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I can't help but think that the whole thing is playing out exactly like Epic had hoped. After Apple kicked Fortnite from the iOS store, there was an outcry of

I can't help but think that the whole thing is playing out exactly like Epic had hoped. After Apple kicked Fortnite from the iOS store, there was an outcry of people who had previously spent money on it through Apple's in-app purchases and now wanted a refund. Some of those users switched to playing Fortnite on a laptop or Android phone instead, but of course they were still using Sign in with Apple if they had originally created their account and paid for items on iOS. Apple is now locking out those users. So I predict another wave of upset users, this time it'll be the people that purchased through Apple and were then attempting to play elsewhere. Meanwhile, Epic now has a very good reason to collect a working email address from every past iOS customer, which they can immediately use to offer the customer a 20% rebate on future purchases if they buy directly through Epic and circumvent the Apple tax. Plus as an added benefit, Japan has now started an antitrust investigation against Apple after various smaller Japanese game studios (most of them Unreal Engine customers) have come out in support of Epic: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-09-03/apple-app-store-draws-new-scrutiny-in-japan-epicenter-of-gaming https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-09-03/apple-app... And lastly, the combination of pressure on Epic together with the looming iOS14 update have made iOS a lot less attractive for mobile game studios, most of whom traditionally used advertisements to subsidize free players: https://www.consumeracquisition.com/game-over-ios-14-idfa-loss-drive-layoffs/ https://www.consumeracquisition.com/game-over-ios-14-idfa-lo... I found this quote which I think is quite fitting: "As the folks at Microsoft used to say in the early days of the Xbox, developers are the canaries in the coal mine. When they start dying, the platform is in trouble." https://venturebeat.com/2020/09/04/the-deanbeat-apple-must-tread-carefully-lest-it-trample-the-game-industry/ https://venturebeat.com/2020/09/04/the-deanbeat-apple-must-t...

