Fortnite to Return to iOS in Europe Following App Store Changes

[Krizoitz]

Apple needs all the good games it can get.

Why? Apple is one of/the most successful companies in the world. They don’t need Fortnite.

They hate gamers.

No they don’t. You are confusing not prioritizing gamers vs hating. Not remotely the same.

Gaming is a huge market without Apple.

So why does Apple need more games then? The market is fine without them and Apple is fine without being heavily in the games market. Gamers can play Fortnite on any number of platforms. No one is suffering here except Tim Sweeney, well his ego and bank account.

If they can't make money off them they really could care less about gaming.

Imagine that, a for profit company being motivated by making money.

 

[@Brett]

Apple needs all the good games it can get. They hate gamers. Gaming is a huge market without Apple. If they can't make money off them they really could care less about gaming.

Apple does not hate gamers. Pivoting more towards. And Fortnite is rubbish and Tim Sweeney is just greedy. We are talking layoffs due to all the money he is spending on legal. They all want a free ride on apple
software and hardware. None of these devs seem to realize that their apps and software require someone’s else’s devices to be useful.

 

[Born2Run]

i wish Fortnite and Epic Games could be taken into the woods and shot point blank in the head… Put that stupid crybaby company out of its misery and make everyone happy!

 

[Chuckeee]

Apple needs all the good games it can get.

Yes but Fortnite is not very good at all

 

[FrancoisC]

Good for the fans of the game. Me I dont care but many people will be happy

 

[mrochester]

Will they be bringing Fortnight back to the Apple App Store so that consumers can choose where to get the app from?

 

[iOS Geek]

Nothing about lower prices for the consumer

Strange. There were so many posts from people on MR saying side loading would be a win for consumers because we'd get lower prices since they don't have to pay 30% to Apple anymore! Oops...

 

[Think|Different]

I physically recoil when I see and read tweets from Tim Sweeney. Beyond obnoxious and pompous.

 

[MadDawg2020]

That Core Technology Fee is BS and I hope the EU forces Apple to knock it off. We the consumers pay Apple's Core Technology Fee when we buy expensive devices at 35-45% markup. That's enough.

What ‘35/45% markup??

If you match up any Apple device against a similarly speced and equipped one from Samsung or Dell or whoever - they prices will be more of less the same!
A top of the line iPhone cost the same as a top tier Android and so on down the line.

 

[djphat2000]

How will Apple know how many installs an app by a 3rd party has? Let’s say I want to rely on a 3rd party store (I personally won’t) and don’t want my data to be shared with Apple in the name of privacy like this should be between me (the customer) and the vendor (the 3rd party store) ESPECIALLY as someone living in privacy „paranoid“ Germany.

This is just spitballing here, I personally don’t care and have no need for other stores

I'm sure they will have a counter and a valid list of "store" that it will check against on device (OS). So you download (not you or me, but someone) a 3rd party store. It will validate the certificate and check where it's from etc. Once that is confirmed. It will count that as a download of the store and forward the validation to the store owner to PAY UP.
It doesn't care about what you download from the store per se. Just that you did, and from where. That its valid and charge the store owner.

 

[MadDawg2020]

So Epic will be lowering their prices by 30% as a result of the savings they get by bypassing the legitimate App Store, RIGHT?

 

[hans1972]

How will Apple know how many installs an app by a 3rd party has? Let’s say I want to rely on a 3rd party store (I personally won’t) and don’t want my data to be shared with Apple in the name of privacy like this should be between me (the customer) and the vendor (the 3rd party store) ESPECIALLY as someone living in privacy „paranoid“ Germany.

This is just spitballing here, I personally don’t care and have no need for other stores

The iPhone will report to Apple the apps you have installed. It can even be done anonymously since Apple won't need to know which user has downloaded an app.

 

[Gabebear]

I want Sweeny to say if the new iOS rules are better than what they get from Nintendo/Sony.

I'm guessing the iOS rules are more favorable than Sony's Playstation Store... and he's mostly not bashing console app stores because Sony owns a large chunk of Epic.

 

[dynamojoe]

The good news is that Europe gets to be the petri dish to see how good or bad sideloading is. Bad actors will certainly do their best to exploit this new avenue to millions of users. Either sideloading will be proven to be a safe and good thing or Apple gets to say "i told you so!", and I don't get perpetually nagged to install a store to get a single app (until the US follows suit).

