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They seem not quite the same to me. A game built with Unreal Engine is essentially powered by it and would not exist otherwise. A game deployed to an iPhone cou

by beaner 6y ago

They seem not quite the same to me. A game built with Unreal Engine is essentially powered by it and would not exist otherwise. A game deployed to an iPhone could theoretically be acquired through an alternative app store or just direct download. Apple's app store provides no utility to developers other than being the forced walled monopoly that all developers must list through. The proper analogy to Epic charging for its game engine is Apple charging for its developer licenses - which it already does separately from the app store.

simonh 6y ago
So if stores don’t provide any utility over side loading, how come Epic gave up on relying on side loading on Android, which allows it, and ended up on the Play Store? It’s literally that exact scenario.
- kevingadd 6y ago
  So that when a teenager types "fortnite" in on their phone they can install it. That's the only reason. It's a little different from organic "discovery", like search and recommendations. FWIW, Google (illegally? according to Epic, anyway) blocked Epic's attempts to address this through partner deals with phone manufacturers, so their hand was relatively forced. If Google and Apple didn't require all installs to go through a blessed path, people would just type "fortnite" into their search engine of choice and install that way instead. Of course, Google & Apple have good reason for not allowing that, but in the case of Fortnite they really are not delivering much for the 30%.
- gamblor956 6y ago
  Epic still allows Fortnite to be sideloaded. More importantly, Google does not prohibit sideloading. It simply does not make it convenient to do it.
  - chipotle_coyote 6y ago
    I suspect the OP is referring to the fact that Epic is also suing Google, because they consider the "inconveniences" that Google places on sideloading to be a form of unfair, illegal restriction. This strongly suggests that if Apple offered sideloading but still had the same fees and restrictions in the official App Store, Epic would still be suing them.
- mgoetzke 6y ago
  Stores do hold a value. A great one. BUT there has to be a few tiers between we are really losing money by hosting this to we are raking in hundreds of millions. If should cover cost, it should cover opportunity, it should have a margin. In essence Apple is running an Apple App incubator :) Getting 30% of anything, anybody ever makes on it, with basically no risk on it since the actual cost of reviewing the apps and hosting them is pretty fixed.
spullara 6y ago
The equivalent is the iPhone SDK and developer tools for it. Not the store.
- Tostino 6y ago
  Thats already a separate charge...
tw04 6y ago
>A game deployed to an iPhone could theoretically be acquired through an alternative app store or just direct download. You can't have your cake and eat it too. A game produced with the Unreal Engine could just as easily be created through a natively developed engine or another licensed engine instead of Unreal. Unity, for instance: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unity_(game_engine) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unity_(game_engine)
acomjean 6y ago
>They seem not quite the same to me I agree. Operating systems are not App Stores.
Traster 6y ago
It's $100 because there's no other distribution method. If tomorrow you could use Apple's libraries and distribute the App by yourself, the cost of the Libraries wouldn't be $100. It'd be $100 and 30% of your revenue. It's not meaningful to draw out 1 bill when we all know that what's important is the total cost.
- gpm 6y ago
  And you can bet that Epic and many other companies reaction to that pricing would jut to be to create their own set of libraries instead of paying for Apple's...
  - dwaite 6y ago
    I don't believe they would be able to do that - you don't draw to the screen using POSIX.
    - gpm 6y ago
      No, but you do draw to the screen by reverse engineering whatever os level graphics api is available and using it, and at a 30% cut on every app here there is literally billions of dollars of funding available to do that. I imagine if Apple tried to restrict third party apps from doing that through the legal system, we would see another suit but this time about "graphics" instead of "payment processing".
cafed00d 6y ago
>A game deployed to an iPhone could theoretically be acquired through an alternative app store or just direct download This is false; unless theoretically means there's no concept of "money" involved in our world. A game deployed to an iPhone must be compatible with the hardware chip supplied on the iPhone, must be built using APIs designed, built and committed to be supported by the iPhone. Apps can't be built out of thin air. Programming languages, debuggers, IDEs, distributions channels, commitment to support cost money, time and people's energy. Apple, as a private business, can choose to monetize however they wish to. It would be really dumb for the govt or other parties to dictate what pricing policies Apple has to set for a product they're building. Heck, they're free to ask for a million dollars for each copy of Xcode people use. Apple is trying to balance the costs of building an iPhone ecosystem with the benefits of ease of accessibility to that ecosystem. Customers pay Apple to handle _everything_ from rearranging sand to naming functions accessible to developer to make the iPhone.
- chipotle_coyote 6y ago
  > > A game deployed to an iPhone could theoretically be acquired through an alternative app store or just direct download. > This is false; unless theoretically means there's no concept of "money" involved in our world. I am fairly sure that Apple has already produced a general purpose computing device that also requires applications deployed to it to be compatible with its CPU and to be built using APIs designed and built by Apple, but nonetheless lets applications be acquired for it through other means, including direct download.
  - saagarjha 6y ago
    Not only that Apple has produced the exact same platform with the same CPU and development tools and APIs as iPhone which it is set to launch later this year where sideloading is completely allowed.
    - cafed00d 6y ago
      Yep that is true. That doesn't justify that Apple _should_ enable side-loading on the iPhone. Just because they _can_ do it doesn't mean they're _legally, ethically or morally_ obligated to do so. Ultimately, it's their product. I mean, can you imagine the world we'd live in if some arbitrary group of people (who are _not_ the product developers) decided that the iPod should be opened up to side-load any arbitrary software, such as a music store, run by some other company. In what world is that legal? Just because the iPhone has majority profits of the smartphone market doesn't mean they ought to share that platform with everyone else. If developers don't like Apple's policies they should not build for Apple's platforms. It's pretty simple. Go make your iPhone, and App Store, and Retail distribution channels and marketing that works to your specification. Isn't that what competition means?
bananabreakfast 6y ago
How is it a monopoly? Apple has a monopoly... on Apple products?
- arvinsim 6y ago
  I want the definition for monopoly be reviewed by law making entities. It was made from a bygone era, where the digital concept didn’t even exist.
valuearb 6y ago
The App Store generates nearly 10 times as much revenues for developers per device sold as Google Play. How is building a safer walled garden that attracts the highest spending customers and makes them extremely comfortable with buying apps and subscriptions not a massive amount of utility?
- beaner 6y ago
  Because if the app was permitted to be installed outside of the app store, it would make more money, meaning the app store offers negative utility to some developers. Fortnite is a huge brand outside of iOS. It iOS did not make the success of Fortnite. Epic doesn't need the app store's advertising to succeed, and being forced to go through this bottleneck only hampers them.
  - danbolt 6y ago
    > iOS did not make the success of Fortnite Does iOS make the success of any app?
  - yazaddaruvala 6y ago
    It’s not about advertising. It’s about trust building. Apple has earned trust with me as a user. When I download an app from Apple’s stores it extends its trust to those apps. I feel more comfortable spending money on iOS because of that trust. Take away the trust, and I promise there is significantly less money to be made.
    - beaner 6y ago
      If that were true, Epic would not want to offer its app outside of the app store. But it does, because it's more profitable.
      - valuearb 6y ago
        Tim Sweeney may believe that, but he’s made a lot of dumb decisions lately.

