14 ms·

Following your logic, Fortnite's add-ons should clearly be free since the cost to make and sell them is minuscule in comparison to 400M Epic made in April alone

by bttrfl 6y ago

Following your logic, Fortnite's add-ons should clearly be free since the cost to make and sell them is minuscule in comparison to 400M Epic made in April alone [0]. [0] https://venturebeat.com/2020/06/15/epic-games-shareholders-seeking-to-sell-stake-for-750-million-at-17-billion-valuation/ https://venturebeat.com/2020/06/15/epic-games-shareholders-s...

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
naikrovek 6y ago
You may not know how to follow logic. No one is saying that Epic are doing bad things in order to maintain their monopoly position. Epic doesn't have a monopoly on any market. People ARE saying that Apple are doing bad things to maintain their monopoly position, and others are justifying that by saying that "running a business is expensive" as if that justifies a monopoly or monopolistic actions.
- czhiddy 6y ago
  If Apple has a monopoly on the iOS App Store market, then it follows that Epic has a monopoly on the Fortnite add-on market, right?
  - yuvalr1 6y ago
    The difference is that if Fortnite abuses its power, it is relatively easy to build another MMORPG competitor. If Apple abuses its power, it's practically impossible to build another mobile platform to compete today. Even Microsoft failed with that. The bottom line is that Fortnight can have practical competition (that for example offer 3rd party plugins or lower prices), while the iPhone only has Android as competition, which is taking the exact same 30% cut.
    - outworlder 6y ago
      > it is relatively easy to build another MMORPG competitor. Oh no it isn't. There are very few successful (and even fewer wildly successful) MMORPGs and countless failed attempts. Games are not really fungible. It's not like I'm going to go out of Fortnite to buy items in WoW instead and treat them as the same. They are two completely different markets. > The bottom line is that Fortnight can have practical competition (that for example offer 3rd party plugins or lower prices) No, unless things change, you need to use the Epic store.
      - dgoldstein0 6y ago
        Sure, but if the community got sick of Epic's walled fortnite garden, they can play other games. Could be WoW, could be Call of Duty, could be Pubg, could be the latest Mario. It doesn't really matter. Fortnite competes for your time with all other games, and the main thing keeping people there, besides basic enjoyment of the game, is that a lot of people play with their friends. And not many people will say that certain in app purchases are essential item (unlike, say, having an email app on your phone). iOS on the other hand has a single serious competitor, Android, and if you have an iPhone you can't install Android on it when you get mad at Apple - you need a whole new phone. From a developer's perspective, you would miss out on all the iPhone users if you ship and Android app and not an iOS one. In that sense, Apple has significant monopoly-like power over the app market; solidified by the fact that you can't just install Google play store and start downloading Android apps on your iPhone if you get fed up with Apple' App store. The switching costs are too high for most users to consider it, except when buying a new phone. A lot of this comes down to what a meaningful market is. E.g. Border's and Barnes and Noble learned the hard way that they were in the same market as online book selling - you couldn't usefully look at their book store models and ignore Amazon in the last ~decade.
  - sjy 6y ago
    No! This is explained right at the beginning of the article: > the question as to what is anticompetitive and what is simply good business changes as a business scales. A small business can generally be as anticompetitive as it wants to be, while a much larger business is much more constrained in how anticompetitively it can act The word “monopolize” is used in a specialised way in antitrust; it doesn’t encompass every exclusive right of sale, because that would disrupt many small businesses and law is intended to prevent huge businesses from dominating the economy.
    - scarface74 6y ago
      Can I buy and sell virtual items in Fortnite without giving Epic a cut?
      - kevingadd 6y ago
        Selling virtual items is not especially common due to the exposure it creates to fraud and abuse. Fortnite doesn't allow selling or trading - games that do like Team Fortress 2 and Counter-strike Go are home to lots of scammers who try to trick teens and other uninformed players into giving away their valuable loot :( Who are you going to buy from without giving Epic a cut? They're the only ones offering Fortnite items.
        scarface74 6y ago
        Selling virtual items is not especially common due to the exposure it creates to fraud and abuse. How is that argument any different than the one Apple is making?
        lwansbrough 6y ago
        Apple doesn't just require you use their payment processor - which might in theory be acceptable - they also demand 30 cents on every dollar. Payment providers everywhere have shown that fraud and abuse can be mitigated to an acceptable level with transaction fees as low as half a cent on the dollar. So Apple forces you into an agreement to use a payment processor that is 30-60x more expensive than the competition simply because they can.
- misnome 6y ago
  > Epic doesn't have a monopoly on any market. Epic has a monopoly on selling items inside Fortnite. The problem is that as soon as you allow narrowing your definition of words to whatever supports your argument, then they become meaningless.
  - LexGray 6y ago
    It would be amusing if the outcome of this is that Epic has to allow outside sources of content in their games instead of having it in a vBuck walled garden. I'm sure many developers would be happy get a part of a billion dollar a year market without paying Epic a cut. Imagine the irony of everyone running around Fortnite in Apple store branded loot.
  - three_seagrass 6y ago
    Players don't pay $500 just to play fortnite.
  - naikrovek 6y ago
