Epic Games Plans for Alternative App Marketplace in EU as Apple Reinstates Developer Account

[sarc]

Are there any apps that are sold on the Mac App Store, on the developers own store and in other stores and in bundles too? Yes. Why? Because even wider distribution will make some extra money for developer that they may not get by making sales only available from their own store... even if sales on their own store maximizes their own revenue & profit for sales of that app. Less profit is better than no profit in those other stores/channels.

This will be the same.

No I disagree. Every store these developers go onto will have requirements to be met and fees to be paid. Are the developers confident that these new stores are going to provide them with the required metrics they need to provide apple every 14 or so days for tax reporting purposes? I wouldn't be so confident. And what happens when they don't provide that info to developers to pass onto apple? Are they going to cover the costs these developers might incur. It might sound good on paper to some (I don't believe so) but in practice I just don't see this working. Comparing it to what happens on the Mac is completely different to what is happening on iOS.

Lets say I purchase an app from one of these stores and then a year down the line that store closes up shop do I still get support? What if I purchase the app more than once from different stores how are the developers going to give me a refund?

 

[sarc]

They are not Apple’s customers. They are people who BOUGHT a phone; they own the phone.

By your logic, why should gas stations be able to sell gasoline to people who own cars? Should the car manufacturers be able to prevent the gas stations and auto part stores from accessing their billions of customers? I am sure that you are going to tell me that it’s different and why it is so.

Because apple provides the developers with the tools to make the apps and the infustructre to get those apps to the users.
Car manufactures don't provide the tools to extract the oil or distribute it so your example is not relevant.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

No I disagree. Every store these developers go onto will have requirements to be met and fees to be paid. Are the developers confident that these new stores are going to provide them with the required metrics they need to provide apple every 14 or so days for tax reporting purposes? I wouldn't be so confident. And what happens when they don't provide that info to developers to pass onto apple? Are they going to cover the costs these developers might incur. It might sound good on paper to some (I don't believe so) but in practice I just don't see this working. Comparing it to what happens on the Mac is completely different to what is happening on iOS.

Time will show us how well- or terribly- this will work. Until there is enough time, speculation is just one imagination against another.

Lets say I purchase an app from one of these stores and then a year down the line that store closes up shop do I still get support? What if I purchase the app more than once from different stores how are the developers going to give me a refund?

How does Apple give you a refund after a year of owning an app? A few years ago, all of the 32-bit apps purchased from the Apple App Store would eliminated because Apple decided to no longer support them. I got no refund for any of them and MANY accumulated apps just basically ceased being available to me on my iDevices? Did I miss a long term refund opportunity from the one and only Apple store?

Else, I suspect people will be taking a risk buying apps from any source- especially if they have some expectation of support and refunds beyond 1 year of use. But since most apps are no more than a few dollars, I also suspect that most people don't have expectations of refunds beyond a year of use should some App Store cease to exist and/or offer such apps (as Apple did when they dumped ALL 32-bit apps (tens of thousands of them) at the same time).

 

[sarc]

Time will show us how well- or terribly- this will work. Until there is enough time, speculation is just one imagination against another.



How does Apple give you a refund after a year of owning an app? A few years ago, all of the 32-bit apps purchased from the Apple App Store would eliminated because Apple decided to no longer support them. I got no refund for any of them and MANY accumulated apps just basically ceased being available to me on my iDevices? Did I miss a long term refund opportunity from the one and only Apple store?

Else, I suspect people will be taking a risk buying apps from any source- especially if they have some expectation of support and refunds beyond 1 year of use. But since most apps are no more than a few dollars, I also suspect that most people don't have expectations of refunds beyond a year of use should some App Store cease to exist and/or offer such apps (as Apple did when they dumped ALL 32-bit apps (tens of thousands of them) at the same time).