by beaner 6y ago

simonh 6y ago

So if stores don’t provide any utility over side loading, how come Epic gave up on relying on side loading on Android, which allows it, and ended up on the Play Store? It’s literally that exact scenario.

kevingadd 6y ago
So that when a teenager types "fortnite" in on their phone they can install it. That's the only reason. It's a little different from organic "discovery", like search and recommendations. FWIW, Google (illegally? according to Epic, anyway) blocked Epic's attempts to address this through partner deals with phone manufacturers, so their hand was relatively forced. If Google and Apple didn't require all installs to go through a blessed path, people would just type "fortnite" into their search engine of choice and install that way instead. Of course, Google & Apple have good reason for not allowing that, but in the case of Fortnite they really are not delivering much for the 30%.
gamblor956 6y ago
Epic still allows Fortnite to be sideloaded. More importantly, Google does not prohibit sideloading. It simply does not make it convenient to do it.
- chipotle_coyote 6y ago
  I suspect the OP is referring to the fact that Epic is also suing Google, because they consider the "inconveniences" that Google places on sideloading to be a form of unfair, illegal restriction. This strongly suggests that if Apple offered sideloading but still had the same fees and restrictions in the official App Store, Epic would still be suing them.
mgoetzke 6y ago
Stores do hold a value. A great one. BUT there has to be a few tiers between we are really losing money by hosting this to we are raking in hundreds of millions. If should cover cost, it should cover opportunity, it should have a margin. In essence Apple is running an Apple App incubator :) Getting 30% of anything, anybody ever makes on it, with basically no risk on it since the actual cost of reviewing the apps and hosting them is pretty fixed.

spullara 6y ago

The equivalent is the iPhone SDK and developer tools for it. Not the store.

Tostino 6y ago
Thats already a separate charge...

tw04 6y ago

>A game deployed to an iPhone could theoretically be acquired through an alternative app store or just direct download. You can't have your cake and eat it too. A game produced with the Unreal Engine could just as easily be created through a natively developed engine or another licensed engine instead of Unreal. Unity, for instance: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unity_(game_engine) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unity_(game_engine)

acomjean 6y ago

>They seem not quite the same to me I agree. Operating systems are not App Stores.

