7 ms·

Surely maintaining first-class hardware, software, and marketplace ecosystems has at least a little associated cost?

by ISL 5y ago

emsy 5y ago
For $210 million (that's only Epic's contribution), they could've created a first-class marketplace ecosystem. In reality, it's neither first-class nor worth whatever they're paying to actually run that department.
- naikrovek 5y ago
  people forget how terrible steam was for its first 5 years, when compared to today. now, people are comparing the epic games store of today with the steam we have today, and convincing themselves that it's a fair comparison.
  - throwaways885 5y ago
    I think the big difference between is how Epic treats its customers and how Valve treats its customers. Epic could've gone the GOG Galaxy route ("use it, or not, your choice"), but they decided to force people into their watered down launcher before it was ready. Even Xbox is being more open lately. You can't just match your competition, you have to exceed it in some special way before people will switch.
    - ramy_d 5y ago
      how are they forcing anyone?
      - croon 5y ago
        AFAIK Fortnite is not available on Steam (or elsewhere).
        naikrovek 5y ago
        Team Fortress 2 isn't available on the Epic Games Store (or elsewhere). Epic aren't doing anything shady, here.
        croon 5y ago
        You're not making the counter-argument you think. GGGP: > I think the big difference between is how Epic treats its customers and how Valve treats its customers. Epic could've gone the GOG Galaxy route ("use it, or not, your choice"), but they decided to force people into their watered down launcher before it was ready. Even Xbox is being more open lately. > You can't just match your competition, you have to exceed it in some special way before people will switch. GGP: > how are they forcing anyone? I answered that question. That Steam is also doing it is whataboutism, but also entirely besides the point. Steam however is a much more full-featured client, which also factored into GGGP's argument. But a more pointed answer to GGP would've been that Epic has paid external developers for (timed) exclusives.
      - ThatMedicIsASpy 5y ago
        they are trying by buying out publishers to only release it on epic or only release it on epic for the first year. their client is super garbage. like battlenet if you leave it open it hogs your cpu. the fact that a game can turn the store color into a white client is insane to me.
        naikrovek 5y ago
        they're free to pay for exclusives, just like Valve is free to pay for exclusives.
        throwaways885 5y ago
        But Valve doesn't pay for exclusives. They just compete on their overall service. Epic is not making something that is actually better for customers.
      - rcxdude 5y ago
        with exclusives, including making games exclusive which were previously available on other platforms.
        naikrovek 5y ago
        Epic can't do that alone... it requires cooperation from and agreement with the game publisher. Don't blame Epic for spending money to bring customers to their product. Epic aren't using shady tactics to do this, and Valve is free to do everything Epic is doing. Also, as a game buyer, you DEFINITELY want a multi-source purchasing ecosystem; you definitely want to avoid a monopoly if the price you pay for games is important to you.
        rcxdude 5y ago
        Exclusives are explicitly not multi-source. I want to be able to buy the games I want to play on the platform I want to play them on. This isn't always feasible, and that's OK, but it really grates when it's deliberately pushed in that direction.
      - cdirkx 5y ago
        There have been multiple instances of games being anounced to release on Steam/others and then some time later Epic signed an exclusive contract with them. This even happens with crowdfunded indie games [1] or games that had already started pre-orders. Even though moves like that are unpopular, Epic said they will remain a core part of their strategy [2]. (True the developers themselves agree to that exclusive contract, so they share some of the blame of disappointing people, but if you're an indie developer it is hard to say no to that much money) [1] https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2019-07-03-epic-games-will-fund-the-cost-of-kickstarter-refunds-for-epic-exclusives https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2019-07-03-epic-games-wil... [2] https://www.pcgamer.com/epic-games-boss-defends-exclusivity-strategy/ https://www.pcgamer.com/epic-games-boss-defends-exclusivity-...
      - throwaways885 5y ago
        I own Rocket League on Steam. They bought the game, took it off the Steam store and eventually my operating system entirely, to push their launcher. Not chuffed.
  - emsy 5y ago
    I‘m talking about the AppStore!
  - Xplune13 5y ago
    It is a fair comparison in my opinion. Steam came into the market when it was one of the first ones to establish digital gaming scene. Now the situation is different, we have many launchers and with that knowledge of what things worked in older launchers (eg. steam, origin etc.) they could've easily pulled a better launcher. The amount of basic things missing from EGS is ridiculous (compared to other launchers that are available right now). At this point, it is a free game generator. Now that doesn't mean EGS can't fail or anything but they aren't even showing any interest in upgrading their platform whatsoever and for that they don't deserve anyone's attention in my opinion.
    - FearlessNebula 5y ago
      Does EGS even have a shopping cart yet lol
      - Xplune13 5y ago
        No it doesn't AFAIK. Last checked - don't even know when I logged in.
- paulmd 5y ago
  "apple bad" counterpoint: no, it's fine, and it's actually better than the google play store, far less random trash and far less malicious apps/rootkits being distributed.
  - emsy 5y ago
    I don‘t even disagree it’s better. But the AppStore is still an embarrassment for the money it brings in. I guess comfort does make complacent.
tapoxi 5y ago
I mean, they're not exactly giving iPhones out for free
- NoPicklez 5y ago
  Because earning money that contributes to R&D equates to giving away that technology for free? Surely when a business earns money that is allocated to R&D to enable them to earn more money?
  - croon 5y ago
    GP suggested that they already get paid for that service, and that they're double dipping. You're simply stating that they should get paid, which they would be in either case. Apple is charging what they are because they can (obviously). But equally obvious not everyone agrees that they are able to charge this because of product quality, but perhaps due to (partly) market monopoly. Seeing as it's still in court, and various antitrust discussions, it's definitely not clear cut either way and cases can certainly be made both ways.