Getting support for an app is not getting a refund.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

You're the one who brought up refunds. My advice to the problem you offered is don't make the mistake of buying the same app from more than one store. However, if you do, you will likely notice much sooner than a year and the second store will likely refund the purchase once you explain the mistake. Why would they? Because they want you to buy more apps from their store. That's ANOTHER benefit of competition vs the single store model: stores must also try to outdo each other on service to try to woo maximum business from any other stores that can also sell the same app... sometimes at lower prices.

As to long term support should some App Store close, if I'm the developer I offer support to whoever has purchased my app in whatever store it was purchased... including any stores that have since closed. On my Mac, I've purchased a number of apps from bundle deals from years ago and the developers still offer support of their apps.

Why would I be motivated to support an app sold in a store that no longer exists? Because I want my customers to be happy with my apps and the next version will give them the opportunity to upgrade and hopefully buy direct from my own store as a reward for good (support) service I've offered, even if they didn't buy the previous version directly from my own store.

 

[RHutch]

Because apple provides the developers with the tools to make the apps and the infustructre to get those apps to the users.
Car manufactures don't provide the tools to extract the oil or distribute it so your example is not relevant.

How many times are you going to miss the point? These other companies want to provide their own infrastructure and bear the expense of running their own alternative stores. The only reason they can’t is because Apple refuses to allow people to install software on phones that they have BOUGHT from these other potential distributors.

If your justification is that Apple provides the infrastructure, let others provide their own infrastructure. The fact that Apple sold people a phone should not mean that they can control every aspect of what those buyers do with their phones.

 

[RHutch]

Do all the people on here that think Apple should be able to block any other company from providing apps without Apple’s approval and getting a cut also think it is fine for HP to keep you from using ink from another manufacturer? By the logic of a few posters on this thread, other companies should not get to benefit from HP selling printers. HP printers needing ink is only possible because HP designed, manufactured, and sold those printers. So why should some other company benefit from that? Right? Is that not what you are claiming?

 

[Abazigal]

Do all the people on here that think Apple should be able to block any other company from providing apps without Apple’s approval and getting a cut also think it is fine for HP to keep you from using ink from another manufacturer? By the logic of a few posters on this thread, other companies should not get to benefit from HP selling printers. HP printers needing ink is only possible because HP designed, manufactured, and sold those printers. So why should some other company benefit from that? Right? Is that not what you are claiming?

To me, it's the same logic as me being able to purchase Nintendo switch games only from their digital store where developers have to pay Nintendo a 30% cut. It's not like game developers are able to offer the software for download directly from their own portal and get out of paying Nintendo.

Apple's IP, Apple's rules.

 

[sarc]

How many times are you going to miss the point? These other companies want to provide their own infrastructure and bear the expense of running their own alternative stores. The only reason they can’t is because Apple refuses to allow people to install software on phones that they have BOUGHT from these other potential distributors.

If your justification is that Apple provides the infrastructure, let others provide their own infrastructure. The fact that Apple sold people a phone should not mean that they can control every aspect of what those buyers do with their phones.

I am not missing any point. If you don't want to use apples api's and services than you can build your apps for android, Sony or Microsoft. If you want to build for Apple you need to comply with the rules they have for a platform they created. It's really not that hard to understand. If you want a free ride apple is not the answer.

And before you say the developers don't want a free ride. I've not see one example of how they would pay/compensate apple for all the developer api's, training and resources they provide free of charge. And they do provide it free of charge because until you want to distribute on the App Store you don't have to pay apple any fee.

 

[CarAnalogy]

He’s literally in the store right now for Fortnite. $20 for a skin and they can’t pay Apple 30% for billions of potential customers.

Oh I get it, I believe you. That's why I'm laughing. The whole thing is ****ing ridiculous.

 

[springsup]

There were minor victories for Epic along the way that some would say benefit developers, but even more so smaller developers.

I cannot imagine how much money Epic left on the table by pulling out of the App Store at that moment. Crazy.

Epic’s strategy has always been to take over distribution.

They’ve burned billions on EGS for PC, giving away free games and securing exclusives in an attempt to compete with Steam.