    > Epic has a monopoly on selling items inside Fortnite. 3rd party artists can't create anything that can be used inside Fortnite, neither inside the v-bucks store nor outside of it. There's no 3rd party "market" at all. Apple has a market where third parties can market their apps. Apple requires a cut of all purchases made through that store, which alone is not monopolistic. Apple also requires that you sell your iOS app and any iOS in-app purchases only in their marketplace. That's the monopolistic part. No one can create 3rd party items for Fortnite at all, so there is no monopoly on where 3rd party items for Fortnite are sold. It's not even illegal to have a monopoly; it's illegal to use your monopoly powers to keep other parties from competing, and that's exactly what Apple has done.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - xuki 6y ago
      You can also buy vbucks outside of the App Store and use them on your iOS devices. I’m not sure what’s the distinction here.
- siruncledrew 6y ago
  Epic is not putting up some legal crusade for the “little guy” competitors. Epic is putting up a fight for Epic. It all comes down to money. If Epic was running their own platform, and 3rd parties didn’t want to abide by their rules, then Epic would give those 3rd parties the finger and tell them to F-off the same as Apple. Each is trying to grab as much profit as they can while running into the issue of other hands grabbing from the same basket. The classic case of one’s greed versus another’s desire to be greedy.
  - hamandcheese 6y ago
    > If Epic was running their own platform, and 3rd parties didn’t want to abide by their rules, then Epic would give those 3rd parties the finger and tell them to F-off the same as Apple. What exactly is your point here? If <entity> was in Apple's position, they would protect their interests exactly as Apple is. Thats why we need to regulate companies who are in Apple's position! The fact that its greed vs. greed is immaterial.
  - colinmhayes 6y ago
    You're right, but you're not. Yes, Epic is trying to make money. But if Epic is allowed to open their own store it would be very good for small developers. Those things aren't mutually exclusive.
    - jimmydorry 6y ago
      If they manage to land their store on iOS, expect them to do the same anti-competitive things they did in the PC market... paying studios to exclusively put their games on the Epic Store only. Even games fund raised by communities, and games already announced to be launching on other platforms. I don't see that as much of a win.
      - colinmhayes 6y ago
        That sounds like a gigantic win for developers to me.
- scarface74 6y ago
  But you did say that Apple should lower costs because their marginal cost is $0. The same is true for Epic.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- m3kw9 6y ago
  Even if Apple lower their price their market position is still the same, vertically integrated at massive scale.
- coded 6y ago
  “You may not know how to follow logic.” Regardless of the context, this is so good and hilarious on so many levels. Meme worthy! I’m going to have to try to work this quote into a conversation.
cromwellian 6y ago
Games have a limited shelf life. I don’t really care about Epic. Fortnite won’t be around much longer when the next big game du jour comes out. Whether or not Epic charges for their store is immaterial to whether one of the largest and most important general purpose computing platforms in the world is performing highway robbery.
- cromwellian 6y ago
  Not really sure why people are voting this down. It's self evident that Fortnite's "platform" is far more ephemeral than iOS. Team Fortress 2 is probably an example of a skins market that has been around the longest (since 2007), but very few games last this long and run a market that is still selling a lot.
  - nemothekid 6y ago
    This line of thinking is very reminiscent of “Facebook won’t be around much longer, it will be gone like MySpace”, many people still believe that as FB is now one of the most valuable companies in the world. There is no reason to believe this will be true. Grand Theft Auto V is now 7 years old at this point and has seen 2 almost 3 console generations as generates an incredible amount of money for TakeTwo. The longevity of these platforms have clearly changed
    - user5994461 6y ago
      Facebook is indeed not around much anymore, users have moved to Instagram. In fact I can't remember the last time I've seen someone under 30 using Facebook. Give it 10 years and there will be again another large social network. Teenagers won't be on the same network as their parents.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- gsich 6y ago
  I hear this argument often, but there are counterexamples like Minecraft, CSGO, World of Warcraft (one of the few MMOs that still have a subscription). So it's entirely possible that Fortnite will stay.
myhf 6y ago
V-bucks should be banned completely, along with all other illegal gambling.
- acomjean 6y ago
  I don't follow. The game is free, "V-bucks" you buy, I think you just get character/weapon skins that aren't required. I don't love the setup, but since kids are hanging out on fortnite having it free lets everyone who wants into that world.
  - three_seagrass 6y ago
    I think they're referring to swapping in funny money to obfuscate customer ability to estimate the costs. It's similar to how slot machines require tokens, but I don't think that's quite gambling. The gambling part comes in with loot boxes, where you're essentially paying to roll the dice to get something of value.
    - jpindar 6y ago
      Fortnite doesn't have loot boxes.
      - zapzupnz 6y ago
        GP didn't say that Fortnite has loot boxes; they used loot boxes as a point of comparison with actual gambling.
      - chucky_z 6y ago
        what about those pinatas? are those still in the game? that's very much a loot box if so.
        jpindar 6y ago
        You mean the things that fall from the sky in the game? You don't pay for them, and the stuff in them only lasts for that one game.
SmallDeadGuy 6y ago
Fortnite is free. They release patches to the game weekly, with major patches every month or so, which are also free. The _only_ revenue stream in fortnite is cosmetic skins, which as a player you could ignore entirely and still play 100% of the game. In fact, you can earn small handfuls of the premium currency every season, which actually allowed people to purchase premium skins or the "battle pass" with currency obtained for free. There is no comparison to be made with Apple, who won't let you do a thing on the app store without giving them money.
- cwhiz 6y ago
  Epic won’t let you do anything inside the Fortnite store. Literally nothing at all. Seems quite anticompetitive to not allow me to upload and sell skins to compete with the official ones. This is the problem with making absurd monopoly arguments. If you redefine monopoly in such a ridiculous way, almost every company is a monopoly.

