• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Apple Terminates Epic Games' Developer Account

Njocky

Banned
Analogy...
Just imagine if a company like Samsung wanted a physical space in a brick and mortar store like Best Buy. Now Best Buy offers companies area within their store for a price to keep that area. other companies like Apple and Google agree to pay to keep that space but Samsung, because they have a hype new phone and loyal fans, think they don't need to pay, or instead try to bypass Best Buy getting any of the sale while being in their store because they feel that Best Buy is asking for too much.


So am actually on the side of Apple in this one, greedy, Steve Job turning in his grave bc Apple pen, Apple. Down goes Epic
A better analogy would be if Best buy was renting floor space to Samsung AND taking 30% of everything that Samsung sells in the floor space they occupy. No shop with an alternative would subscribe to that kind of business and the reason why Epic has no alternative is the unfair competition practices of Apple. This is why this is a Sherman act violation case.
Epic should comply until the case is litigated though. Why would anyone else continue to comply otherwise?
 

wipeout364

Member
I personally think Apples policy of charging a 30% cut on MTX is crazy, as is their ban of links to outside purchase platforms where the developer or publisher could charge at a discount.

It irritated me when Steam did it as well and as much as I dislike EA I think they did the right thing leaving Steam at the time and I think in the long run this will be good for the consumer as Apple really needs some damage done to it to bring it back in line.

I say this as someone who is heavily invested In The Apple ecosystem and Steam. Epic has so much money as a division of Tencent they will be fine.
 

Night.Ninja

Banned
As usual neogaf never looks at the bigger picture.

What epic is doing is great because if they win, it means money more for developers who have apps in the apple app store. Then google, Sony, Microsoft etc will have to follow suit.

"The 70% / 30% split was a breakthrough more than a decade ago with the advent of Steam, the Apple App Store, and Google Play,” he said. “But today, digital software stores have grown into a $25,000,000,000+ business worldwide across all platforms, yet the economies of scale have not benefited developers. In our analysis, stores are marking up their costs 300% to 400%. We simply aim to give developers a better deal.
 

kraspkibble

Permabanned.
As usual neogaf never looks at the bigger picture.

What epic is doing is great because if they win, it means money more for developers who have apps in the apple app store. Then google, Sony, Microsoft etc will have to follow suit.

yup if Epic win then it'll be a huge result but doesn't mean i need to like them. they aren't doing this for us they are doing it to try make more money in the long term. i know they are a business out to make money but let's not pretend they are on our side.
 
As usual neogaf never looks at the bigger picture.

What epic is doing is great because if they win, it means money more for developers who have apps in the apple app store. Then google, Sony, Microsoft etc will have to follow suit.


On the contrary, you're the one looking at it from the usual Neogaf small picture view, because you're only considering the benefits for the consumer/developer point of view. Everyone here is well aware of those (and potential ramifications it could have for other digital platforms)

The debate isn't about whether or not this would benefit developers, the debate is whether or not a device being restricted to using software from one storefront should be considered a breach of antitrust laws.

Epic are arguing yes because it means Apple have control over all IOS apps and can determine what can and can not be sold and have control over how much of a cut they want to take.

Others are arguing no, because while Apple have a monopoly over IOS apps that doesn't mean they have a monopoly over apps in general. There are other devices on the market with their own storefronts and that's where the competition comes into play. Google could decide to lower their cuts on app purchases which would allow prices to come down on their platform in comparison to IOS, giving consumers a reason to purchase their products over Apple's.

Edit: I think the other thing worth considering is if you force Apple to allow side loading, then you're taking away a USP from their competitors like Google. In the effort to remove their perceived monopoly on the software market you could potentially risk handing them a bigger share of the hardware market.
 
Last edited:

SF Kosmo

Al Jazeera Special Reporter
Kids who want to play Fortnite switching to Android, I'd imagine. Additionally, I honestly feel like Epic's strategy of actively trying to poison kids against Apple might work.
I haven't followed this too closely but they got clapped by the Google store as well, right? I know you can sideload on Android but not everyone is that smart.

I don't think Epic can win here. They are big, but are they 10% of the entire apple games market big? Because that's the kind of reduction in fees they're asking for.

To make this work they would have needed to organize a "strike" with enough other major players.
 
