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Odd, HN usually hates middlemen tacking on additional costs and 30% is an unjustifiably deep cut by any measure. Your Apple and Android apps could be 20% cheap

Odd, HN usually hates middlemen tacking on additional costs and 30% is an unjustifiably deep cut by any measure. Your Apple and Android apps could be 20% cheaper than they are now. Your Steam games could have 20% more going to the developers, software creators just like you and I, to enable more people to make a living by creating indie games. If Epic wants to dent the walled garden app store model, more power to them.

maydemir 6y ago
Yes, you're right. Apple charges a lot of commission. But Epic Games accepted this rule and entered the store. And Epic can't make changes without a deal with Apple. If Apple accepts this, it should do so for all apps. And it goes into 30% loss.
- screpy 6y ago
  Yes, but everyone knows that Apple charges a lot of commission now.
  - scarface74 6y ago
    Apple has been charging 30% since 2003 with the iTunes Store. This is no secret.
Someone 6y ago
I think the App market is like that of pop songs: a few developers make lots of money, a few make decent money for a short time, and most of them think they are working on a career but are lucky if they can scrape by. Main reason, I think, is the same in both industries: more people have the ability for the craft than are needed to satisfy demand, and they’re willing to do it for peanuts and/or tricking themselves to think success and, with it, monetary compensation, will eventually come their way. And compared to the music industry, 30% doesn’t seem that bad. https://www.rollingstone.com/pro/news/music-artists-make-12-percent-from-music-sales-706746/ https://www.rollingstone.com/pro/news/music-artists-make-12-...: “Musicians Get Only 12 Percent of the Money the Music Industry Makes” So, are musicians being preyed upon by the music industry, or is selling music harder work than making music? I would think it’s a bit of both. I also think that applies to apps, too.
- ThrowawayR2 6y ago
  > "And compared to the music industry, 30% doesn’t seem that bad." I don't really think pointing that other professions have it worse is a justification for abuses in our own.
fatbird 6y ago
Or app developers raise their prices by 20% since they already know the price point at which people will buy their app.
- imtringued 6y ago
  The price was already carefully chosen and will stay the same so they get 20% extra. There is no need to raise the price.
  - fatbird 6y ago
    Right: I was responding to the parent's assertion that dropping Apple's cut from 30% to 10% would result in a 20% drop in the price of the app. As you observe, the developer would just keep the extra 20%. Maybe as a consumer, that's valuable because it means greater incentives to create apps, but honestly, there's no shortage of apps today. The problem isn't an inability to make money on the app store such that dropping Apple's cut would change the landscape significantly.
ben_w 6y ago
I’m old enough to remember when 30% was a good deal, especially when the market was dominated by $0.99 apps and they cover your hosting bandwidth. What are hosting/bandwidth fees like for an app this size anyway?
manfredo 6y ago
I'm less leery about steam since they have competition: Origin, Epic Games Store, GoG, Microsoft play store, and just releasing the game yourself (plenty of studios actually do this, spiderweb software, paradox, to name a couple). Apple's situation is more like if Windows decided that all apps running on windows need to pay a 30% cut. The term "App Store" is misleading: it's not a store, if your application isn't in the app store there is no legitimate way of running the app on an iPhone or iPad.
imtringued 6y ago
You're contradicting yourself. You can't make the games 20% cheaper and give 20% more to developers. Since the developers get to pick they will just keep that portion. There is no benefit to consumers. Indie developers aren't struggling because their game made 25k instead of 30k. Steam offers a discount to publishers for games exceeding a certain amount of revenue so the ones who would most benefit from lower fees are already getting them. Since game companies can't know how much revenue they will generate they can't lower their pricing ahead of time. Again all the saved money is going to the publisher with no benefit for the consumer. You're also ignoring that not every copy of a game on steam was actually acquired by paying the 30%. You can kiss Humble Bundle and their Humble Store goodbye because they are using Steam infrastructure without paying for it. It's not really black and white. You can't say that lower fees are better in every case because they involve different trade offs. The cheapest product on the market is rarely the best.
- nodamage 6y ago
  That is a very good point. If Epic wants to argue that consumer welfare is harmed by the 30% commission then they are going to have to show evidence that a reduced commission would actually be passed onto the consumer. If the developers are likely to pocket the difference then they've only shown that the developers are being affected by the 30%, not the end consumer.
- ThrowawayR2 6y ago
  > "You can't make the games 20% cheaper and give 20% more to developers." I'd have thought it would be self-evident from the phrasing that that two separate possible scenarios were being described. > "Since the developers get to pick they will just keep that portion." Being that HN is mostly developers, few here will regard that as anything other than a good thing. It's a particularly good thing among indie games developers, the majority nowadays, where the risk is high and the rewards usually slim.