paulpan 6y ago
I think Epic absolutely needs other major game studios, and major software companies, to join in their protest to effect the desired change. Interesting point about the looming iOS14 update. Makes you wonder whether Apple will ultimately fall at their privacy sword, similar to how Google fell at its own "Don't do evil" motto. E.g. it's meaningless bravado when not applied to universally to all countries, aka China.
- schmichael 6y ago
  I wish Mozilla would join them by publishing a Firefox for iOS with their own renderer and Javascript (which they have been prevented from doing). Get booted and join the lawsuit. That's the activist Mozilla I can get behind.
  - tomp 6y ago
    How is Mozilla to do that? AFAIK Epic did their move by pushing "legal" iOS code, then doing an over-the-air update of adding non-Apple payment system. Mozilla can't just push a rendering & JavaScript engine "over the air".
    - schmichael 6y ago
      Ah, fair.
    - dilap 6y ago
      Can't they? Is app review actually disassembling the code to see what capabilities it has? Just include both native renderer and webkit, and over the air switch which you use.
      - dimmke 6y ago
        It’d get picked up by binary scanning tools. “Why did your ipa triple in size?” Plus I doubt Mozilla is in the mode to burn months of programmers time on a stunt right now.
    - nodamage 6y ago
      > AFAIK Epic did their move by pushing "legal" iOS code, then doing an over-the-air update of adding non-Apple payment system. No, the code was hidden in the app itself, just disabled via server-side flag. After the app was approved they then flipped the flag to enable it. Source: Epic admits this in their legal filings.
    - basch 6y ago
      compile firefox to javascript, render to canvas, stream the browser on app open.
an_opabinia 6y ago
I would speculate that the disappearance of Fortnite from the App Store is a net positive for game developers there. Fortnite sucks the air out of the room, as much as any #1 media property does to its category. Besides, making an Unreal Engine game for iOS hardly ever makes sense. Those are always crummy ports. You could argue Fortnite on mobile devices is itself a crummy port. Do we need more virtual joystick games? Are we deprived of Battle Royales? Ask film people whether we’d be better off without Disney, for example. Listen Epic may be right in some ways, but if Apple just arbitrarily periodically removed the #1 apps from the App Store, I’ve got a surprise for you: it would be healthy for the app ecosystem.
- suby 6y ago
  What? It's really quite absurd to wave away every unreal game disappearing from iOS as acceptable because they were all bad games anyway. It's likely the second most popular engine in the industry, there must be thousands of unreal games released on iOS every year. Good for the ecosystem? How many people could be, through no fault of their own, locked out of an entire platform because of this?
  - hanselot 6y ago
    >Through no fault of their own is a bit of a stretch. Apple has exhibited the same behaviour wrt right to repair, and afaik there is no trivial way to install a different OS on your 'old' devices, whether they are left crippled beyond use by Moore's law approach of software design (you know, write whatever barely runs now, and assume future hardware will be able to tank it), or whether by the inability to easily replace components. This happens with every single company of this scale (and none have been this large before, right?) Yet we will continue to humour the people who are literally paid to defend their corporate overlords online.
- DennisAleynikov 6y ago
  you do realize Apple Park uses Unreal Engine in its AR map and many Unreal Engine games on iOS are the best in their class. Metal + the Unreal shaders look wonderful almost 100% of the time
ffhhj 6y ago
Epic should take advantage of this momentum and launch their own gaming device, with Google/Apple stores saturated as they are, gamedevs like me will welcome it.
- fakedang 6y ago
  So another Stadia?
  - tracker1 6y ago
    If they won't be able to support iOS, they can just launch their own "store" for Android. Similar to Amazon's. Though I'm half surprised Steam hasn't done this. I do question the justification of the 30% cut they all seem to take.
    - fakedang 6y ago
      Another "store" is fine. But another device is a very doubtful prospect. From what I see, the resilience of the PC through the years only shows that people want less consoles, not more.
      - pjmlp 6y ago
        Yet most studios rather target consoles, because of the consistent hardware. As for PC resilience, there are hardly any desktops left at most consumer stores, just tablets, 2-1 laptop hybrids and laptops that are either Windows or Mac, both of which are a hit-and-miss for anything else other that the OS version that the vendor shipped with the laptop.
    - imtringued 6y ago
      Valve introduced Steam machines and those flopped.
      - tracker1 6y ago
        I mean, I'm surprised they haven't created their own side-loaded android platform store.
bryan_w 6y ago
>Epic now has a very good reason to collect a working email address from every past iOS customer Not just epic but any business really that obtains most of their customer base through sign in with apple. Losing your entire customer base because of making apple mad is a risk that most businesses will now be unwilling to take.
- rootsudo 6y ago
  Does using Apple Sign in not share your email address/identity?
  - abawany 6y ago
    I believe it generates a unique/obfuscated email address that is provided to the provider but their messages to that address arrive at your real icloud address. Edit0: reference https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210426 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210426
  - fragmede 6y ago
    It can, but half the point of the service is that your personal email address is kept private. The service sees an obfuscated email address for the format <unique-alphanumeric-string>@privaterelay.appleid.com. Eg dpdcnf87nu@privaterelay.appleid.com.
Razengan 6y ago
> I can't help but think that the whole thing is playing out exactly like Epic had hoped. It seems to be hurting them more than Apple: Epic Games Asks Court to Allow Fortnite Back on the App Store: https://www.macrumors.com/2020/09/05/epic-injuction-fortnite-reinstatement/ https://www.macrumors.com/2020/09/05/epic-injuction-fortnite... > Meanwhile, Epic now has a very good reason to collect a working email address from every past iOS customer One of the biggest reason I love using Sign-In With Apple is so that I don't have to give my email to any one else. All of the other news, like hampering advertisers, is good for users but bad for companies and developers who like to prey on users.
- dilap 6y ago
  It's super crappy, though, to screw users as collateral damage in an attempt to spite Epic. I could see disabling new signups, but breaking existing users...geeze.
- WWLink 6y ago
  > All of the other news, like hampering advertisers, is good for users but bad for companies and developers who like to prey on users. I think it's all a mixed bag, and it might be naive of users to assume Apple is always going to protect them from things that go against their best interests. Somehow Apple's arduous review process misses privacy exploits like when Facebook or Tiktok or some other random ad company does it. Shoot, they even rolled back some big privacy change in iOS 14 because Facebook complained about it. I dunno, this will sound stupid, but my primary reason against the "closed ecosystem" is that I can't run a decent Tetris app on my iPhone. It must be the official N3twork licensed Tetris app or noooothing. That sucks.
  - sethaurus 6y ago
    > Shoot, they even rolled back some big privacy change in iOS 14 because Facebook complained about it. I must have missed that news — could you share a link?
    - WWLink 6y ago

paulpan 6y ago

I think Epic absolutely needs other major game studios, and major software companies, to join in their protest to effect the desired change. Interesting point about the looming iOS14 update. Makes you wonder whether Apple will ultimately fall at their privacy sword, similar to how Google fell at its own "Don't do evil" motto. E.g. it's meaningless bravado when not applied to universally to all countries, aka China.

schmichael 6y ago
I wish Mozilla would join them by publishing a Firefox for iOS with their own renderer and Javascript (which they have been prevented from doing). Get booted and join the lawsuit. That's the activist Mozilla I can get behind.
- tomp 6y ago
  How is Mozilla to do that? AFAIK Epic did their move by pushing "legal" iOS code, then doing an over-the-air update of adding non-Apple payment system. Mozilla can't just push a rendering & JavaScript engine "over the air".
  - schmichael 6y ago
    Ah, fair.
  - dilap 6y ago
    Can't they? Is app review actually disassembling the code to see what capabilities it has? Just include both native renderer and webkit, and over the air switch which you use.
    - dimmke 6y ago
      It’d get picked up by binary scanning tools. “Why did your ipa triple in size?” Plus I doubt Mozilla is in the mode to burn months of programmers time on a stunt right now.
  - nodamage 6y ago
    > AFAIK Epic did their move by pushing "legal" iOS code, then doing an over-the-air update of adding non-Apple payment system. No, the code was hidden in the app itself, just disabled via server-side flag. After the app was approved they then flipped the flag to enable it. Source: Epic admits this in their legal filings.
  - basch 6y ago
    compile firefox to javascript, render to canvas, stream the browser on app open.