    - gwd 5y ago
      Is the grocery store "double dipping" because it takes money from you to buy the food, and also takes money from companies to place products in special promotional end-of-aisle displays? Back when people bought physical newspapers, were newspapers "double dipping" because they charged both for the physical print copy, as well as charging companies to place advertisements there? Were Nintendo and Sony "double-dipping" because they charged consumers to buy their consoles, as well as charging cartridge makers for the chip required for the game to actually work? Is Google "double-dipping" because they're selling you a phone and then using it to advertise to you? The iPhone has the Apple Tax on apps priced into it already. If they didn't have the revenue from Epic, they'd have to either find sources of revenue (like spying on you to sell you more stuff) or reduce the quality of the software / hardware.
      - croon 5y ago
MeinBlutIstBlau 5y ago
No way it has 210 million dollars of cost and r&d. It's just a software center.
- arsome 5y ago
  And a kind of crappy one at that, you still can't even read reviews on a desktop browser last I checked. EDIT: Looks like they're finally in the process of changing this in a "Preview" version now.
jankyxenon 5y ago
You gotta amortize that cost over all iphone revenue streams (not just one app)
- paulmd 5y ago
  seems like there's an implication here that apple should be running the app store as a charity or at least at-cost. that's always such a weird one with this site's libertarian/pro-business bent. it's good to make a successful business and make money... no not like that! there is nothing stopping anyone from setting up their own competing ecosystem (another walled garden, even). Google did exactly that, featurephones still exist, etc. There are legitimate end-user reasons for doing it this way (namely, facebook and others would immediately start their own app stores to end-run around app review so they could exploit permissions and exploit user privacy for profit, just as they already got caught doing). https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/01/facebook-and-google-offered-gift-cards-for-root-level-access-to-ios-users-data/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/01/facebook-and-google-... People are mad because they don't like Apple's business model, which doesn't involve them, so they want Apple to be forced to do business with them on their own terms. Very anti-libertarian, which is again ironic but not out of character for libertarians. Bioshock was right, libertarians are pro-freedom of business right up until someone else has a bigger business. This is very much in the range of Apple's freedom of business. Go make your own software ecosystem and you can do whatever you want with your app store. Again, just like Google did.
  - josephg 5y ago
    I don't think anyone here has any problem with Apple and Google (and others) competing on who can make the best phone. The problem is that you need to compete in the market of smartphones to be able to compete in the market of app stores. Its quite similar to Microsoft pushing Internet Explorer with Windows a few decades ago - Microsoft was using a competitive advantage in one arena (operating systems) as leverage to gain a monopoly position in another arena (web browsers). The effect of that business strategy is it raises the cost of competition. Competitors now need to compete in both markets (OSes and browsers / phones and app stores). The expense of doing that knocks out almost all your competitors. All else being equal, less competition is bad for innovation and bad for consumers. Having both Steam and the Epic games store on windows is inconvenient, but both stores are forced to compete with each other on price and features to retain customers. In the long run this is means cheaper games and better platforms. This is obvious in the smartphone market too - the iPhone forced Android to become a way better operating system to compete. (Early versions of android were awful.) And Android in turn innovated on notifications and widgets and lots of other stuff, which forced the iPhone to raise its game. There's no competition for the app stores - and predictably the iphone app store is fine, but it hasn't improved much in years. Epic makes video games. They want to compete with the app store without competing with the iPhone. Whether you agree with them or not, I think they certainly have a case and deserve their day in court to argue it.
echelon 5y ago
The App Store is a gravy train of zero innovation and complete imposition against the rest of the world. The government will eventually step in and shut it down. Before Steve Jobs decided to control everything, most devices and operating systems supported downloading software from 3rd party sources and running it. After all, you owned the device and you licensed the OS to run your tasks and applications. Jobs was the villain that came up with this robber baron scheme. It's parasitic. Tightly and artificially control anything that gets put on the devices your company sells? Genius evil. Next up we're going to be paying for the content we stream on the Internet. Just wait for the next wave of tech land owners. You'll pay more for certain classes of traffic. Before you rush to defend it, ask yourself if you'd still be happy if Microsoft had won the war and there was no iPhone.
- realityking 5y ago
  > Before Steve Jobs decided to control everything, most devices and operating systems supported downloading software from 3rd party sources and running it. Game consoles are the canonical counter example. Even consoles without cartridges, never supported software that didn’t pay a cut to the console manufacturer (+ a really expensive dev kit). It’s not some evil genius idea that Jobs just cooked up.
  - echelon 5y ago
    Game consoles aren't personal computers. They're toys. You have over a dozen platforms to choose from when you want to play Assassin's Creed. You only have two choices for the computing device you use most frequently. The pocket computer you have is where you do banking, calls, photos, dating, research, social networking. A lot of people spend most of their lives on these computers.
asdfasgasdgasdg 5y ago
In terms of marginal cost, there is essentially zero. The charge for this service bears no relationship to the cost to deliver it. That's why the app store is so enormously profitable, and it serves as de facto (to me) evidence of market power.

