Epic vs Apple Vs The World


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What are your thoughts on this topic (and the new Epic "free Fortnite" ad)?



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There is something to say for both arguments. Apple wants to keep their income by in-app-purchase-tax, Epic wants to spend less money on Apple.
We'll see how this plays out in court, but at least it's two big companies fighting each other instead of a tiny company against Apple.
If Epic wins probably only big companies will have the benefit, as they sell most in-app. If Apple wins they put a dent into Epics big growth by blocking their dev-accounts, and if Google joins Epic will quickly remove the feature and rejoin the app-stores.
 
Is Epic that big of a company now? I remember when they were knocking about producing versions of Unreal. I mean they seemed big at the time, but they weren't (a) shifting the kind of units that apple and google do, and (b) not making the same profits on each one. Apple and Google can famously afford to pay for good lawyers. But perhaps with the success of fortnight, even with them losing 30% of their digital sales, epic can afford passable lawyerige too.

Part of me says, if they don't like this they could always go back to pressing DVDs and mailing them out.
 
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@levi

Their Unreal engine(s) have made them rich...and don't even mention Fortnite (which you clearly already have, lol) as that's their bread 'n' butter, right there. Literally billions of dollars, overnight :cool:
Also, a Chinese company called Tencent (worth $150m) is a part owner of Epic Games (40% stake)
 
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Lawyers do their most important shizzle outside of court. It's all about sending threatening letters and other forms of negotiation.

To be fair to Epic, I've been waiting for something to take down Apple and Google's fees. 30% taxes on something that only costs a fraction of a cent in computer servering fees seems remarkably high, unless your average product cost is less than 10 cents.
 
Lawyers do their most important shizzle outside of court. It's all about sending threatening letters and other forms of negotiation.

To be fair to Epic, I've been waiting for something to take down Apple and Google's fees. 30% taxes on something that only costs a fraction of a cent in computer servering fees seems remarkably high, unless your average product cost is less than 10 cents.
For the financial transaction that's probably true. While I did read somewhere that financial institutions are required to hold some kind of high standard which does cost a lot of money.
But if a bank doesn't take 30% of every transaction Apple probably doesn't need to do this either.

For the fee you need to pay for the App I could imagine some more costs could be involved there. It's making the SDK to develop the app, having the store itself including required hardware, service people to support customers etc. etc.
Having the 30% is probably just a random number and they just stick with it.

I never really thought about how strange it actually is to be talking about one company not having enough money to beat another company in a judicial conflict. I thought the judicial system was supposed to be about justice…
The justice part is more in a fair judgment.
The unfair part in the US is, I think, the part were the initial cost are so high you can't even start to defend yourself from claims, and the person with most money automatically wins.
Next unfair part, which is probably true in all countries, is that the person with the most money can afford the best legal team. This team can increase chances of a favorable outcome due to having most knowledge about the legal procedures.
But this part is actually also true for people with a lot of money in general. They can hire dedicated people to make smart choices regarding money so they pay lower taxes and generate more wealth, while a regular person can't afford this luxury.

Is Epic that big of a company now?
They got a lot of investments lately and grew much bigger. They just double their worth from $8billion in 2018 to $17.8billion, that's including the recent investment from Sony (probably because Unreal is also becoming a tool for movie-creation).
I think the case for them is a win-win, if they win they save money and if they lose they just easily go back to Apple, and either way they get a lot of publicity.
 
I wonder if the fact that Tencent is Chinese will have any influence, given the TikTok situation.
 
I wonder if the fact that Tencent is Chinese will have any influence, given the TikTok situation.
I think that part was already cleared-up. It was only regarding TikTok and WeChat, not Tencent itself. As else Fortnite, Unreal-engine, some game-studio would also be banned.
Happy that it's so but I don't understand why yet, at the sight of it you would say it's a double standard to block one and not the other.
 
To be fair to Epic, I've been waiting for something to take down Apple and Google's fees. 30% taxes on something that only costs a fraction of a cent in computer servering fees seems remarkably high, unless your average product cost is less than 10 cents.

This is why I'm with Epic on this one. If anything is a monopoly it's the app stores, and Apples app store especially
 
Vs the EU.

There's an antitrust investigation going on to investigate whether Apple's App store rules for app devs violate EU competition rules, following a complain by Spotify:


I don't know why, but "...to preserve quality, privacy and security..." somehow reminds me the reasoning of: "we only throttle our old devices in order to prevent unexpected shutting down under certain conditions and deliver the best experience for customers"
 
This is why I'm with Epic on this one. If anything is a monopoly it's the app stores, and Apples app store especially
If you look at market-share they have about 25%, rest is almost all Android. So even though Apple is a big company they appear to be in heavy competition with other vendors.
When they would grow bigger the closed ecosystem would certainly be an issue in the EU.

I don't know why, but "...to preserve quality, privacy and security..." somehow reminds me the reasoning of: "we only throttle our old devices in order to prevent unexpected shutting down under certain conditions and deliver the best experience for customers"
I wouldn't even mind that solution if it was a function you could enable by choice.
 
I have to say i ditnt bother much abouth Fortnight and this whole Free to Play MMO Games thing,
I use a lot of Apple Stuff, since i tryed an Ipod Nano for Music Play yeahrs ago, then some newer nanos, Ipod Touch, and then my last 2 Iphones because i ditnt wanted to carry an Ipod and a Smartphone.. , Apple Watch and Airpods..

But thats it, im still using a 9 Yeahr old Lenovo Thinkpad instead of a Macbook, and i want to use the Pyra as my next Computer

Epic dont want to pay, but Apple also ditnt want to pay its Taxes,

EvilDragon pays a lot of Taxes and his new PC will have Iluminated Keyboard and Lid Logo, so i think on the Case Epic vs Apple, the Pyra should be the winner ^^
 
I don't know why, but "...to preserve quality, privacy and security..." somehow reminds me the reasoning of: "we only throttle our old devices in order to prevent unexpected shutting down under certain conditions and deliver the best experience for customers"
It's the same excuse as Nintendo's old Seal of Excellence, and probably older than that even, and it has very little to do with protecting us, versus controlling the market for Nintendo/Apple/Google. I haven't heard much about Apple apps explicitly spying on you, compared to Google recently, although that perhaps has more to do with the way that apple apps are much less likely to be open source, I don't really know.

If you look at market-share they have about 25%, rest is almost all Android. So even though Apple is a big company they appear to be in heavy competition with other vendors.
Sounds like a duopoly or at the very least, vendor lock in. Indeed, if you look up either term on wikipedia, apple and google are mentioned. It's slightly more complicated when it comes to google's phones, because google themselves have a relatively small part of the market. You have to comprehend that even if Samsung gets the money, google keeps the control.

This article, written before this happened, gives a good summary of the problems with the Apple distribution model.
That makes the app stores sound positively cheap, at least compared to Amazon's business practices! Eek! :eek:
 
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