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90% _today_. Strategic chess moves like this are about the next decade. The web is becoming more and more powerful and who says Fortnite can't run in a browser

by mmcnl 3y ago

90% _today_. Strategic chess moves like this are about the next decade. The web is becoming more and more powerful and who says Fortnite can't run in a browser in 5 years? Especially if EU forces Apple to allow alternative browser engines that Apple can't control. It's an existential threat to the App Store model.

scarface_74 3y ago
And what is stopping Epic from using a PWA today on Android of its just Apple holding them back?
- mmcnl 3y ago
  No idea, but as I said it's about the next decade, not today.
  - JustExAWS 3y ago
    Is the mass adoption of PWAs on mobile - including Android where Chrome is suppose to be so much better - like the “year of Linux on the desktop”? (and the HN gods don’t like me now for some unknown reason)
    - mmcnl 3y ago
      No, I don't think so, for the end user it doesn't matter a lot (though increased competition will be of benefit for the end user obviously). But what matters is that Apple can't be a gatekeeper for PWAs and so they can't charge their 30% App Store tax. So it matters a lot for developers. That's why it's a threat to the App Store model.
      - scarface_74 3y ago
        You still didn’t answer the question - if it means so much for developers, why not use PWAs on Android today?
        mmcnl 3y ago
        Because PWAs are not capable enough. But as I repeatedly said and will repeat again: it's not about today. What's true today doesn't need to be true in 5 or 10 years.
        scarface_74 3y ago
        So any day now it’s going to be the “Year of the PWA”? And in that case it’s not just mean old Apple keeping PWAs down? Also, casino style, pay to win games won’t leave the app stores - which make up 90% of App Store revenue - because of the direct access to users wallets. People are not going to randomly put their credit cards on every website and parents aren’t going to give their kids credit cards to put on those websites. The app stores give parents control of how much spending their kids do.
- johnnyanmac 3y ago
  >what is stopping Epic from using a PWA today Unreal and Unity tried in early 2010's to do web based deployment, and it was awful. They pretty much stopped by the mid 2010's. Basically the big game engines just don't support it. It's technically still in Unity at least (I don't think it's in Unreal, but I can be wrong), but it is far from stable. WebGPU and WebAssembly is giving them both the optimism to try and boot some of that up again, and Cloud gaming is a big momentum factor that they will want to aim for. so I wouldn't rule out the idea of it coming back by the end of the decade. Will Fortnite specifically bother with it? Who knows? There's so many directions this can go and IOS's current decisions will affect a lot of that.

by mmcnl 3y ago

scarface_74 3y ago

And what is stopping Epic from using a PWA today on Android of its just Apple holding them back?

mmcnl 3y ago
No idea, but as I said it's about the next decade, not today.
- JustExAWS 3y ago
  Is the mass adoption of PWAs on mobile - including Android where Chrome is suppose to be so much better - like the “year of Linux on the desktop”? (and the HN gods don’t like me now for some unknown reason)
  - mmcnl 3y ago
    No, I don't think so, for the end user it doesn't matter a lot (though increased competition will be of benefit for the end user obviously). But what matters is that Apple can't be a gatekeeper for PWAs and so they can't charge their 30% App Store tax. So it matters a lot for developers. That's why it's a threat to the App Store model.
    - scarface_74 3y ago
      You still didn’t answer the question - if it means so much for developers, why not use PWAs on Android today?
      - mmcnl 3y ago
        Because PWAs are not capable enough. But as I repeatedly said and will repeat again: it's not about today. What's true today doesn't need to be true in 5 or 10 years.
        scarface_74 3y ago
        So any day now it’s going to be the “Year of the PWA”? And in that case it’s not just mean old Apple keeping PWAs down? Also, casino style, pay to win games won’t leave the app stores - which make up 90% of App Store revenue - because of the direct access to users wallets. People are not going to randomly put their credit cards on every website and parents aren’t going to give their kids credit cards to put on those websites. The app stores give parents control of how much spending their kids do.
johnnyanmac 3y ago
>what is stopping Epic from using a PWA today Unreal and Unity tried in early 2010's to do web based deployment, and it was awful. They pretty much stopped by the mid 2010's. Basically the big game engines just don't support it. It's technically still in Unity at least (I don't think it's in Unreal, but I can be wrong), but it is far from stable. WebGPU and WebAssembly is giving them both the optimism to try and boot some of that up again, and Cloud gaming is a big momentum factor that they will want to aim for. so I wouldn't rule out the idea of it coming back by the end of the decade. Will Fortnite specifically bother with it? Who knows? There's so many directions this can go and IOS's current decisions will affect a lot of that.