Surely maintaining first-class hardware, software, and marketplace ecosystems has at least a little associated cost?

by ISL 5y ago

Surely maintaining first-class hardware, software, and marketplace ecosystems has at least a little associated cost?

emsy 5y ago

For $210 million (that's only Epic's contribution), they could've created a first-class marketplace ecosystem. In reality, it's neither first-class nor worth whatever they're paying to actually run that department.

naikrovek 5y ago
people forget how terrible steam was for its first 5 years, when compared to today. now, people are comparing the epic games store of today with the steam we have today, and convincing themselves that it's a fair comparison.
- throwaways885 5y ago
  I think the big difference between is how Epic treats its customers and how Valve treats its customers. Epic could've gone the GOG Galaxy route ("use it, or not, your choice"), but they decided to force people into their watered down launcher before it was ready. Even Xbox is being more open lately. You can't just match your competition, you have to exceed it in some special way before people will switch.
  - ramy_d 5y ago
    how are they forcing anyone?
    - croon 5y ago
      AFAIK Fortnite is not available on Steam (or elsewhere).
      - naikrovek 5y ago
        Team Fortress 2 isn't available on the Epic Games Store (or elsewhere). Epic aren't doing anything shady, here.
        croon 5y ago
        You're not making the counter-argument you think. GGGP: > I think the big difference between is how Epic treats its customers and how Valve treats its customers. Epic could've gone the GOG Galaxy route ("use it, or not, your choice"), but they decided to force people into their watered down launcher before it was ready. Even Xbox is being more open lately. > You can't just match your competition, you have to exceed it in some special way before people will switch. GGP: > how are they forcing anyone? I answered that question. That Steam is also doing it is whataboutism, but also entirely besides the point. Steam however is a much more full-featured client, which also factored into GGGP's argument. But a more pointed answer to GGP would've been that Epic has paid external developers for (timed) exclusives.
    - ThatMedicIsASpy 5y ago
      they are trying by buying out publishers to only release it on epic or only release it on epic for the first year. their client is super garbage. like battlenet if you leave it open it hogs your cpu. the fact that a game can turn the store color into a white client is insane to me.
      - naikrovek 5y ago
        they're free to pay for exclusives, just like Valve is free to pay for exclusives.
        throwaways885 5y ago
        But Valve doesn't pay for exclusives. They just compete on their overall service. Epic is not making something that is actually better for customers.
    - rcxdude 5y ago
      with exclusives, including making games exclusive which were previously available on other platforms.
      - naikrovek 5y ago
        Epic can't do that alone... it requires cooperation from and agreement with the game publisher. Don't blame Epic for spending money to bring customers to their product. Epic aren't using shady tactics to do this, and Valve is free to do everything Epic is doing. Also, as a game buyer, you DEFINITELY want a multi-source purchasing ecosystem; you definitely want to avoid a monopoly if the price you pay for games is important to you.
        rcxdude 5y ago
        Exclusives are explicitly not multi-source. I want to be able to buy the games I want to play on the platform I want to play them on. This isn't always feasible, and that's OK, but it really grates when it's deliberately pushed in that direction.
    - cdirkx 5y ago
