3 ms·

> If I am buying something from a company directly from their website or marketplace, for a service they provide in that app, why should I pay Apple a fee? Ok,

> If I am buying something from a company directly from their website or marketplace, for a service they provide in that app, why should I pay Apple a fee? Ok, but explain to me why it is ok for Sony to charge a license fee to release a game that is only sold in retail stores as physical copies, while it is not ok for Apple to charge a similar fee? The parent's point is that HN goes all frothy-mouthed about the $0.50/download fee from Apple, and then uses pretzel logic to justify why it is ok for Playstation/Xbox/Nintendo to do the exact same thing.

alt227 2y ago
I think that the issue here is that every person and their grandma has an iphone, and so they are a bigger target. Pretty much every single person in the western world has a mobile phone, and the majority of those are iPhones. No matter how hard you try to compare this to the console market, its apples and oranges. The amount of xboxes sold and the market they are sold to just pales in insignificance compared to Apples domination of the world. Also the gaming world has a much shittier nemesis, gambling. The loot box and microtransaction scandals have overshadowed any issues with store fees. I feel if these things hadnt been so big over the last decade, there would have been much more focus on the payment issues of app stores. As a kicker, I feel that the courts would probably argue that the console world is very specific to gaming, and therefore is a much more targetted audience. Phones have apps for everrything that run your life, hell you cant even get a bus ticket or do any banking where Im from if you dont have a smart phone. So it is much more of a lifestyle device which is required to live in the modern age, whereas consoles are purely entertainment.
p_l 2y ago
The main difference is that the agreement between Sony and publisher only covers publishers first sale of the material, and their agreements only cover direct revenue share / static prices per unit from publisher. It does not limit publisher in any way how they want to sell the physical copies, it does absolutely not apply to non-first-sale (depending on the structure of distribution, the box you see in a retail store might already be beyond first sale). It also does not setup any limits on publishers activities that do not involve Sony licensed IP. It's similar to how many vendors had revenue share licensing on their products in the past, which is legally distinct from flat percentage applied to distribution channel and limits on said distribution channel n.b. Sony has, apparently, since PS4 sometimes been cheaper to develop for, in terms of non-revenue-share pricing, than Apple - often providing no-cost loaners for smaller teams. source on Sony terms: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1821175/000149315220023938/ex10-22.htm https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1821175/000149315220...

alt227 2y ago

I think that the issue here is that every person and their grandma has an iphone, and so they are a bigger target. Pretty much every single person in the western world has a mobile phone, and the majority of those are iPhones. No matter how hard you try to compare this to the console market, its apples and oranges. The amount of xboxes sold and the market they are sold to just pales in insignificance compared to Apples domination of the world. Also the gaming world has a much shittier nemesis, gambling. The loot box and microtransaction scandals have overshadowed any issues with store fees. I feel if these things hadnt been so big over the last decade, there would have been much more focus on the payment issues of app stores. As a kicker, I feel that the courts would probably argue that the console world is very specific to gaming, and therefore is a much more targetted audience. Phones have apps for everrything that run your life, hell you cant even get a bus ticket or do any banking where Im from if you dont have a smart phone. So it is much more of a lifestyle device which is required to live in the modern age, whereas consoles are purely entertainment.

p_l 2y ago

The main difference is that the agreement between Sony and publisher only covers publishers first sale of the material, and their agreements only cover direct revenue share / static prices per unit from publisher. It does not limit publisher in any way how they want to sell the physical copies, it does absolutely not apply to non-first-sale (depending on the structure of distribution, the box you see in a retail store might already be beyond first sale). It also does not setup any limits on publishers activities that do not involve Sony licensed IP. It's similar to how many vendors had revenue share licensing on their products in the past, which is legally distinct from flat percentage applied to distribution channel and limits on said distribution channel n.b. Sony has, apparently, since PS4 sometimes been cheaper to develop for, in terms of non-revenue-share pricing, than Apple - often providing no-cost loaners for smaller teams. source on Sony terms: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1821175/000149315220023938/ex10-22.htm https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1821175/000149315220...