maydemir 6y ago

Yes, you're right. Apple charges a lot of commission. But Epic Games accepted this rule and entered the store. And Epic can't make changes without a deal with Apple. If Apple accepts this, it should do so for all apps. And it goes into 30% loss.

screpy 6y ago
Yes, but everyone knows that Apple charges a lot of commission now.
- scarface74 6y ago
  Apple has been charging 30% since 2003 with the iTunes Store. This is no secret.

Someone 6y ago

I think the App market is like that of pop songs: a few developers make lots of money, a few make decent money for a short time, and most of them think they are working on a career but are lucky if they can scrape by. Main reason, I think, is the same in both industries: more people have the ability for the craft than are needed to satisfy demand, and they’re willing to do it for peanuts and/or tricking themselves to think success and, with it, monetary compensation, will eventually come their way. And compared to the music industry, 30% doesn’t seem that bad. https://www.rollingstone.com/pro/news/music-artists-make-12-percent-from-music-sales-706746/ https://www.rollingstone.com/pro/news/music-artists-make-12-...: “Musicians Get Only 12 Percent of the Money the Music Industry Makes” So, are musicians being preyed upon by the music industry, or is selling music harder work than making music? I would think it’s a bit of both. I also think that applies to apps, too.

ThrowawayR2 6y ago
> "And compared to the music industry, 30% doesn’t seem that bad." I don't really think pointing that other professions have it worse is a justification for abuses in our own.

fatbird 6y ago

Or app developers raise their prices by 20% since they already know the price point at which people will buy their app.

imtringued 6y ago
The price was already carefully chosen and will stay the same so they get 20% extra. There is no need to raise the price.
- fatbird 6y ago
  Right: I was responding to the parent's assertion that dropping Apple's cut from 30% to 10% would result in a 20% drop in the price of the app. As you observe, the developer would just keep the extra 20%. Maybe as a consumer, that's valuable because it means greater incentives to create apps, but honestly, there's no shortage of apps today. The problem isn't an inability to make money on the app store such that dropping Apple's cut would change the landscape significantly.

ben_w 6y ago

I’m old enough to remember when 30% was a good deal, especially when the market was dominated by $0.99 apps and they cover your hosting bandwidth. What are hosting/bandwidth fees like for an app this size anyway?

manfredo 6y ago

I'm less leery about steam since they have competition: Origin, Epic Games Store, GoG, Microsoft play store, and just releasing the game yourself (plenty of studios actually do this, spiderweb software, paradox, to name a couple). Apple's situation is more like if Windows decided that all apps running on windows need to pay a 30% cut. The term "App Store" is misleading: it's not a store, if your application isn't in the app store there is no legitimate way of running the app on an iPhone or iPad.

imtringued 6y ago

You're contradicting yourself. You can't make the games 20% cheaper and give 20% more to developers. Since the developers get to pick they will just keep that portion. There is no benefit to consumers. Indie developers aren't struggling because their game made 25k instead of 30k. Steam offers a discount to publishers for games exceeding a certain amount of revenue so the ones who would most benefit from lower fees are already getting them. Since game companies can't know how much revenue they will generate they can't lower their pricing ahead of time. Again all the saved money is going to the publisher with no benefit for the consumer. You're also ignoring that not every copy of a game on steam was actually acquired by paying the 30%. You can kiss Humble Bundle and their Humble Store goodbye because they are using Steam infrastructure without paying for it. It's not really black and white. You can't say that lower fees are better in every case because they involve different trade offs. The cheapest product on the market is rarely the best.

nodamage 6y ago
That is a very good point. If Epic wants to argue that consumer welfare is harmed by the 30% commission then they are going to have to show evidence that a reduced commission would actually be passed onto the consumer. If the developers are likely to pocket the difference then they've only shown that the developers are being affected by the 30%, not the end consumer.
ThrowawayR2 6y ago
> "You can't make the games 20% cheaper and give 20% more to developers." I'd have thought it would be self-evident from the phrasing that that two separate possible scenarios were being described. > "Since the developers get to pick they will just keep that portion." Being that HN is mostly developers, few here will regard that as anything other than a good thing. It's a particularly good thing among indie games developers, the majority nowadays, where the risk is high and the rewards usually slim.