by bttrfl 6y ago

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

naikrovek 6y ago

You may not know how to follow logic. No one is saying that Epic are doing bad things in order to maintain their monopoly position. Epic doesn't have a monopoly on any market. People ARE saying that Apple are doing bad things to maintain their monopoly position, and others are justifying that by saying that "running a business is expensive" as if that justifies a monopoly or monopolistic actions.

czhiddy 6y ago
If Apple has a monopoly on the iOS App Store market, then it follows that Epic has a monopoly on the Fortnite add-on market, right?
- yuvalr1 6y ago
  The difference is that if Fortnite abuses its power, it is relatively easy to build another MMORPG competitor. If Apple abuses its power, it's practically impossible to build another mobile platform to compete today. Even Microsoft failed with that. The bottom line is that Fortnight can have practical competition (that for example offer 3rd party plugins or lower prices), while the iPhone only has Android as competition, which is taking the exact same 30% cut.
  - outworlder 6y ago
    > it is relatively easy to build another MMORPG competitor. Oh no it isn't. There are very few successful (and even fewer wildly successful) MMORPGs and countless failed attempts. Games are not really fungible. It's not like I'm going to go out of Fortnite to buy items in WoW instead and treat them as the same. They are two completely different markets. > The bottom line is that Fortnight can have practical competition (that for example offer 3rd party plugins or lower prices) No, unless things change, you need to use the Epic store.
    - dgoldstein0 6y ago
      Sure, but if the community got sick of Epic's walled fortnite garden, they can play other games. Could be WoW, could be Call of Duty, could be Pubg, could be the latest Mario. It doesn't really matter. Fortnite competes for your time with all other games, and the main thing keeping people there, besides basic enjoyment of the game, is that a lot of people play with their friends. And not many people will say that certain in app purchases are essential item (unlike, say, having an email app on your phone). iOS on the other hand has a single serious competitor, Android, and if you have an iPhone you can't install Android on it when you get mad at Apple - you need a whole new phone. From a developer's perspective, you would miss out on all the iPhone users if you ship and Android app and not an iOS one. In that sense, Apple has significant monopoly-like power over the app market; solidified by the fact that you can't just install Google play store and start downloading Android apps on your iPhone if you get fed up with Apple' App store. The switching costs are too high for most users to consider it, except when buying a new phone. A lot of this comes down to what a meaningful market is. E.g. Border's and Barnes and Noble learned the hard way that they were in the same market as online book selling - you couldn't usefully look at their book store models and ignore Amazon in the last ~decade.
- sjy 6y ago
  No! This is explained right at the beginning of the article: > the question as to what is anticompetitive and what is simply good business changes as a business scales. A small business can generally be as anticompetitive as it wants to be, while a much larger business is much more constrained in how anticompetitively it can act The word “monopolize” is used in a specialised way in antitrust; it doesn’t encompass every exclusive right of sale, because that would disrupt many small businesses and law is intended to prevent huge businesses from dominating the economy.
  - scarface74 6y ago
    Can I buy and sell virtual items in Fortnite without giving Epic a cut?
    - kevingadd 6y ago
      Selling virtual items is not especially common due to the exposure it creates to fraud and abuse. Fortnite doesn't allow selling or trading - games that do like Team Fortress 2 and Counter-strike Go are home to lots of scammers who try to trick teens and other uninformed players into giving away their valuable loot :( Who are you going to buy from without giving Epic a cut? They're the only ones offering Fortnite items.
      - scarface74 6y ago
        Selling virtual items is not especially common due to the exposure it creates to fraud and abuse. How is that argument any different than the one Apple is making?
