Comments by "XSportSeeker" (@XSpImmaLion) on "Epic vs. Apple" video.

  1. If people here care about this, I'll add a bit more information so the whole case becomes a bit clearer for everyone, because it's kinda complicated and didn't started with this case.. it'll be a long comment. Disclaimer: I don't like Apple, don't have any Apple products, and I won't try to defend the company. I also don't like Google a whole lot, despite having Android products. I am a huge gamer but don't like Fortnite, despite liking some of Epic's other older franchises. I have partial knowledge on game development because I did a post graduation course on game development years ago which I never finished. But I follow gaming, gadget and electronic news very closely for the past couple of decades or more. This is only a opinion piece, I am a journalist not working in the area right now. This entire thing about Epic acting as the defender of game developers, or faking it depending on how you wanna look at it, started back in 2018 when Epic launched a campaign against PC digital game store Steam, plus Google's Play Store. The Steam store side of things became pretty famous... Epic pulled out Fortnite out of Steam, built their own digital store with claims that the 30% cut Steam got from Fortnite microtransactions was unfair, riled tons and tons of gamers, publishers, developers and whatnot with them, started paying developers for timed exclusives and gave a bigger cut for them, taking out only.... I think 12% is their fee, etc etc. On Google it was a bit more complicated. The complaint was the same because Google Play Store also takes a 30% cut, Epic pulled out Fortnite from the store, recommended people to go to their website, download Fortnite's .apk for free (Fortnite is a free game that profits out of in-game microtransactions), and install it on their Android phones/tablets outside the store. This resulted not only in crippling bugs on initial releases, but also an insane ammount of people installing fake Fortnite .apks with malware, bugs and whatnot - which btw, was exactly what Google warned was going to happen. After some 18 months that Epic pulled Fortnite from Google's Play Store, they quietly and beggrugingly got back into Google's Play Store. Reason: The game tanked as a sideloaded .apk, particularly after the initial disaster, and Epic rolled out a press release saying how Google employed unfair tactics to stop apps from outside the Play Store to be installed, like security pop ups, configuration toggles that are hard to find, and extraneous permissions. Which personal opinion, is an extremely lame excuse. Android makes it hard for people to install .apks because it has caused a ton of problems over the entire history of the platform, it has nothing to do with Epic. Even then, after just a few months, together with the Apple App Store action, Epic also did the same in Google's Play Store causing the app to be booted there too. I am saying "action" because one thing people need to understand about all this is that these campaigns were all pre-planned, coordinated, and executed according to Epic's own time scale. It didn't happen without warning, Epic always knew what was going to happen. With Steam and Google the first time, it was less flagrant but it was still quite obvious that together with protest, there was an obvious diffamation campaaign going on to also promote their side of things, like Epic Store. Because obviously, you don't spring up things like a promotional/protest video, a digital store, and in game related stuff without pre-planning it. It's guerrilla brown press tactics, with a white knighting approach. We are doing this for the poor devs that gets exploited everyday, boohoo! Nevermind these actions always targetting Epic getting a bigger share of the cake. Ok, now, let's talk a bit about how the game development market works. If you think Apple taking a 30% cut of app sales or microtransactions is a bad thing, hoo boy, you are some decade+ late. I'm sorry to break the idealistic minded gamers out there, but a 30% cut from digital game store sales has been the absolute norm of the industry for over a decade now. That's why Steam took a 30% cut. Nintendo takes a 35% cut out of games sold on Nintendo consoles and portables. Sony takes a 30% cut from games sold on Playstation consoles. Google takes a 30% cut from Play Store sales. There are exceptions, of course... Microsoft tried taking a smaller cut on the Windows Store and Windows Mobile Store to attract more developers, down to 5%. Several Steam competitors that were around a long time before Epic Store ever became an idea were offering to take a smaller cut than Steam without all the fanfare. Is it fair or not? I won't be the judge of that, it probably depends on case per case. But you know, that's the basic structure that allowed for the industry to grow the way it did. Every now and then you do hear some developers complaining about this cut, and yet I never see they going too long for alternatives. Epic Store? Outside Epic's own games, practically all developers that launched there signed only a timed exclusive. They eventually all come back to Steam, without a peep. You know why? Because there's much more value in that 30% cut than people think or care to admit. Even the basic stuff people often underestimate how hard it is to prop up. Go look at the Epic Game Store and do an unbiased comparison to Steam. It's just ridiculous. One is a generic, extremely basic, with very few titles and costumers, store app that doesn't get much above a webpage wrapper. The other fundamentally changed the relationship between indie developers and gamers, and revolutionized the PC gaming industry, but also created and maintains a long list of tools and functionalities that no other digital game store does, and they handle orders of magnitude more devs and gamers everyday, worldwide. The scale of infrastructure backbone can't even be compared between them, Epic Store can only be properly compared to other Steam competitors... like GoG, Direct2Drive, Origin, etc... and guess what, Epic can't even beat those in size and functionality. It's kinda wrong to call Steam only a digital game store these days... if you include community stuff, hardware projects, standards definitions, and tons of other stuff that Valve propped up under the Steam name over the years, it's like saying