The Fortnite thing was just another chapter in that strategy. The ultimate prize has always been EGS for iOS. They’re not even letting the Core Technology Fee deter them (where even Microsoft and Facebook balked), and no doubt they will be just as aggressive competing with the iOS AppStore as they are against Steam on PC, burning even more billions in the process.

I really hope they don’t succeed. Unreal Engine already gives Epic an immense amount of power over other game developers; imagine what would happen if they were also gatekeepers over the biggest storefronts on every gaming platform? That’s their goal. The steps they have already taken and money they have spent should tell you that they’re serious about pursuing it.

 

[wbeasley]

Why would it spread?

Hopefully when this proves to be a waste of effort for 99% of the users, the whole thing will go away.

EU draft stuff without thinking things through. They like to think they can legislate everything. But leave loopholes because they didnt think of the details. "All devices need USB C port for charging". Ooops forgot to mention transfer speeds

 

[wbeasley]

Do all the people on here that think Apple should be able to block any other company from providing apps without Apple’s approval and getting a cut also think it is fine for HP to keep you from using ink from another manufacturer? By the logic of a few posters on this thread, other companies should not get to benefit from HP selling printers. HP printers needing ink is only possible because HP designed, manufactured, and sold those printers. So why should some other company benefit from that? Right? Is that not what you are claiming?

But HP and other companies set up a model to sell printers cheap to get the customer and then make up the loss selling ink. If you buy cheap ink elsewhere, they dont make up the shortfall. They include just enough ink or toner to get you started and ensure it works with your hardware.

An app store is nothing like the printer business.

 

[wbeasley]

Time will show us how well- or terribly- this will work. Until there is enough time, speculation is just one imagination against another.



How does Apple give you a refund after a year of owning an app? A few years ago, all of the 32-bit apps purchased from the Apple App Store would eliminated because Apple decided to no longer support them. I got no refund for any of them and MANY accumulated apps just basically ceased being available to me on my iDevices? Did I miss a long term refund opportunity from the one and only Apple store?

Else, I suspect people will be taking a risk buying apps from any source- especially if they have some expectation of support and refunds beyond 1 year of use. But since most apps are no more than a few dollars, I also suspect that most people don't have expectations of refunds beyond a year of use should some App Store cease to exist and/or offer such apps (as Apple did when they dumped ALL 32-bit apps (tens of thousands of them) at the same time).

Your 32 bit apps didnt stop working.
If you didnt upgrade your hardware then they would still operate exactly the same way.

How often have music formats changed?
They dont give you access to the new format for free.
And your old format music still plays on your old format player...

 

[svish]

Good for customers waiting to play the game.

 

[GizmoDVD]

Time will show us how well- or terribly- this will work. Until there is enough time, speculation is just one imagination against another.



How does Apple give you a refund after a year of owning an app? A few years ago, all of the 32-bit apps purchased from the Apple App Store would eliminated because Apple decided to no longer support them. I got no refund for any of them and MANY accumulated apps just basically ceased being available to me on my iDevices? Did I miss a long term refund opportunity from the one and only Apple store?

Else, I suspect people will be taking a risk buying apps from any source- especially if they have some expectation of support and refunds beyond 1 year of use. But since most apps are no more than a few dollars, I also suspect that most people don't have expectations of refunds beyond a year of use should some App Store cease to exist and/or offer such apps (as Apple did when they dumped ALL 32-bit apps (tens of thousands of them) at the same time).

Who forced you to upgrade operating systems? I’m not crying because my PS5 doesn’t play Laserdiscs, I just use my Laserdisc player.

 

[tehabe]

Because she thought she was tech savvy enough to install an app on her own, she bricked her phone.

Not everyone knows the risks.

How many kids are like that? Or teenagers? It certainly wont just be elderly people.

I've also supported both platform phone apps. Half of the middle aged users didnt know their App Store passwords!
Their kids install apps for them.

We should never assume the general public are as vested in security and risks as we are.