Last edited:

Silvawuff

Member
Apple is worth 2 trillion.You think they care about some little blip like this in their ecosystem? It's kinda funny watching Epic get spanked, but yeah, we as the consumers are on the losing side here no matter what.
 

ape2man

Member
Why i think Apple should loose this case is because they dont allow competitive pricing.

If your netflix and you are offering a subscription through their IOS App they are not allowed to price that differently from somewhere else.

So if netflix on there website costs 10 dollars per month, they are not allowed to ask 13 dollars on the IOS App because apple takes 30%. They need to take the hit. And because they are monopoly this is as illegal as fuck.
 
Last edited:

smbu2000

Member
Why i think Apple should loose this case is because they dont allow competitive pricing.

If your netflix and you are offering a subscription through their IOS App they are not allowed to price that differently from somewhere else.

So if netflix on there website costs 10 dollars per month, they are not allowed to ask 13 dollars on the IOS App because apple takes 30%. They need to take the hit. And because they are monopoly this is as illegal as fuck.
Netflix doesn’t offer In App subscriptions on ios. You simply login with your login credentials and you can view your shows/movies. Netflix doesn’t pay apple anything because of that, Apple gets 0%.
Epic could have done the same with Fortnite and disabled IAP as you can still add Vbucks to your account purchased from gift cards or direct from the Epic store. That way they would pay Apple 0% as well as they wouldn’t have IAP on ios.
Epic wants to continue to have IAP though and pay Apple nothing at the same time.
You can do one or the other, but not both. Greedy Epic wants both.
 
Last edited:

adamosmaki

Member
not that it has much to do with the topic at hand but as far as I'm concerned both Epic and Apple can burn to the ground and i still wouldn't care. Two multbillion companies with some of the worst practices on their field so no i dont really care
 


:messenger_tears_of_joy::messenger_tears_of_joy::messenger_tears_of_joy:

What a wally. Yeah he's really sticking it to Apple, great one Tim. Advertise the competition, maybe you will get a fractionally bigger cut of a much smaller slice. Idiot.

This is desperate, you can see he takes it personally... that's exactly type of person you wouldn't want fronting your company. Not sure what proportion of Fortnite players are on iOS but I'd love to see them crash and burn spectacularly. Fortnite isn't going to be popular forever and if I was a shareholder I'd be asking for his head. This could spell the beginning of the end for their cash cow. Their whole empire could crumble because of this.

Not sure what hes "waiting for" either, your outta there. Done and dusted. Either go back grovelling or shut the fuck up.
 
Last edited:

LordCBH

Member


:messenger_tears_of_joy::messenger_tears_of_joy::messenger_tears_of_joy:

What a wally. Yeah he's really sticking it to Apple, great one Tim. Advertise the competition, maybe you will get a fractionally bigger cut of a much smaller slice. Idiot.

This is desperate, you can see he takes it personally... that's exactly type of person you wouldn't want fronting your company. Not sure what proportion of Fortnite players are on iOS but I'd love to see them crash and burn spectacularly. Fortnie isn't going to be popular forever and if I was a shareholder I'd be asking for his head. This could spell the beginning of the end for their cash cow.


This is what happens when someone who’s clearly unstable and has irrational decision making skills has free reign over a massive company. Epic getting big was the worst thing for Tim Sweeney.
 


Well done Apple. Epic tried to scam you without paying rent & dues. That is pure trash move. They tried to use kids & mobilise with internet pressure. Guys are pure trash. Trash has no morals or ethics.

Imagine going to someone's house & start reorganising their house ordering them around. GTFO.
 

Kadayi

Banned
As usual neogaf never looks at the bigger picture.

What epic is doing is great because if they win, it means money more for developers who have apps in the apple app store. Then google, Sony, Microsoft etc will have to follow suit.


LOL. It's entirely possible to consider that Google and Apple charge too much (I wasn't against Epic challenging Steam tbh, I just don't care for the whole exclusives thing, least of al pinching games at the last minute that were already available for Pre-order on Steam) and also acknowledge that they themselves done fucked up through breach of contract.
 
