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Epic Games Plans for Alternative App Marketplace in EU as Apple Reinstates Developer Account
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He's already stepping around that question on twitter.
Basically because the main Epic Games dev account was suspended, the Mac version went with it.
The new dev account seems to only be for Europe?
HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
Yes, "mate" is not stupid. Developers also choose to bundle multiple Mac apps together and sell them as a discounted bundle. That's something they'll now be able to do in the EU.
And Developers have had to factor in Apple's steep cut and Apple's future cuts of in-app purchases and subscriptions. In the EU, Developers could cut pricing some because they don't have to cover Apple's cut... make a bit more for themselves as their own shopkeeper (exactly as it works when we buy apps direct for Mac) and not necessarily need to work Apple's cut into subsequent transactions too.
We can doubt this kind of stuff and also believe all of the rampant virus/trojans nonsense some sling too... but all we have to do here is just stand by and watch what happens. This story very clearly illustrates that apps desirable to some- Epic games- will be available again to Apple people... EU Apple people. Will those be the only ones? No. Many apps that Apple turns down for whatever reason will now be able to be made available in a market with about 100M MORE people than the good old U.S.A.
Will pricing improve? I suggest it will because developers won't have to bake in Apple's big cuts. They can actually charge less but make more for themselves by cutting out the "middleman" who takes a first big cut of every transaction in the rest of the world.
Will app bundles for dirt cheap show up? I suggest it will because that works very well on Mac and it will likely work as well on iDevices.
Etc. Doubt it all if one wishes, but whatever is going to happen- good or bad- is about to play out right before our eyes. It could be viewed like a giant market segment "test" in which we can all gauge the success or disaster in this law being enforced and Apple (mostly) complying with the spirit of it. All of the rest of us- some 93% of the world's population will be removed from any risks we can imagine in this scenario... because we're still limited to getting Apps in the "as is" method.
But in about 6 months, there should be volumes of "updates" and "reports" highlighting the pros & cons of this change and how it all played out. If I was betting, I'd bet big on the overall impact being very much like the overall impact of the very same freedoms existing for upwards of 40 years for Mac: EU people having access to MORE apps, paying generally less (than before) for them, and minimal negative consequences like the much spun security disasters we've read in every thread about this.
About what I would expect from a company that got fined half a billion for endangering and ripping off kids.
Honestly, that is your reply to what I wrote? I specifically stated that no one allows other people to sell in their store the way that you and the other poster are describing. I wrote specifically about Apple preventing other companies from creating their own stores—NOT USING APPLE’S STORE.
🌉 For sale.
All that's going to happen is that big developers that can afford to make (and run) their own App Store will keep more of the profits. That's it. Consumers won't be better off in the slightest. It wouldn't surprise me if Epic Games ends up being the only 'alternate App Store'.
Let's come back to this post in a year.
HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
OK let's do. I'll be happy to "eat crow" if some of what I wrote doesn't play out. I fully doubt that the only outcome is that big developers will just "make more."
But even if they do, good for them. They actually made the app. That's why I generally buy my Mac apps direct from the app developers instead of via the Mac Store too. Apple is throughly, thoroughly rich. They don't need every little nickel they can squeeze off of everything. I'd rather the developers get that extra bit of money for doing all of the work of making a great app.
But please, save the link to these posts and I'll happily & enthusiastically "eat crow" in a year if my guesses are wrong.
But even if they do, good for them. They actually made the app. That's why I generally buy my Mac apps direct from the app developers instead of via the Mac Store too. Apple is throughly, thoroughly rich. They don't need every little nickel they can squeeze off of everything. I'd rather the developers get that extra bit of money for doing all of the work of making a great app.
But please, save the link to these posts and I'll happily & enthusiastically "eat crow" in a year if my guesses are wrong.
Yeah defend epic it’s not like they endangered kids, oh right they did actually do that 🤦♂️
Fortnite maker Epic Games to pay $520 million in fines in FTC settlement
Fortnite publisher Epic Games will pay a $520 million fine in connection with violations of child privacy laws which exposed children to "dangerous" content.
No pricing is not going to improve if anything I see them getting more expensive. Even Epic have said running the store at I think 12% was making them lose money.
I'm not defending Epic. I'm defending the right to have a choice. Big difference.
Yeah defend epic it’s not like they endangered kids, oh right they did actually do that 🤦♂️
Fortnite maker Epic Games to pay $520 million in fines in FTC settlement
Fortnite publisher Epic Games will pay a $520 million fine in connection with violations of child privacy laws which exposed children to "dangerous" content.www.cnbc.com
HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
OK, again, we'll see. Competition generally pressures pricing down. No competition generally maintains if not raises pricing. Step into any environment where there is no competition and you'll find higher pricing of whatever they sell. Send competition into that environment and pricing will start working its way down. It's ALWAYS been this way. There is no real consumer win in only ONE "company store"...