It is at the end a meaningless anecdote. 🤷‍♂️

 

[tehabe]

Furthermore I am defending my interests, not Apple's.

That is the weird thing. I mean, I have seen your avatar and all that. A lot of people are feeling in the walled Apple garden safe and secure and comfortable. And that there will be a place outside the walled garden which wouldn't always be safe and sound and pretty makes you afraid, afraid that things will come over the wall into your pretty and safe garden.

And the way Apple implements those rules also play into the narrative. Instead of imlementing is in a good faith and saying, everything is good, this won't comprimise iOS security, Apple is doing the exact opposite, emphazising that it is dangerous to walk outside the walled garden.

Apple could have make this good and safe and leave users the choice to have their devices in the walled garden, to be in the walled garden and outside and to be completely outside of the walls. That what a good company would have done. Make a thing which is apparently scary for some, less so. Apple had a choice, and they choose scare tacticts and doubt.

And that is what makes this discussion also deeply political. And this also why my ahistorical comaparison with feudalism is wrong and not helpful.

Apple tried to sell people an illusion of a clean, nice, perfect garden, which was a mall all along. It is time for Apple and iOS to come back into a walkable downtown, with green spaces, shops, third places, a lot of other things. yeah, it is not always clean. grafiti everywhere and not all shops are good. but your old shops are not gone, they are still there, still the quality and safety. There is nothing here what should you make afraid. Hey look even the sun is shining.

 

[Abazigal]

For those that care:

In August 2020, Fortnite was possibly at it's biggest point with the launch of a new season featuring some of the biggest Marvel characters (also at a time when Marvel - the MCU - was at its biggest). This is the moment that Epic played their hand. I really think they thought the power of both Fortnite and Marvel would compel Apple to fold.

It did not.

There were minor victories for Epic along the way that some would say benefit developers, but even more so smaller developers.

I cannot imagine how much money Epic left on the table by pulling out of the App Store at that moment. Crazy.

Epic's actions have never been about empowering or benefiting small developers. Their game plan has always been to get their own App Store onto iOS, where they can get host other developers' apps and charge them a commission. Different management, same rules.

This is why I felt their gamble was reckless. If Epic had won, the payoff would have been huge for them but otherwise meaningless for small developers who aren't in a position to manage their own App Store. But if Epic had lost (and they did), Apple would use their legal victory as proof of their unassailable victory over iOS and have no reason to make any further concessions to developers.

Epic is nobody's friend. From start to finish, their goal has always been to burn the existing App Store model to the ground, irrespective of the ramifications or the collateral damage to those around them.

 

[AppliedMicro]

This is why I felt their gamble was reckless. If Epic had won, the payoff would have been huge for them but otherwise meaningless for small developers who aren't in a position to manage their own App Store. But if Epic had lost (and they did), Apple would use their legal victory as proof of their unassailable victory over iOS and have no reason to make any further concessions to developers.

Someone needs to demonstrate Apple’s unassisted position to impose a tax on third parties to get legislators and regulators to take notice.

Epic is nobody's friend.

Considering their commission on their store is so much lower than Apple’s on popular apps, they’re certainly a developer’s and consumer’s friend. Lower transaction costs on distribution are good for developers and consumers.

From start to finish, their goal has always been to burn the existing App Store model to the ground, irrespective of the ramifications or the collateral damage to those around them.

Apple’s stranglehold on content and app distribution deserves to be burned to the ground.

They way Apple are imposing restrictions on what even can be said or linked in a developer’s app deserves no sympathy from me.

 

[Abazigal]

Considering their commission on their store is so much lower than Apple’s on popular apps, they’re certainly a developer’s and consumer’s friend. Lower transaction costs on distribution are good for developers and consumers.

My understanding is that for the longest time, the epic App Store has been a very barebones interface. Their search lacked rudimentary options, the client didn't have any meaningful way to manage your games, and it wasn't until a few years ago that users finally got email receipts for their purchases. I believe there was even a long-running joke at one time or another about Epic customers going to Steam forums for tech support.