      There have been multiple instances of games being anounced to release on Steam/others and then some time later Epic signed an exclusive contract with them. This even happens with crowdfunded indie games [1] or games that had already started pre-orders. Even though moves like that are unpopular, Epic said they will remain a core part of their strategy [2]. (True the developers themselves agree to that exclusive contract, so they share some of the blame of disappointing people, but if you're an indie developer it is hard to say no to that much money) [1] https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2019-07-03-epic-games-will-fund-the-cost-of-kickstarter-refunds-for-epic-exclusives https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2019-07-03-epic-games-wil... [2] https://www.pcgamer.com/epic-games-boss-defends-exclusivity-strategy/ https://www.pcgamer.com/epic-games-boss-defends-exclusivity-...
    - throwaways885 5y ago
      I own Rocket League on Steam. They bought the game, took it off the Steam store and eventually my operating system entirely, to push their launcher. Not chuffed.
- emsy 5y ago
  I‘m talking about the AppStore!
- Xplune13 5y ago
  It is a fair comparison in my opinion. Steam came into the market when it was one of the first ones to establish digital gaming scene. Now the situation is different, we have many launchers and with that knowledge of what things worked in older launchers (eg. steam, origin etc.) they could've easily pulled a better launcher. The amount of basic things missing from EGS is ridiculous (compared to other launchers that are available right now). At this point, it is a free game generator. Now that doesn't mean EGS can't fail or anything but they aren't even showing any interest in upgrading their platform whatsoever and for that they don't deserve anyone's attention in my opinion.
  - FearlessNebula 5y ago
    Does EGS even have a shopping cart yet lol
    - Xplune13 5y ago
      No it doesn't AFAIK. Last checked - don't even know when I logged in.
paulmd 5y ago
"apple bad" counterpoint: no, it's fine, and it's actually better than the google play store, far less random trash and far less malicious apps/rootkits being distributed.
- emsy 5y ago
  I don‘t even disagree it’s better. But the AppStore is still an embarrassment for the money it brings in. I guess comfort does make complacent.

tapoxi 5y ago

I mean, they're not exactly giving iPhones out for free

NoPicklez 5y ago
Because earning money that contributes to R&D equates to giving away that technology for free? Surely when a business earns money that is allocated to R&D to enable them to earn more money?
- croon 5y ago
  GP suggested that they already get paid for that service, and that they're double dipping. You're simply stating that they should get paid, which they would be in either case. Apple is charging what they are because they can (obviously). But equally obvious not everyone agrees that they are able to charge this because of product quality, but perhaps due to (partly) market monopoly. Seeing as it's still in court, and various antitrust discussions, it's definitely not clear cut either way and cases can certainly be made both ways.
  - gwd 5y ago
    Is the grocery store "double dipping" because it takes money from you to buy the food, and also takes money from companies to place products in special promotional end-of-aisle displays? Back when people bought physical newspapers, were newspapers "double dipping" because they charged both for the physical print copy, as well as charging companies to place advertisements there? Were Nintendo and Sony "double-dipping" because they charged consumers to buy their consoles, as well as charging cartridge makers for the chip required for the game to actually work? Is Google "double-dipping" because they're selling you a phone and then using it to advertise to you? The iPhone has the Apple Tax on apps priced into it already. If they didn't have the revenue from Epic, they'd have to either find sources of revenue (like spying on you to sell you more stuff) or reduce the quality of the software / hardware.
    - croon 5y ago