Last edited:

IntentionalPun

Ask me about my wife's perfect butthole
Honestly.. another look at this:

Tim owns the majority of a privately funded company; he is likely a billionaire, or could be from it. The fact he will crash their revenue like this, do things like promote PubG (who, yes, uses Unreal, but it's still nowhere close to the revenue they get from Fortnite)... indicates he actually might really believe in this cause. So does his 12% cut thing, there's actually payment processing options that charge more than 12% even (and Epic charges the customer, but it indicates a willingness to have an incredibly low margin compared to competition.)

I think he's a windbag, and EGS sucks.. but playing a bit of reverse devil's advocate, it's hard not to at least suspect he really does believe in a "cause" and isn't just out for financial gain.

Either that or he's an idiot who thinks this will financially work out in the end and is just taking some smart risk.
 

diffusionx

Gold Member
Why i think Apple should loose this case is because they dont allow competitive pricing.

If your netflix and you are offering a subscription through their IOS App they are not allowed to price that differently from somewhere else.

So if netflix on there website costs 10 dollars per month, they are not allowed to ask 13 dollars on the IOS App because apple takes 30%. They need to take the hit. And because they are monopoly this is as illegal as fuck.

Apple does not have a monopoly. They have realistically 10-15% of the mobile OS market. What they have is a platform. I am not sure (honestly) on what basis Apple should be forced to offer other app stores on their platform. I could be wrong, but I just don't know. Especially when, as others have said, you can get around Apple's system by just not offering purchases or subs through it.

Honestly.. another look at this:

Tim owns the majority of a privately funded company; he is likely a billionaire, or could be from it. The fact he will crash their revenue like this, do things like promote PubG (who, yes, uses Unreal, but it's still nowhere close to the revenue they get from Fortnite)... indicates he actually might really believe in this cause. So does his 12% cut thing, there's actually payment processing options that charge more than 12% even (and Epic charges the customer, but it indicates a willingness to have an incredibly low margin compared to competition.)

I think he's a windbag, and EGS sucks.. but playing a bit of reverse devil's advocate, it's hard not to at least suspect he really does believe in a "cause" and isn't just out for financial gain.

Either that or he's an idiot who thinks this will financially work out in the end and is just taking some smart risk.

I don't think there is any doubt Sweeney believes in this, considering he burned up a ton of goodwill among his old boomer PC fans with the EGS shit.
 
Last edited:

levyjl1988

Banned
Lesson: Don't invest too much in a service, they will take your money and go. It's not a product that you can continue at any time. Games like Demon Souls is the way to go. Sure the multiplayer servers can go offline, but at least the single player stuff is still there, not everything is lost.
 

IntentionalPun

Ask me about my wife's perfect butthole
I don't think there is any doubt Sweeney believes in this, considering he burned up a ton of goodwill among his old boomer PC fans with the EGS shit.
Yeah and he rallied against Windows Store, really on behalf of Steam, when Windows 8 I think it was came out.. way before he was ever in a position to ever start a store of his own.

And there's logic to his "without exclusives theres no way anyone could compete with Steam" argument for the moneyhat hypocrisy. However he went about it the wrong way, that should be done by... making more games, then you get to make "your" games exclusive. Or make those deals for games not yet announced. He moved too fast, should have been a long term plan of at least a couple of years before having any exclusives. Also make a store that doesn't suck fucking dick lol

Now though what's obvious to me?

They are gonna be the exclusive Sony shop for Sony's older games that come to PC. The $250 million investment pretty much seals the deal on my belief of that.. Sony likely contemplated starting their own PC storefront (and they'd have had some success, including likely getting some 3rd party exclusives, with far less complaint than Epic ever has).. Sony probably is going to get all profit from their games on EGS without ever having to pay to create a PC based storefront.
 
Last edited:

ethomaz

Banned
As usual neogaf never looks at the bigger picture.

What epic is doing is great because if they win, it means money more for developers who have apps in the apple app store. Then google, Sony, Microsoft etc will have to follow suit.

That is a very small picture imo.
 
Last edited:

Alexios

Cores, shaders and BIOS oh my!
Erm, yeah, it's out of Timmy's good heart, there's no financial reason whatsoever behind getting 100% of your first party releases where you got 70% when taking advantage of other companies' effort to achieve/create a given market (share) and 12% of third party releases where you got 0%, lol.

Wtf are people on, I want some of that.

