers and Apple wants to pretend they are not.

I've shipped a ton of (legit, non-spam, useful, popular) apps over the years, but there are 2 I was never allowed to ship simply because they didn't fit in to Apple's rules... which were not even explicit, it tooks several rounds of review feedback to land at the final rejection.

Once that happened it made me wonder just how many products out there simply aren't allowed to exist or are intentionally handicapped because Apple said so. We should work to end it.

habibur• 5 years ago

So does this information help Epic's case in court or pushes them a bit back? Answer I was looking for but didn't find in the article.

johnnyanmac16• 5 years ago

It was subpoena'd for a reason, but since court documents are public record (eventually) it just makes for an easy news piece.

So the answer is: we don't know. Neither does Verge, I wager.

knodi• 5 years ago

I think Epic is right, 30% is too much. Apps market is competitive and margins are already slim with cost of marking, advertising, development, and maintenance. I get Apple offers a great experience and no cost of making apps accessible.

None of this would be an issue if iPhone/iPad was open to non-apple app stores. Apple is being greedy here, can't install your own apps (non app stores) and can't have an alternative to app store so what are people left to do.

nxc18• 5 years ago

30% is not too much considering that iOS apps generate far more $$$ than android apps. https://insights.dice.com/2020/02/06/android-vs-ios-earns-de...

Why do iOS apps make more? Possibly because iOS is marketed as the premium experience, explicitly including “limitations” like not having to deal with other app stores or be told to install apk from the web.

Of course this ignores that Epic IS ALSO SUING GOOGLE. All caps because people are completely blind to this because it doesn’t fit their preferred narrative. Note that Apple is leading Google in terms of fees on their App Store. https://gizmodo.com/google-is-taking-less-of-a-cut-from-its-...

If Google is also being sued, is it not clear that additional app stores _is not_ what Epic is looking for?

infinityplus13• 5 years ago

Android allows alternative app stores. But Google blocked Epic from pre-installing the Epic Store on OnePlus and LG phones. https://www.theverge.com/2020/8/13/21368395/fortnite-epic-ga...

johnnyanmac16• 5 years ago

Of course this ignores that Epic IS ALSO SUING GOOGLE. All caps because people are completely blind to this because it doesn’t fit their preferred narrative.

please research what the actual lawsuit with Google is about because casting accusations on others. Another response was kind enough to give a link (that was the first one on Google).

you_know_the_• 5 years ago

My nephew spends about $500 dollars a year on fortnite PlayStation.

raydev4• 5 years ago

This shouldn't be surprising.

That Epic was willing to risk iOS distribution for all this should've made it obvious iOS was not the primary source of revenue. They know the risks.

Fortnite’s cash cow is Playstation, not iOS, court documents reveal

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