4 ms·

That's the second time now I read about Epic Games paying a fine for doing something obviously shady and illegal. I slowly get the impression that Epic Games mi

That's the second time now I read about Epic Games paying a fine for doing something obviously shady and illegal. I slowly get the impression that Epic Games might be a bit more scammy than your average company.

pseudostem 4y ago
What you said, and what I'm retorting with requires data, lots of it. But my understanding is that given unchecked power in a domain, almost all of them do the same.
- mostlysimilar 4y ago
  Yeah, I appreciate Valve more and more. Epic has the gall to present themselves as underdogs fighting for consumers against Valve, Apple, etc. Meanwhile Valve quietly hums along making gaming better for everyone.
bena 4y ago
Yeah, it makes their kerfuffle with Apple look a bit different. Because Apple charges 30%. And Apple can keep that if there is a refund. In this case, Epic is returning money. They would ideally be net zero on this whole debacle. You mistakenly bought $10 worth of skins, Epic collected that $10. Then you get refunded $10, Epic returns that $10. In the App Store scenario. You mistakenly bought $10 worth of skins, Apple collected that $10, gave $7 to Epic. Then you get refunded $10, Apple returns that $10, and then collects that $10 from Epic. Epic loses $3 on the exchange. And if this is just refunding the purchases, it's kind of a good deal for Epic. As they essentially got an interest free loan from their customers.
- RussianCow 4y ago
  > And if this is just refunding the purchases, it's kind of a good deal for Epic. As they essentially got an interest free loan from their customers. Just a minor note: I believe credit card transaction fees are not refunded to the vendor, so there is still a non-zero cost to refunding customers which likely doesn't make it a "good deal". (Disclaimer: It's been over a decade since I did anything related to payments, so this may be out of date, or I may be misremembering it.)
  - bena 4y ago
    No, that sounds if not outright correct, at the very least in the ballpark of close enough. And I'm not totally up on the transaction fees, but they're typically in the low single digit percentages. And you only get hit once. So even on the higher side, you're looking at making up 3%. Which is way more likely than making up 30% in the same timeframe.
- ipv6ipv4 4y ago
  This is completely false. Apple doesn't chargeback more than it paid out.
my_usernam3 4y ago
I think I agree with you, but to play devil's advocate, the video game industry is struggling to monetize their work. No one wants to pay for games anymore, no one wants a pay to win system in a game, and cosmetic items seem like a waste of money to most. The result is the gaming industry pulling out all the tricks to try to separate the consume from his or her wallet to pay for content.
- JohnFen 4y ago
  > the video game industry is struggling to monetize their work. The video game industry is exceedingly profitable. It makes more money than the movie industry, at nearly $100 billion per year. I don't think it's struggling to monetize. It seems quite successful at that.
- mrguyorama 4y ago
  It had no problem monetizing their work BEFORE the microtransaction hellscape we have now, which has made these companies insanely profitable.
  - account42 4y ago
    Exactly - it's not that there aren't people that want to buy games, it's that giving games away for free and then selling microtransactions is more profitable.
- thewebcount 4y ago
  > No one wants to pay for games anymore Is that true, or are games so broken that nobody is willing to pay for them anymore. I've completely stopped buying almost any game that isn't on Apple Arcade because I know those games will be free of pay-to-win mechanics and nickel-and-diming you with more charges and dark patterns. On Apple's service, they all have to ask if they want to steal my data and resell it. I always say "No." I have a Steam account for playing older games I bought a while ago, but I buy maybe 1 game per year on it, if even, and only because it's not available anywhere else I'm willing to spend money. I'm playing more games than ever before now, too!
- 4y ago
acomjean 4y ago
As an adult who’s partner plays Fortnite with her cousins and occasionally gets dragged in, I haven’t seen this. I’ve spent maybe 25, and it seemed pretty obvious what was going on. Maybe I just haven’t found the dark pattern path. It should be clear what’s going on before charging. I don’t love the “v bucks” vs real dollars they charge for things. though I get that the reward for those who grind isn’t actual dollars. As someone who let a younger person play on my laptop, I will note my balance was quickly brought down to 0 though I had some new “emotes”.. lesson learned. I’d rather just pay once for games, though that seems to be on its way out.
- hinkley 4y ago
  I play Civ VI on my tablet to wind down, and I’m not happy about owning the whole thing on Steam and only half on iOS. They need a license transference process. If memory serves Klei might have a solution for this but I haven’t bought anything on steam in some time so I may be thinking of some other game.
  - bellgrove 4y ago
    It would be nice to get a discount on already owned games when purchasing on another platform, but I disagree that it should just be free (if I understood what you mean about license transference). Porting a game to another platform is non-trivial - I think a fair compromise would be a discount. Otherwise the cost of games in general would have to go up to subsidize the labor to bring content to all platforms.
  - airstrike 4y ago
    I'm honestly more upset about how shitty it is to download DLCs and mods on iOS. The whole thing is botched beyond belief
- ChickenNugger 4y ago
  >I’d rather just pay once for games, though that seems to be on its way out. Unfortunately the only way to fight that is to not pay for anything else, but companies also know that's where the money's at. I paid $40 for Overwatch. ActiBlizzard replaced what I paid for with F2P "Overwatch 2" and added "battle passes" and overpriced skins, and they seem to be going that way permanently now. That is, I don't have access to Overwatch, the product I paid full price for, anymore. And the PvE content they marketed Overwatch 2 as still hasn't materialized either.
hinkley 4y ago
It’s sure a good thing we let them run their own App Store for Apple products then. Definitely a win for the little guy. /s
- lapcat 4y ago
  The crApp Store is full of dark patterns. All Apple ever cared about was getting its 30% cut of those dark patterns, including from Epic.
  - ChickenNugger 4y ago
    Apple definitely cares about that (they actually make way more money from their app store than google despite the much smaller userbase). But they're also better at keeping out malware than google's app store I feel. I could be wrong.
  - hinkley 4y ago
    If we wanted to 'fix' both the price overhead on the App Store and the Freemium problem there then the best way to do that would be for Apple to reduce their cut on initial purchases but keep in-game purchases at 30%. Right now they're doing nothing to discourage these patterns. I cut Apple some slack because I worked in mobile when the iPhone was still a product demo. If you think Apple are assholes, you don't remember what carriers were like. Some of them were in the middle of figuring out how to white label phones so they could completely control the wireless space instead of share control with Moto, Nokia, Ericcson, etc. AT&T wanted you to buy an AT&T branded phone, not a Nokia. If memory serves, HTC was one of those white label manufacturers at the time. The introduction of the Razr and the iPhone kept us from being in the worst timeline. And the App Store broke open an entire industry.
    - lapcat 4y ago
      > I cut Apple some slack because I worked in mobile when the iPhone was still a product demo. If you think Apple are assholes, you don't remember what carriers were like. I don't cut Apple any slack because I worked in desktop when the iPhone was still a product demo. If you don't think Apple are assholes, you don't remember what freedom was like.