        lwansbrough 6y ago
        Apple doesn't just require you use their payment processor - which might in theory be acceptable - they also demand 30 cents on every dollar. Payment providers everywhere have shown that fraud and abuse can be mitigated to an acceptable level with transaction fees as low as half a cent on the dollar. So Apple forces you into an agreement to use a payment processor that is 30-60x more expensive than the competition simply because they can.
misnome 6y ago
> Epic doesn't have a monopoly on any market. Epic has a monopoly on selling items inside Fortnite. The problem is that as soon as you allow narrowing your definition of words to whatever supports your argument, then they become meaningless.
- LexGray 6y ago
  It would be amusing if the outcome of this is that Epic has to allow outside sources of content in their games instead of having it in a vBuck walled garden. I'm sure many developers would be happy get a part of a billion dollar a year market without paying Epic a cut. Imagine the irony of everyone running around Fortnite in Apple store branded loot.
- three_seagrass 6y ago
  Players don't pay $500 just to play fortnite.
- naikrovek 6y ago
  > Epic has a monopoly on selling items inside Fortnite. 3rd party artists can't create anything that can be used inside Fortnite, neither inside the v-bucks store nor outside of it. There's no 3rd party "market" at all. Apple has a market where third parties can market their apps. Apple requires a cut of all purchases made through that store, which alone is not monopolistic. Apple also requires that you sell your iOS app and any iOS in-app purchases only in their marketplace. That's the monopolistic part. No one can create 3rd party items for Fortnite at all, so there is no monopoly on where 3rd party items for Fortnite are sold. It's not even illegal to have a monopoly; it's illegal to use your monopoly powers to keep other parties from competing, and that's exactly what Apple has done.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - xuki 6y ago
    You can also buy vbucks outside of the App Store and use them on your iOS devices. I’m not sure what’s the distinction here.
siruncledrew 6y ago
Epic is not putting up some legal crusade for the “little guy” competitors. Epic is putting up a fight for Epic. It all comes down to money. If Epic was running their own platform, and 3rd parties didn’t want to abide by their rules, then Epic would give those 3rd parties the finger and tell them to F-off the same as Apple. Each is trying to grab as much profit as they can while running into the issue of other hands grabbing from the same basket. The classic case of one’s greed versus another’s desire to be greedy.
- hamandcheese 6y ago
  > If Epic was running their own platform, and 3rd parties didn’t want to abide by their rules, then Epic would give those 3rd parties the finger and tell them to F-off the same as Apple. What exactly is your point here? If <entity> was in Apple's position, they would protect their interests exactly as Apple is. Thats why we need to regulate companies who are in Apple's position! The fact that its greed vs. greed is immaterial.
- colinmhayes 6y ago
  You're right, but you're not. Yes, Epic is trying to make money. But if Epic is allowed to open their own store it would be very good for small developers. Those things aren't mutually exclusive.
  - jimmydorry 6y ago
    If they manage to land their store on iOS, expect them to do the same anti-competitive things they did in the PC market... paying studios to exclusively put their games on the Epic Store only. Even games fund raised by communities, and games already announced to be launching on other platforms. I don't see that as much of a win.
    - colinmhayes 6y ago
      That sounds like a gigantic win for developers to me.
scarface74 6y ago
But you did say that Apple should lower costs because their marginal cost is $0. The same is true for Epic.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
m3kw9 6y ago
Even if Apple lower their price their market position is still the same, vertically integrated at massive scale.
coded 6y ago
“You may not know how to follow logic.” Regardless of the context, this is so good and hilarious on so many levels. Meme worthy! I’m going to have to try to work this quote into a conversation.