Sony is a game console maker. Anyways, back on topic. This was about the complaint about devs getting a 30% cut. Now, on to the complaint that Apple does not allow competitors to the Apple App Store. On Apple's side of the argument there are worries about security and privacy problems arising from allowing 3rd party stores inside their walled garden, and this being contrary to Apple's entire strategy of providing and enclosed, proprietary but also safe and well monitored space for their costumers. I dunno how much you buy that, but there are some very legit reasons to do something like that. See, it's not only about Epic will do, it's about opening up iOS's ecossystem to 3rd party sales. If control into these alternative stores goes to 3rd parties, it cannot be vetted by Apple, and so it becomes plenty easy for stuff like scams, malware, exploits and whatnot to get there. Nowadays, everytime malware and bad apps pop up, we complain to... Apple. They take the brunt, they have to respond, they will do the bans, vetting process changes, policy and contract stuff. If other stores are allowed, Apple cannot respond to it anymore. It's outside their hands, and this is something that clearly, Apple does not want to deal with. The entire reason why the company has been investing so much in making their own hardware components, and even stuff like the anti right to repair boneheaded politics can be at least partially tackled at Apple trying to control everything in it's products lifetime. Another side of this people have to think is this one: Why didn't Epic make an Android Epic Store during the entire fracas with Google? Why are they so mute about Google in this recent case? Because Android certainly lets anyone build a 3rd party store on Android, it was never a problem. But they didn't. My guess is because, like I already said, building an app store or a digital game store in any platform is harder, most expensive, and more time consuming than people think. I mean, for it to be successful. So they don't really wanna do it. The number of gamers they would get to install an Android Epic Game Store to play Fortnite there isn't worth it. The userbase just isn't there. At bare minimum, a 3rd party store needs at least an extra install and an extra account. People don't want that, much like tons of gamers refused to create a Epic Game Store account on PC just to play Fortnite. The value isn't even in the platform itself, it's the userbase, realistically speaking. Reason why Windows Mobile failed, reason why the number of Android users that actually uses alternative stores is so low, reason why Epic didn't do it.
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  2. Ok, now that I talked about both big points on Epic's lawsuit, let's talk about consequences of all this, because this is the most important part. Who do you think is gonna pay for the revenue loss caused by an Epic win in courts? Be it because this 30% cut becomes regulated and stores are forced to pay more for hundreds of thousands of devs, be it because Apple is forced to allow 3rd party stores to become available on iOS diverting profits from all devs to chose to migrate? Again, I ask, who do you think is gonna pay for that? Apple? Google? Those are all publicly traded companies. Their responsibility when it comes to profits is not with devs, not with costumers, but with shareholders, investors. Sure, perhaps some small devs that deserve a bigger part of the cut will get paid better. But it's not gonna come out from these companies pockets, I absolutely guarantee you. The lowest common denominator that always pays for these things is you, the consumer. The companies targetted on the anti-monopoly lawsuit will come up with a miriad of ways to compensate for the loss. Fire a bunch of people. Exploit and sell user data. Add extra charges for developers and consumers. Reduce R&D costs. Raise hardware prices. Raise licensing prices. Turning free services into paid ones. Making things worse, if the court decision becomes a standard to apply thoughout the industry, think about how far reaching it can be. What is the broad target here? It's not Apple or Google, it's the business model. A business model that, as I already explained, has been a structural standard for over a decade now. This is about the owner of a hardware device, creating an exclusive digital store inside their platform, able to arbitrarily charge other developers to publish their own apps inside it, currently at a 30% cut. This describes not only smartphones, but also game consoles and portables. Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft will also be affected by it. Probably a long list of other companies I'm not even aware of. Proprietary servers? Medical equipment? Surveillance systems? These are the potential results of Epic winning their lawsuit. It's not devs will take more of the share, or Apple will have to allow 3rd party stores on iOS, and pronto. Epic of course won't take responsibility for negative changes. It's why they are going to court - if the court decides on their favor, and this has severe negative consequences even if it's only for Apple, they wash their hands - it's the court's fault. But obviously, that's not Epic's target. Given how planned and staged the whole thing was, if it wasn't done by a bunch of ignorant morons, what Epic probably wants is a settlement out of court for them to get a bigger share of the cut, period. That's just it. But for that, they made this entire hullabaloo. What is worse in all this, is that when the tech press, gamers, and people in general takes Epic's side of the battle and starts shouting against Apple on this, it only proves to Epic that this sort of exploitive tactics works. It was proven with the entire Steam shitstorm, and now it's only getting worse. This is not the sort of scenario we wanna see in the future. It tells these companies that people are gullible enough to fall for these sorts of guerrilla brown press tactics. But you be the judge of that, this is only my personal opinion. I do think most people have at least a bit of a creepy weird feeling on how this entire story went though. It's not that I like any of the companies involved, the tactics, the policies and strategies. But people have got to be less idealistic about it, and start thinking about actual consequences.
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