pseudostem 4y ago

What you said, and what I'm retorting with requires data, lots of it. But my understanding is that given unchecked power in a domain, almost all of them do the same.

mostlysimilar 4y ago
Yeah, I appreciate Valve more and more. Epic has the gall to present themselves as underdogs fighting for consumers against Valve, Apple, etc. Meanwhile Valve quietly hums along making gaming better for everyone.

bena 4y ago

Yeah, it makes their kerfuffle with Apple look a bit different. Because Apple charges 30%. And Apple can keep that if there is a refund. In this case, Epic is returning money. They would ideally be net zero on this whole debacle. You mistakenly bought $10 worth of skins, Epic collected that $10. Then you get refunded $10, Epic returns that $10. In the App Store scenario. You mistakenly bought $10 worth of skins, Apple collected that $10, gave $7 to Epic. Then you get refunded $10, Apple returns that $10, and then collects that $10 from Epic. Epic loses $3 on the exchange. And if this is just refunding the purchases, it's kind of a good deal for Epic. As they essentially got an interest free loan from their customers.

RussianCow 4y ago
> And if this is just refunding the purchases, it's kind of a good deal for Epic. As they essentially got an interest free loan from their customers. Just a minor note: I believe credit card transaction fees are not refunded to the vendor, so there is still a non-zero cost to refunding customers which likely doesn't make it a "good deal". (Disclaimer: It's been over a decade since I did anything related to payments, so this may be out of date, or I may be misremembering it.)
- bena 4y ago
  No, that sounds if not outright correct, at the very least in the ballpark of close enough. And I'm not totally up on the transaction fees, but they're typically in the low single digit percentages. And you only get hit once. So even on the higher side, you're looking at making up 3%. Which is way more likely than making up 30% in the same timeframe.
ipv6ipv4 4y ago
This is completely false. Apple doesn't chargeback more than it paid out.

my_usernam3 4y ago

I think I agree with you, but to play devil's advocate, the video game industry is struggling to monetize their work. No one wants to pay for games anymore, no one wants a pay to win system in a game, and cosmetic items seem like a waste of money to most. The result is the gaming industry pulling out all the tricks to try to separate the consume from his or her wallet to pay for content.