 

[jz0309]

That Core Technology Fee is BS and I hope the EU forces Apple to knock it off. We the consumers pay Apple's Core Technology Fee when we buy expensive devices at 35-45% markup. That's enough.

I suppose you do not really look at the margins that Apple reports each quarter ...
and sure, Apple just provides the platform for free and sells you devices "at cost" like every good EU company does

 

[jz0309]

sure Epic, continue to sue - your track record though ...
And, yes, YOU the Epic users are paying the legal fees ...

 

[GhostRaider]

Well even if the US isn’t able to get Fortnite, the fact that we have native support for cloud gaming with GeForce Now and Xbox Cloud is still a win so yes you still can play Fortnite just in the cloud for now.

 

[GMShadow]

Honest question: is Fortnite even still relevant or popular these days?

Felt like it was on its way out years ago, but I confess I never cared to try the game because wasn't my cup of tea.

I also will never understand this man's obsession with putting his leech of a company on Apple hardware.

It's still around and popular enough, but it's no longer growing and one of the reason Epic's been losing money and laying people off is their customer retention costs are rapidly rising. The fact that their competitors remained on mobile app stores was not exactly great for their finances, but the decline was also inevitable.

 

[neuropsychguy]

I suppose you do not really look at the margins that Apple reports each quarter ...
and sure, Apple just provides the platform for free and sells you devices "at cost" like every good EU company does

35-45% is the range for Apple’s margins. Apple’s hardware gross margins are about 36%. Services margins are about 70%. Overall margins are about 45%. Now, that’s gross margins but the commenter was roughly correct about that.

Net margins for Apple are 26%, however.

 

[emmab2006]

Well done UK on leaving the E.U . Real good choice

 

[springsup]

An Epic Games Store for iOS has been Sweeney's wet dream for at least a decade. Epic sees an opportunity to basically become their own platform -- Unreal Engine games, distributed on Epic's own store, with royalty incentives for exclusive distribution so Epic end dominating and profiting from all aspects of the market. Games are by far the most profitable kind of software. Anybody who thinks Tim Sweeney and Epic are looking out for anything other than their own interests is seriously naive.

He should be scared though, because if regulators are able to go after Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Amazon, they won't be afraid to break up Epic.

 

[erikkfi]

What ‘35/45% markup??

If you match up any Apple device against a similarly speced and equipped one from Samsung or Dell or whoever - they prices will be more of less the same!
A top of the line iPhone cost the same as a top tier Android and so on down the line.

Margin percentages aside, if it's good enough on Mac, it's good enough on iPhone. Apple gets no "core technology fee" from thousands of developers of successful Mac apps and they don't deserve one for iOS apps. This is plainly stupid.

 

[Sevendaymelee]

This whole thing is absolutely disgusting, imo. Crocked bureaucrats telling companies what they can and can't do for the sake of their own lobbying funds. If I had been in charge, I'd have pulled the plug on the entire EU and called their bluff. I'd have appealed to the general public ahead of time, and told them that unless their leaders saw reason, they would be losing access to all new Apple products, indefinitely. Then, when the leaders backed down (because you know they would), I'd have changed what needed to be changed and the world would be a better place for it.

But, no.

Cause Cook.

 

[Joshuaorange]

Guess Epic is getting the last laugh. At least in the EU.

This could be the start of a game of dominoes.

Epic lost potentially billions of dollars already. They aren’t getting the last anything.

 

[springsup]

This whole thing is absolutely disgusting, imo. Crocked bureaucrats telling companies what they can and can't do for the sake of their own lobbying funds. If I had been in charge, I'd have pulled the plug on the entire EU and called their bluff. I'd have appealed to the general public ahead of time, and told them that unless their leaders saw reason, they would be losing access to all new Apple products, indefinitely. Then, when the leaders backed down (because you know they would), I'd have changed what needed to be changed and the world would be a better place for it.

But, no.

Cause Cook.

No — one of the biggest corporations on Earth making threats to avoid government oversight would not go down as well with the public as you think it would.

Regardless of what you think of the regulations, that’s not a winning strategy. It would rally people in favour of the regulators, and any politician who “backed down” in the face of those threats would have forever lost any credibility.