The EU is about to prove that... or not. But we'll all get to witness it first hand if we simply pay attention and watch what happens. There's no stopping it now. So we will either witness the great disaster of this "experiment" or we'll learn a valuable lesson together. A somewhat isolated market is about to (re)teach us all a simple, fundamental lesson of economics.
cant wait for this to come to the us
notice the reactions...
as I write this, on a tech site, 16 Thumbs Up, 1 Angry.
if the EU thinks opening up and forcing changes is going to be a success... seems even tech literate are happy to stay within the current AppStore and not sideload.
the only ones pushing this have been asked what apps they need to load.
anything other than game emulators?
there's no money to be made here for an alt store.
Apple have complied to the EU request and have played hardball.
perhaps they want this to fail and will put to rest plans in other countries to do this?
the ONLY reasonable suggestion I've seen was devs wanting to open their apps to more users to test.
on the surface that seems reasonable.
but if you can release an app that requires sign in, you get the same functionality for testing or use.
and how many people really need that in the scheme of things?
The population of Fortnite users on mobile devices accounted for less than 10% of the total user base by the way, Epic barely lost anything here and nobody left the game. In fact, last season Fortnite actually had a record number of concurrent users, the highest since release.
One of the most successful third party app stores on Android is F-Droid which is for open source and free software. And since many open source projects would love a store of their own where they can curate their software for their audience it would be a good thing, this is a niche but currently they don't have the option to have their niche.
There is a consensus that the rules of Apple's App Store and the GPL are not completely compatible. So an alternative app store could solve this problem for many, even Apple.
um, it is a thing.
last job had an older resident installed an app on her Android phone and it did indeed brick it.
some sort of GOD Mode was as far as it booted.
she ended up buying a new phone as noone (even retail store staff and calls to their tech support) could boot it.
Afraid not…
Sony, Lego, Fidelity And Now Disney: Epic Games Rakes In Over $26 Billion From Fortnite As Top Brands Continue To Flock One Of The Top Games In The World
Fortnite was released in 2017 and has since been a cultural phenomenon, consistently topping the charts for many top accolades. The game had over 10 million players during its first two weeks and reached over 125 million players by the end of 2018. During 2018, the game truly saw its rise to...
finance.yahoo.com
So essentially because nobody had any knowledge about Android bricked the phone. The Android version on that phone was probably not current anymore, biggest issue with Android to this day.
But they started a chain of events that humiliated Apple by forcing it to open iPhones to alternative stores. I call that a huge win. Kudos to them.
The most valuable thing that I have learned as a result of reading this thread is that MacRumors has a daily limit on the number of times you can select the “Dislike” reaction. I reached my limit with so many posts left to which I would have liked to apply it.
It will, it’s inevitable. The EU is leading the way, other countries will follow.
I am very curious to see what kind of games the Epic App Store does end up hosting.
Thanks to the core technology fee (CTF), it doesn't make sense for free apps to make themselves available outside of the iOS app store because the developer runs of risk of finding themselves liable for a small fortune of their app suddenly takes off. This apparently extends to freemium games as well because of the way they are monetised.
Even paid apps run a similar risk because the CTF is an annual recurring fee, whereas the developer is paid only once upfront.
As such, the only apps that appear to make sense are subscription-based apps, that are priced so high that the developer still makes a net gain after paying Epic their cut and after paying Apple 50 cents per app and paying their payment processing fee (I suspect Epic won't bother with managing that). At this point, they may as well just stick with Apple because the amount they owe Apple drops to 15% after the first year (which is competitive with Epic's rumoured 12% cut + 3% payment processing).
I wonder if this is all just a very roundabout way of getting Fortnite back onto iPhones.
Thanks to the core technology fee (CTF), it doesn't make sense for free apps to make themselves available outside of the iOS app store because the developer runs of risk of finding themselves liable for a small fortune of their app suddenly takes off. This apparently extends to freemium games as well because of the way they are monetised.
Even paid apps run a similar risk because the CTF is an annual recurring fee, whereas the developer is paid only once upfront.
As such, the only apps that appear to make sense are subscription-based apps, that are priced so high that the developer still makes a net gain after paying Epic their cut and after paying Apple 50 cents per app and paying their payment processing fee (I suspect Epic won't bother with managing that). At this point, they may as well just stick with Apple because the amount they owe Apple drops to 15% after the first year (which is competitive with Epic's rumoured 12% cut + 3% payment processing).
I wonder if this is all just a very roundabout way of getting Fortnite back onto iPhones.
Said older resident doesn't need to use outside app stores on iPhone. No risk there.
The apps on other than Apple's own app stores won't be able to root your phone, at least that's what it looks like.
People of all ages get scammed, make mistakes or just plain old foolish things.
Stop with the protectionism, it's not doing anyone any good.
People should really own up to their mistakes and take a lesson out of their failures, maybe learn some critical thinking.
We're slowly, but surely, raising a society of thoughtless sheep.
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However this all pans out, I'll definitely be downloading Fortnite for poops and giggles, just so that Epic gets my literal 50 cents worth of core technology fee