As if people would be pissed if he brought a worthwhile platform that doesn't screw consumers over or trash the competition in stupid constantly contradicting ways akin to school playground arguments, like say gog or itch.io which he pretends don't even exist most of the time and wants to be THE other store on PC next to Steam by just paying marketing money to the media, same as he wants to be THE other store on iOS now (and with the same anti competitive practices he's already employing against anyone other than EGS obviously), likely having it ready to go the moment a judge says third party apps should be allowed. Yet still wanting to be on the Play Store without paying fees even though on Android you can release third party apps just fine. Just constant contradictions and scummy PR, not substance based tactics, but no, it's cos he really believes devs should get a better cut. Except even devs go back to Steam once they see that outside Epic extra moneyhatting from Fortnite money Steam does provide more actual customers by having a better more popular platform to make the extra % paid worth it. The only devs that stick with EGS are those that made Timmy instead of actual players/consumers/gamers/whatever you wanna call them, their customer and it's really not a sustainable model or one that everyone can take advantage of, contrary to other platforms. Just as EA went back to Steam after trying Origin to get 100% of their releases, just like Bethesda and MS go back to Steam, but no, it's just being evil that demands such a higher %, not actually providing and constantly evolving a solid platform that offers features and possibilities to both developers (who seriously need to do some reading on what Steam offers) & buyers alike.
I don't think there is any doubt Sweeney believes in this, considering he burned up a ton of goodwill among his old boomer PC fans with the EGS shit.
He hasn't had PC fans since shitting on PC as a platform when getting moneyhatted by Xbox. The EGS shit is just a continuation except the financial interest is now generated by himself rather than given by MS.
 
Last edited:

ethomaz

Banned
Your in the console war business it might be difficult to grasp.
Nah it is easy.
I support what is better for the industry and developers and getting rip off the Store and making any company have it own store is ridiculous bad for everybody except publishers.

But keep the narrative.

If Epic win then come back some years late asking why the gaming industry in iOS died and Apple stopped to fund developers to make games (that is what holds most developers to not go bankrupt).

That is the same "political correct" mentality you see in ERA based in a very small view of the subject.
The Epic move is bad for everybody expect Apple.
 
Last edited:

CuNi

Member
Epic finally learning the hard way that you need to follow agreements LOL.

Sucks for devs and players alike but in all honesty, Epic really forced their hands and on this one, yes, I am on Apples side.
 

Oppoi

Member
This is increasingly disastrous for Epic, bad for Fortnite's player base, bad for iOS developers, and irrelevant to Apple.

Sweeney has little to no leverage against Apple and stands no chance in court. The sooner he capitulates and moves past this the better.

I still think there's a bigger plan in the works and these stunts are meant to rile up the masses to shout for change as they did to Valve before announcing the Epic store as the saving grace to the lack of curation and that horrible 30% split.
 
Last edited:

EviLore

Expansive Ellipses
Staff Member
I still think there's a bigger plan in the works and these stunts are meant to rile up the masses to shout for change as they did to Valve before announcing the Epic store as a saving grave to the lack of curation and that horrible 30% split.

Yeah, that would presumably be the reason for soldiering on. I don’t see it working out in Epic’s favor, but we’ll see what Sweeney has up his sleeve. So far, e.g. the tweet above, it doesn’t impress.
 

Oppoi

Member
Yeah, that would presumably be the reason for soldiering on. I don’t see it working out in Epic’s favor, but we’ll see what Sweeney has up his sleeve. So far, e.g. the tweet above, it doesn’t impress.

As I've said before, they're either crazy smart or just fucking crazy.
 
“MarketWatch” said:
The exclusion of all Epic titles is sure to further puncture sales for the game maker, which started with the expulsion of “Fortnite.” That game has racked up just $19.3 million of in-app spending through the App Store and Google Play combined in August, compared with $52.5 million in July and $58.3 million in June.

This isn’t going to go well for Epic. I guess they really are thinking they are focusing on the endgame.

That said, holy fuck - people spent over $50 million on Fortnite each month on mobile in June and July!?
 
Last edited:
This isn’t going to go well for Epic. I guess they really are thinking they are focusing on the endgame.

That said, holy fuck - people spent over $50 million on Fortnite each month on mobile in June and July!?
The top 5 Japanese mobile games each grossed over $1 billion yearly in 2019.

The amount of money sloshing around in phone gaming dwarfs console and PC gaming by an order of magnitude. It's amazing how much money "free" games are printing. That's the state of gaming in 2020.