It's easy to charge 12% when you are doing literally nothing to earn that. And I believe this doesn't include payment processing, which Apple automatically takes care off. So add that all up and you still get the same 15% that small developers are subject to under Apple.

It deserves to be burned to the ground.

The loss of the iOS App Store model would be a great loss for small developers who actually get to enjoy rather good terms under Apple. The only ones to benefit would be the larger companies like Epic, and I am not convinced things would be any better for the aforementioned group of developers (who supply the bulk of apps to the App Store).

Things would be different, but I am not convinced it would necessarily be better (especially for me as a consumer).

 

[bushman4]

Epic struck a deal with Disney this past week. EPIC wants exposure. Yet they are greedy and don’t want to pay what other developers are paying They want to beat Apple

 

[J___o___h___n]

I’ll be interested in seeing the pricing on Fortnite.

I can’t see Epic having lowers prices - even though they said they were making this stand for the little guy and consumer fairness 🤮

 

[AppliedMicro]

easy to charge 12% when you are doing literally nothing to earn that

…and outrageous to charge 30% (such as with a streaming provider that creates its own content and pays for its content delivery network themselves).

Yet they are greedy and don’t want to pay what other developers are paying They want to beat Apple

Or as we otherwise call it: competition. 😊

 

[kiv.atso]

Congratulations EU Apple people, on gaining the flexibility to enjoy apps on computing devices you own instead of a corporation deciding for you what you shall and shall not have on devices you own.

And congratulations on creating a more competitive environment for apps for your devices. As history has pretty much always shown, where there is competition, there are lower prices... along with a natural pressure to out-value competitors to woo buyers. Where there is no competition, there is no incentive to lower prices- in fact, it's just the opposite to maximize revenue & profit for the sole shopkeeper.

You will now have access to apps that some of us OUTSIDE of the EU would also love to enjoy on devices we own, not because those apps won't work on our iDevices too and not because they are loaded with bank-account-draining viruses created by crime syndicates to completely destroy lives... but because you have a new law that says you can have access to them and we have a corporation that says we can't. You'll have new stores where the creators of those apps can make a bit more for their work while potentially selling their apps to you for less, while we have a single store where the first in line at the profit trough is the ONE store owner, NOT the app developer. But obviously, our way is the superior way. We pay more, app developer makes less but maximizing for the ONE store owner is all that really matters.

You now have the ability to do with your iDevices what we've all been able to do with our Macs for all of the years we've owned Macs: buy Apps from more than a single source, including in deeply discounted app bundles. I would place bets that many of the people who will rail against this enhanced consumer freedom- again- probably has at least one app on their own Mac that they did NOT get from the Apple Mac App Store... if not many. But "we'll" rail anyway because the Corp doesn't want to lose its exclusive hold as the SOLE store and the very lucrative cash that comes from taking a great big bite out of every transaction within that single store... so "we" will always side with the Corp even over our own best interests as consumers. Fantastically profitable Corp knows better than the people who own the products... and deserves more than the developers who create & maintain the apps.

And cue up another 200 posts about the flood of viruses, trojans, locusts, frogs, plague, vermin and devastation about to rain upon the EU... because as we Mac owners know, that's exactly what it's been for us in all of these years of having the very same app choice flexibility in buying apps for our Macs. We've barely survived the relentless misery of that freedom and now you'll be dealing with the same on your iDevices.

As an American, I envy your greater freedoms of consumer choice. Enjoy them!

I couldn’t care less. I hope Epic goes down as a company. If I wanted this, I could have easily bought an Android phone. But no, the bureaucrats pushing this down my throat so that one day I might be forced to use a certain store to install a certain app for some mandatory procedure that might require biometric reading because Apple wouldn’t allow that app on App Store. Why on earth I would ever trust shoddy corps like Epic with this.
Why don’t all those who support this just leave iOS alone and get lost to the other side?