an_opabinia 6y ago

I would speculate that the disappearance of Fortnite from the App Store is a net positive for game developers there. Fortnite sucks the air out of the room, as much as any #1 media property does to its category. Besides, making an Unreal Engine game for iOS hardly ever makes sense. Those are always crummy ports. You could argue Fortnite on mobile devices is itself a crummy port. Do we need more virtual joystick games? Are we deprived of Battle Royales? Ask film people whether we’d be better off without Disney, for example. Listen Epic may be right in some ways, but if Apple just arbitrarily periodically removed the #1 apps from the App Store, I’ve got a surprise for you: it would be healthy for the app ecosystem.

suby 6y ago
What? It's really quite absurd to wave away every unreal game disappearing from iOS as acceptable because they were all bad games anyway. It's likely the second most popular engine in the industry, there must be thousands of unreal games released on iOS every year. Good for the ecosystem? How many people could be, through no fault of their own, locked out of an entire platform because of this?
- hanselot 6y ago
  >Through no fault of their own is a bit of a stretch. Apple has exhibited the same behaviour wrt right to repair, and afaik there is no trivial way to install a different OS on your 'old' devices, whether they are left crippled beyond use by Moore's law approach of software design (you know, write whatever barely runs now, and assume future hardware will be able to tank it), or whether by the inability to easily replace components. This happens with every single company of this scale (and none have been this large before, right?) Yet we will continue to humour the people who are literally paid to defend their corporate overlords online.
DennisAleynikov 6y ago
you do realize Apple Park uses Unreal Engine in its AR map and many Unreal Engine games on iOS are the best in their class. Metal + the Unreal shaders look wonderful almost 100% of the time

ffhhj 6y ago

Epic should take advantage of this momentum and launch their own gaming device, with Google/Apple stores saturated as they are, gamedevs like me will welcome it.

fakedang 6y ago
So another Stadia?
- tracker1 6y ago
  If they won't be able to support iOS, they can just launch their own "store" for Android. Similar to Amazon's. Though I'm half surprised Steam hasn't done this. I do question the justification of the 30% cut they all seem to take.
  - fakedang 6y ago
    Another "store" is fine. But another device is a very doubtful prospect. From what I see, the resilience of the PC through the years only shows that people want less consoles, not more.
    - pjmlp 6y ago
      Yet most studios rather target consoles, because of the consistent hardware. As for PC resilience, there are hardly any desktops left at most consumer stores, just tablets, 2-1 laptop hybrids and laptops that are either Windows or Mac, both of which are a hit-and-miss for anything else other that the OS version that the vendor shipped with the laptop.
  - imtringued 6y ago
    Valve introduced Steam machines and those flopped.
    - tracker1 6y ago
      I mean, I'm surprised they haven't created their own side-loaded android platform store.

bryan_w 6y ago

>Epic now has a very good reason to collect a working email address from every past iOS customer Not just epic but any business really that obtains most of their customer base through sign in with apple. Losing your entire customer base because of making apple mad is a risk that most businesses will now be unwilling to take.

rootsudo 6y ago
Does using Apple Sign in not share your email address/identity?
- abawany 6y ago
  I believe it generates a unique/obfuscated email address that is provided to the provider but their messages to that address arrive at your real icloud address. Edit0: reference https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210426 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210426
- fragmede 6y ago
  It can, but half the point of the service is that your personal email address is kept private. The service sees an obfuscated email address for the format <unique-alphanumeric-string>@privaterelay.appleid.com. Eg dpdcnf87nu@privaterelay.appleid.com.

Razengan 6y ago

> I can't help but think that the whole thing is playing out exactly like Epic had hoped. It seems to be hurting them more than Apple: Epic Games Asks Court to Allow Fortnite Back on the App Store: https://www.macrumors.com/2020/09/05/epic-injuction-fortnite-reinstatement/ https://www.macrumors.com/2020/09/05/epic-injuction-fortnite... > Meanwhile, Epic now has a very good reason to collect a working email address from every past iOS customer One of the biggest reason I love using Sign-In With Apple is so that I don't have to give my email to any one else. All of the other news, like hampering advertisers, is good for users but bad for companies and developers who like to prey on users.

dilap 6y ago
It's super crappy, though, to screw users as collateral damage in an attempt to spite Epic. I could see disabling new signups, but breaking existing users...geeze.
WWLink 6y ago
> All of the other news, like hampering advertisers, is good for users but bad for companies and developers who like to prey on users. I think it's all a mixed bag, and it might be naive of users to assume Apple is always going to protect them from things that go against their best interests. Somehow Apple's arduous review process misses privacy exploits like when Facebook or Tiktok or some other random ad company does it. Shoot, they even rolled back some big privacy change in iOS 14 because Facebook complained about it. I dunno, this will sound stupid, but my primary reason against the "closed ecosystem" is that I can't run a decent Tetris app on my iPhone. It must be the official N3twork licensed Tetris app or noooothing. That sucks.
- sethaurus 6y ago
  > Shoot, they even rolled back some big privacy change in iOS 14 because Facebook complained about it. I must have missed that news — could you share a link?
  - WWLink 6y ago