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Forums - Gaming - Apple removes Fortnite from app store, cant connect to servers. Epic Games Sues.

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Last edited by DeletedAccount3 - on 25 August 2020

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LurkerJ said:
padib said:

Nintendo's overall marketshare for games is too small relatively speaking. Also, iOS is a multi-function OS, so it encompasses everything from Productivity apps to leasure software.

In other words, you're drawing lines where it's convenient for you to draw them?

If anything, the fact that iOS allows you to do a lot more than just gaming and without charging the consumers or the developers most of the time, makes iOS a lot friendlier environment to developers than eShop.

  • Apps that are free to you aren’t charged by Apple.
  • Apps that earn revenue exclusively through advertising — like free games & Youtube — aren’t charged by Apple.
  • App business transactions where users sign up or purchase digital goods outside the app aren’t charged by Apple (including Spotify).
  • Apps that sell physical goods — including ride-hailing and food delivery services, to name a few — aren’t charged by Apple
  • 84 percent of the apps in the App Store pay nothing to Apple when you download or use the app

And again, this laser-focus criticism of Apple when they only have less than 25% market share globally makes no sense whatsoever.

To clarify, I don't believe the Switch is a monopoly for creating the sole exciting handheld environment that devs profit from, because that environment wouldn't have existed without their product in the first place. 

Except that this is patently false. One of the reasons the xCloud and Stadia apps fell through was because of this. Then there are less high profile cases like LMG's Floatplane having to discontinue the app for the same reason. 

The other as emulation, which made jack-all since the product is just an streaming interface and then was, well, rating... which makes less sense when you take into account that this is an online service and online interactions cannot be rated. 



I think it is going to be very hard for anyone to prove Apple has a monopoly. Android is a big competitor that holds a large market share. Neither even comes close to the most commonly cited example of Microsoft. They were somewhere in the 90%+ range.

The other issue, is that it is not actually illegal to have a monopoly. It is only illegal to abuse a monopoly to gain an advantage. Considering the 30% fee is standard across multiple digital stores, and Apple has never raised their price, I am not sure where the abuse is.



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theRepublic said:
I think it is going to be very hard for anyone to prove Apple has a monopoly. Android is a big competitor that holds a large market share. Neither even comes close to the most commonly cited example of Microsoft. They were somewhere in the 90%+ range.

The other issue, is that it is not actually illegal to have a monopoly. It is only illegal to abuse a monopoly to gain an advantage. Considering the 30% fee is standard across multiple digital stores, and Apple has never raised their price, I am not sure where the abuse is.

The abuse is closing their OS to sideloaded applications and distribution services. If you could load up Cydia or AltStore by downloading a profile from the Internet, tap away a couple warnings and switches and then run everything Apple wouldn't sell to you, then this case would be complete bullshit as the judge could just say "make your own store" and tell people to download it from their site. 

The main difference between console and iPhone being that console game making tools are essentially tied to MS, whereas making an .ipa file is not any harder than making an .apk 

So loading a second store into a XBO is impossible because then the hardware wouldn't even run the games designed for it. Sideloading an .ipa into iOS would be easy if instead of revoking the ability of people to do so, they allowed end users to sideload normally like they do on Android after pestering them not to. 



Apple is in a stronger position than Android or MS Windows, because it owns HW, FW and OS, just like a console maker. Android and Windows OTOH are just pieces of SW, albeit very important, PC makers, or DIY end users, put together with HW and other SW, the resulting systems were eventually recognised by laws and judgements to be essentially born free and as open as possible, without the makers of any part allowed to seize total control of the marketplace.
Anyhow, if it happened that judges determined iPhone is too big to be treated as a simple competitor regarding antitrust laws, then its monopoly on marketplace could be questioned. But Epic challenging the current situation with a blatant breach of contract, furthermore done not for a free market, but for its own closed marketplace, isn't doing any favour to the freedom front.



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Ka-pi96 said:
padib said:

Apple is monopolistic, of that there is no doubt.

The problem is that this case gives Apple more ground to behave how it already does.

Apple is no saint, but Epic is handing them legitimacy on a silver platter. No one company should have so much control over the usage of software over such a large portion of the population, and be allowed to enforce such strict rules that gauge money out of those forced to use their platform, and forces competition out of the race.

There's an issue with Apple, the government is already on the case of all big IT companies (there was a hearing at the beginning of the month). This case with Epic is just making things worse for consumers, because in the end it just means we pay more and more goes into Apple's pockets and, over the long run, we have less options due to less competition.

My problem with this is that there's literally not a single person that's "forced to use their platform". Even if you "had" to have a phone there are other options than getting an Apple one.

Plus I know you're talking about the US government and I don't know how it is over there, but as a Brit I know the UK government wouldn't have a leg to stand on if they were to criticise Apple for this since they're much worse when it comes to monopolies (TVs), have no competition unlike Apple, and will send you to jail if you don't pay them while Apple won't/can't do anything if you don't pay them.

I don't really see how this Apple winning would make things worse for consumers though. It would just maintain the status quo, no? Apple would still get their 30% cut, just like they always have. The competition would be pretty much unaffected either way too, so why would things be worse?

In capitalism things do tend to get worse by default. Maintaining the status quo means things are getting worse. The only things that keep things at least a bit balanced are infrequent interference by the law to reign in monopolistic and immoral behavior. So yeah, if Apple gets a clean win here things will get worse, just like they always do.

Then we have to wait for the next entity to try and take them to court.



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Ka-pi96 said:
vivster said:

In capitalism things do tend to get worse by default. Maintaining the status quo means things are getting worse. The only things that keep things at least a bit balanced are infrequent interference by the law to reign in monopolistic and immoral behavior. So yeah, if Apple gets a clean win here things will get worse, just like they always do.

Then we have to wait for the next entity to try and take them to court.


That's definitely not true. Things can only get worse by changing. Getting worse IS a change. They can't get worse (or better) unless something changes.

I wouldn't call corporations' ongoing revenue optimizations "change". It's the same they did 100 years ago, it's natural progress. I wouldn't necessarily call it a "change" when Apple switches to 8 year old child laborers from 10 year old child laborers because they're slightly cheaper and last longer. But if you want to go semantics, let's call what corporations do unhindered "passive change" because it happens naturally if we want to or not. And let's call changes in the law "active change" because someone has to actually do something for things to change.

Basically unchecked capitalism will always get worse if no one does anything against it.

Last edited by vivster - on 26 August 2020

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