Traster 6y ago

It's $100 because there's no other distribution method. If tomorrow you could use Apple's libraries and distribute the App by yourself, the cost of the Libraries wouldn't be $100. It'd be $100 and 30% of your revenue. It's not meaningful to draw out 1 bill when we all know that what's important is the total cost.

gpm 6y ago
And you can bet that Epic and many other companies reaction to that pricing would jut to be to create their own set of libraries instead of paying for Apple's...
- dwaite 6y ago
  I don't believe they would be able to do that - you don't draw to the screen using POSIX.
  - gpm 6y ago
    No, but you do draw to the screen by reverse engineering whatever os level graphics api is available and using it, and at a 30% cut on every app here there is literally billions of dollars of funding available to do that. I imagine if Apple tried to restrict third party apps from doing that through the legal system, we would see another suit but this time about "graphics" instead of "payment processing".

cafed00d 6y ago

>A game deployed to an iPhone could theoretically be acquired through an alternative app store or just direct download This is false; unless theoretically means there's no concept of "money" involved in our world. A game deployed to an iPhone must be compatible with the hardware chip supplied on the iPhone, must be built using APIs designed, built and committed to be supported by the iPhone. Apps can't be built out of thin air. Programming languages, debuggers, IDEs, distributions channels, commitment to support cost money, time and people's energy. Apple, as a private business, can choose to monetize however they wish to. It would be really dumb for the govt or other parties to dictate what pricing policies Apple has to set for a product they're building. Heck, they're free to ask for a million dollars for each copy of Xcode people use. Apple is trying to balance the costs of building an iPhone ecosystem with the benefits of ease of accessibility to that ecosystem. Customers pay Apple to handle _everything_ from rearranging sand to naming functions accessible to developer to make the iPhone.

chipotle_coyote 6y ago
> > A game deployed to an iPhone could theoretically be acquired through an alternative app store or just direct download. > This is false; unless theoretically means there's no concept of "money" involved in our world. I am fairly sure that Apple has already produced a general purpose computing device that also requires applications deployed to it to be compatible with its CPU and to be built using APIs designed and built by Apple, but nonetheless lets applications be acquired for it through other means, including direct download.
- saagarjha 6y ago
  Not only that Apple has produced the exact same platform with the same CPU and development tools and APIs as iPhone which it is set to launch later this year where sideloading is completely allowed.
  - cafed00d 6y ago
    Yep that is true. That doesn't justify that Apple _should_ enable side-loading on the iPhone. Just because they _can_ do it doesn't mean they're _legally, ethically or morally_ obligated to do so. Ultimately, it's their product. I mean, can you imagine the world we'd live in if some arbitrary group of people (who are _not_ the product developers) decided that the iPod should be opened up to side-load any arbitrary software, such as a music store, run by some other company. In what world is that legal? Just because the iPhone has majority profits of the smartphone market doesn't mean they ought to share that platform with everyone else. If developers don't like Apple's policies they should not build for Apple's platforms. It's pretty simple. Go make your iPhone, and App Store, and Retail distribution channels and marketing that works to your specification. Isn't that what competition means?

bananabreakfast 6y ago

How is it a monopoly? Apple has a monopoly... on Apple products?

arvinsim 6y ago
I want the definition for monopoly be reviewed by law making entities. It was made from a bygone era, where the digital concept didn’t even exist.

valuearb 6y ago

The App Store generates nearly 10 times as much revenues for developers per device sold as Google Play. How is building a safer walled garden that attracts the highest spending customers and makes them extremely comfortable with buying apps and subscriptions not a massive amount of utility?

beaner 6y ago
Because if the app was permitted to be installed outside of the app store, it would make more money, meaning the app store offers negative utility to some developers. Fortnite is a huge brand outside of iOS. It iOS did not make the success of Fortnite. Epic doesn't need the app store's advertising to succeed, and being forced to go through this bottleneck only hampers them.
- danbolt 6y ago
  > iOS did not make the success of Fortnite Does iOS make the success of any app?
- yazaddaruvala 6y ago
  It’s not about advertising. It’s about trust building. Apple has earned trust with me as a user. When I download an app from Apple’s stores it extends its trust to those apps. I feel more comfortable spending money on iOS because of that trust. Take away the trust, and I promise there is significantly less money to be made.
  - beaner 6y ago
    If that were true, Epic would not want to offer its app outside of the app store. But it does, because it's more profitable.
    - valuearb 6y ago
      Tim Sweeney may believe that, but he’s made a lot of dumb decisions lately.