MeinBlutIstBlau 5y ago

No way it has 210 million dollars of cost and r&d. It's just a software center.

arsome 5y ago
And a kind of crappy one at that, you still can't even read reviews on a desktop browser last I checked. EDIT: Looks like they're finally in the process of changing this in a "Preview" version now.

jankyxenon 5y ago

You gotta amortize that cost over all iphone revenue streams (not just one app)

paulmd 5y ago
seems like there's an implication here that apple should be running the app store as a charity or at least at-cost. that's always such a weird one with this site's libertarian/pro-business bent. it's good to make a successful business and make money... no not like that! there is nothing stopping anyone from setting up their own competing ecosystem (another walled garden, even). Google did exactly that, featurephones still exist, etc. There are legitimate end-user reasons for doing it this way (namely, facebook and others would immediately start their own app stores to end-run around app review so they could exploit permissions and exploit user privacy for profit, just as they already got caught doing). https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/01/facebook-and-google-offered-gift-cards-for-root-level-access-to-ios-users-data/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/01/facebook-and-google-... People are mad because they don't like Apple's business model, which doesn't involve them, so they want Apple to be forced to do business with them on their own terms. Very anti-libertarian, which is again ironic but not out of character for libertarians. Bioshock was right, libertarians are pro-freedom of business right up until someone else has a bigger business. This is very much in the range of Apple's freedom of business. Go make your own software ecosystem and you can do whatever you want with your app store. Again, just like Google did.
- josephg 5y ago
  I don't think anyone here has any problem with Apple and Google (and others) competing on who can make the best phone. The problem is that you need to compete in the market of smartphones to be able to compete in the market of app stores. Its quite similar to Microsoft pushing Internet Explorer with Windows a few decades ago - Microsoft was using a competitive advantage in one arena (operating systems) as leverage to gain a monopoly position in another arena (web browsers). The effect of that business strategy is it raises the cost of competition. Competitors now need to compete in both markets (OSes and browsers / phones and app stores). The expense of doing that knocks out almost all your competitors. All else being equal, less competition is bad for innovation and bad for consumers. Having both Steam and the Epic games store on windows is inconvenient, but both stores are forced to compete with each other on price and features to retain customers. In the long run this is means cheaper games and better platforms. This is obvious in the smartphone market too - the iPhone forced Android to become a way better operating system to compete. (Early versions of android were awful.) And Android in turn innovated on notifications and widgets and lots of other stuff, which forced the iPhone to raise its game. There's no competition for the app stores - and predictably the iphone app store is fine, but it hasn't improved much in years. Epic makes video games. They want to compete with the app store without competing with the iPhone. Whether you agree with them or not, I think they certainly have a case and deserve their day in court to argue it.

echelon 5y ago

The App Store is a gravy train of zero innovation and complete imposition against the rest of the world. The government will eventually step in and shut it down. Before Steve Jobs decided to control everything, most devices and operating systems supported downloading software from 3rd party sources and running it. After all, you owned the device and you licensed the OS to run your tasks and applications. Jobs was the villain that came up with this robber baron scheme. It's parasitic. Tightly and artificially control anything that gets put on the devices your company sells? Genius evil. Next up we're going to be paying for the content we stream on the Internet. Just wait for the next wave of tech land owners. You'll pay more for certain classes of traffic. Before you rush to defend it, ask yourself if you'd still be happy if Microsoft had won the war and there was no iPhone.

realityking 5y ago
> Before Steve Jobs decided to control everything, most devices and operating systems supported downloading software from 3rd party sources and running it. Game consoles are the canonical counter example. Even consoles without cartridges, never supported software that didn’t pay a cut to the console manufacturer (+ a really expensive dev kit). It’s not some evil genius idea that Jobs just cooked up.
- echelon 5y ago
  Game consoles aren't personal computers. They're toys. You have over a dozen platforms to choose from when you want to play Assassin's Creed. You only have two choices for the computing device you use most frequently. The pocket computer you have is where you do banking, calls, photos, dating, research, social networking. A lot of people spend most of their lives on these computers.

asdfasgasdgasdg 5y ago

In terms of marginal cost, there is essentially zero. The charge for this service bears no relationship to the cost to deliver it. That's why the app store is so enormously profitable, and it serves as de facto (to me) evidence of market power.