cromwellian 6y ago

Games have a limited shelf life. I don’t really care about Epic. Fortnite won’t be around much longer when the next big game du jour comes out. Whether or not Epic charges for their store is immaterial to whether one of the largest and most important general purpose computing platforms in the world is performing highway robbery.

cromwellian 6y ago
Not really sure why people are voting this down. It's self evident that Fortnite's "platform" is far more ephemeral than iOS. Team Fortress 2 is probably an example of a skins market that has been around the longest (since 2007), but very few games last this long and run a market that is still selling a lot.
- nemothekid 6y ago
  This line of thinking is very reminiscent of “Facebook won’t be around much longer, it will be gone like MySpace”, many people still believe that as FB is now one of the most valuable companies in the world. There is no reason to believe this will be true. Grand Theft Auto V is now 7 years old at this point and has seen 2 almost 3 console generations as generates an incredible amount of money for TakeTwo. The longevity of these platforms have clearly changed
  - user5994461 6y ago
    Facebook is indeed not around much anymore, users have moved to Instagram. In fact I can't remember the last time I've seen someone under 30 using Facebook. Give it 10 years and there will be again another large social network. Teenagers won't be on the same network as their parents.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
gsich 6y ago
I hear this argument often, but there are counterexamples like Minecraft, CSGO, World of Warcraft (one of the few MMOs that still have a subscription). So it's entirely possible that Fortnite will stay.

myhf 6y ago

V-bucks should be banned completely, along with all other illegal gambling.

acomjean 6y ago
I don't follow. The game is free, "V-bucks" you buy, I think you just get character/weapon skins that aren't required. I don't love the setup, but since kids are hanging out on fortnite having it free lets everyone who wants into that world.
- three_seagrass 6y ago
  I think they're referring to swapping in funny money to obfuscate customer ability to estimate the costs. It's similar to how slot machines require tokens, but I don't think that's quite gambling. The gambling part comes in with loot boxes, where you're essentially paying to roll the dice to get something of value.
  - jpindar 6y ago
    Fortnite doesn't have loot boxes.
    - zapzupnz 6y ago
      GP didn't say that Fortnite has loot boxes; they used loot boxes as a point of comparison with actual gambling.
    - chucky_z 6y ago
      what about those pinatas? are those still in the game? that's very much a loot box if so.
      - jpindar 6y ago
        You mean the things that fall from the sky in the game? You don't pay for them, and the stuff in them only lasts for that one game.

SmallDeadGuy 6y ago

Fortnite is free. They release patches to the game weekly, with major patches every month or so, which are also free. The _only_ revenue stream in fortnite is cosmetic skins, which as a player you could ignore entirely and still play 100% of the game. In fact, you can earn small handfuls of the premium currency every season, which actually allowed people to purchase premium skins or the "battle pass" with currency obtained for free. There is no comparison to be made with Apple, who won't let you do a thing on the app store without giving them money.

cwhiz 6y ago
Epic won’t let you do anything inside the Fortnite store. Literally nothing at all. Seems quite anticompetitive to not allow me to upload and sell skins to compete with the official ones. This is the problem with making absurd monopoly arguments. If you redefine monopoly in such a ridiculous way, almost every company is a monopoly.