It's also why Epic is retarded to try and take Apple on, Fortnite is just one game and not even that big compared to the really big mobile games all on App Store and all dutifully paying their 30% fees. Apple couldn't give less of a tiny fuck about Fortnite's revenue and they are more than happy to teach Tim Sweeney a lesson about who is in charge of their platform.
 
Last edited:
Imagine thinking you don't have to follow the rules on someone else's platform despite agreeing to follow the rules of the platform when you signed on.

Fortnite will not be popular forever, eventually the people playing it will realize it's actually a piece of shit. When it dies Epic will need to rely on selling it's engine for revenue because the chances of catching lightning in a bottle twice are rare. Fortnite became popular despite being a pretty shitty game. Tim effectively cut Epic off from a massive piece of the mobile gaming market with his shenanigans and put a stop to support for Epic's games and games using their engine on that platform. This will force developers that want to create games for the iOS market to look at other game engines. Since they'll be using a different engine for the iOS version it would make sense to use it on the Android version too. If I was making a product and was uncertain whether I could support my product on a massive platform, I'd be looking into alternatives. This type of boat-rocking behavior Tim has been exhibiting could have further reaching effects than he realizes. The problem is he's been doing it for years and hasn't suffered from it.

I have no love for Apple and their bullshit, but Tim Sweeney is a turd. His constant doomsday ravings about the PC gaming market going back decades and his eventual attempt to drive a stake into the PC market by introducing moneyhatting exclusive titles and trying to use Epic's financial might (gained by scamming kids with overpriced microtransactions) to force a business model to the PC market under the guise of "fairness" made me dislike him. I hope it all blows up in his face.
 

NinjaBoiX

Member
I can understand people wanting to side with Epic to an extent, it would likely lead to a more consumer friendly marketplace.

But the simple nuts and bolts of it is, Epic broke Apple’s T & C’s, it’s just that black and white. They aren’t going to win, it’s simple legalities.
 

acm2000

Member
Thats right you are. Sideload them Tencent-China apps on to your phone that you probably do your banking on.

Nothing bad could ever happen.

Sorry, I don't game on my phone, I'm not a child.

I'm also not crazy anti China like America seems to be, if you think American companies are more trust worthy than Chinese then you are very naive lol.
 
Last edited:

Valonquar

Member
bjE4kkv.jpg
 

llien

Member
I can understand people wanting to side with Epic to an extent, it would likely lead to a more consumer friendly marketplace.

But the simple nuts and bolts of it is, Epic broke Apple’s T & C’s, it’s just that black and white. They aren’t going to win, it’s simple legalities.
Simple nutd and bolts of it is people mumming "bbut what about those rules that Apple made up" weeks after the discussion had started

Pathetic.
 

aries_71

Junior Member
As published in the link below, terminating the Epic account today also mean that you won't be able to download any of the games published by them, for example the Infinity Blade games. Even if you bought the games, they are not available in your purchase history.

How does Neogaf feel about it? I think is very unfair to the end-customer, since I paid money for those games, and Epic surely gave the 30% cut to Apple when I bought them.

I find the whole affair pretty disgusting.

Epic Nuked
 

MrFunSocks

Banned
It's really unfortunate to see that so many people don't get the bigger picture.
What you think is the bigger picture isn’t right though.

Apple shouldn’t be forced to develop and maintain a way for others to open a competing store selling the same things on their platform. Apple made iOS, they don’t have to make a feature just because epic want it. They don’t have a monopoly.

Think about it this way - do you think that Hungry Jacks (Burger king for you Americans) should be able to go in to McDonalds head office and say “you guys need to build us a little store inside your stores and let us sell our burgers there, and not only are you going to pay for the upkeep, we’re not going to give you any rent or cut”? Does that sound fair to you?
 
Last edited:
Apple doesn't (and nor should it) care about Fortnite.

And a quick PSA: Fortnite is just a popular game. It means jack shit to the Apple ecosystem.

And no one is going to switch to android just for a fucking free game (as popular as it is).

Besides: you can play it wherever you want, kids will adjust.

And for the "bigger picture": yes, it's bad for everyone, but that's how the industry works. Everyone wants everything, so fuck'em. Apple though is right on this one.
 
Last edited:
Top Bottom