JohnFen 4y ago
> the video game industry is struggling to monetize their work. The video game industry is exceedingly profitable. It makes more money than the movie industry, at nearly $100 billion per year. I don't think it's struggling to monetize. It seems quite successful at that.
mrguyorama 4y ago
It had no problem monetizing their work BEFORE the microtransaction hellscape we have now, which has made these companies insanely profitable.
- account42 4y ago
  Exactly - it's not that there aren't people that want to buy games, it's that giving games away for free and then selling microtransactions is more profitable.
thewebcount 4y ago
> No one wants to pay for games anymore Is that true, or are games so broken that nobody is willing to pay for them anymore. I've completely stopped buying almost any game that isn't on Apple Arcade because I know those games will be free of pay-to-win mechanics and nickel-and-diming you with more charges and dark patterns. On Apple's service, they all have to ask if they want to steal my data and resell it. I always say "No." I have a Steam account for playing older games I bought a while ago, but I buy maybe 1 game per year on it, if even, and only because it's not available anywhere else I'm willing to spend money. I'm playing more games than ever before now, too!
4y ago

acomjean 4y ago

As an adult who’s partner plays Fortnite with her cousins and occasionally gets dragged in, I haven’t seen this. I’ve spent maybe 25, and it seemed pretty obvious what was going on. Maybe I just haven’t found the dark pattern path. It should be clear what’s going on before charging. I don’t love the “v bucks” vs real dollars they charge for things. though I get that the reward for those who grind isn’t actual dollars. As someone who let a younger person play on my laptop, I will note my balance was quickly brought down to 0 though I had some new “emotes”.. lesson learned. I’d rather just pay once for games, though that seems to be on its way out.

hinkley 4y ago
I play Civ VI on my tablet to wind down, and I’m not happy about owning the whole thing on Steam and only half on iOS. They need a license transference process. If memory serves Klei might have a solution for this but I haven’t bought anything on steam in some time so I may be thinking of some other game.
- bellgrove 4y ago
  It would be nice to get a discount on already owned games when purchasing on another platform, but I disagree that it should just be free (if I understood what you mean about license transference). Porting a game to another platform is non-trivial - I think a fair compromise would be a discount. Otherwise the cost of games in general would have to go up to subsidize the labor to bring content to all platforms.
- airstrike 4y ago
  I'm honestly more upset about how shitty it is to download DLCs and mods on iOS. The whole thing is botched beyond belief
ChickenNugger 4y ago
>I’d rather just pay once for games, though that seems to be on its way out. Unfortunately the only way to fight that is to not pay for anything else, but companies also know that's where the money's at. I paid $40 for Overwatch. ActiBlizzard replaced what I paid for with F2P "Overwatch 2" and added "battle passes" and overpriced skins, and they seem to be going that way permanently now. That is, I don't have access to Overwatch, the product I paid full price for, anymore. And the PvE content they marketed Overwatch 2 as still hasn't materialized either.

hinkley 4y ago

It’s sure a good thing we let them run their own App Store for Apple products then. Definitely a win for the little guy. /s

lapcat 4y ago
The crApp Store is full of dark patterns. All Apple ever cared about was getting its 30% cut of those dark patterns, including from Epic.
- ChickenNugger 4y ago
  Apple definitely cares about that (they actually make way more money from their app store than google despite the much smaller userbase). But they're also better at keeping out malware than google's app store I feel. I could be wrong.
- hinkley 4y ago
  If we wanted to 'fix' both the price overhead on the App Store and the Freemium problem there then the best way to do that would be for Apple to reduce their cut on initial purchases but keep in-game purchases at 30%. Right now they're doing nothing to discourage these patterns. I cut Apple some slack because I worked in mobile when the iPhone was still a product demo. If you think Apple are assholes, you don't remember what carriers were like. Some of them were in the middle of figuring out how to white label phones so they could completely control the wireless space instead of share control with Moto, Nokia, Ericcson, etc. AT&T wanted you to buy an AT&T branded phone, not a Nokia. If memory serves, HTC was one of those white label manufacturers at the time. The introduction of the Razr and the iPhone kept us from being in the worst timeline. And the App Store broke open an entire industry.
  - lapcat 4y ago
    > I cut Apple some slack because I worked in mobile when the iPhone was still a product demo. If you think Apple are assholes, you don't remember what carriers were like. I don't cut Apple any slack because I worked in desktop when the iPhone was still a product demo. If you don't think Apple are assholes, you don't remember what freedom was like.