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I’m very curious how Tim Sweeney will react to this. This is very much not the victory lap he was hoping to take (nor are the Apple rulings) 1. I think uptake
by dagmx 10mo ago
I’m very curious how Tim Sweeney will react to this. This is very much not the victory lap he was hoping to take (nor are the Apple rulings)
1. I think uptake of third party stores is quite low and there’s a strong incentive to stay available on the primary store
2. The App Store model has very much been that the paid apps are subsidizing the free ones. So it’s somewhat fair to charge for using the infrastructure, if you’re not contributing into the pot (and are siphoning away from it)
3. Those per install costs are brutal. I was thinking they’d do a dollar , but at almost $4, they’re outside what most people would spend. This is a strong way to keep F2P games from instituting external payment processing.
- mrcwinn 10mo agoPoor Tim! Hey anyone know if I'm allowed to put my own skin store inside the Fortnite store? It's only fair.
- hshdhdhj4444 10mo agoPeople keep making the comparison between the Apple App Store or the Google Play store and the XBox store or the Fortnite store. But these are likely irrelevant comparisons. For one thing, the degree of monopolization simply doesn’t exist. Gaming is a market. There are many gaming platforms that are extremely popular. Xbox, PS, Nintendo, Steam, and then just open distribution on PCs which essentially means there is no lock in in this industry. And unlike the “web app” comparison folks try to make, open distribution can easily leverage the same capabilities as the store distributed games can (and in fact, they are more capable than games from some stores, like the Windows store). But more importantly, gaming isn’t an essential part of life, which is basically what smartphones, dominated entirely by iOS/Android, have become at this point. People depend on these platforms. There are businesses you cannot interact with if not through your phone. There are public transportation systems that are almost unusable. And finally, maybe this is just me, but I think the idea that general purpose computing is the same as playing video games just strikes me as wrong. General purpose computing, which is what phones are, are basic infrastructure for modern life. They should be treated differently and we shoudoht allow 2 companies to monopolize and/or embargo them like Apple/Google are trying.
- Razengan 10mo ago[flagged]
- 8note 10mo agoin terms of relevance, i think its anticompetitive that i cant use my skins and cosmetics from one game in a different game. if everything is running on the same couple engines, the cosmetics are all compatible with each other
- deaux 10mo agoThis comparison doesn't work at all. An APK for app A is compatible with Android devices of version X, regardless of the store it is sold on. A cosmetic for game B is not compatible with all games running on the same engine Y, for obvious reasons. Asking Fortnite to accept other stores selling Fortnite-compatible cosmetics doesn't work either because Fortnite has not monopolized a trillion-dollar industry, meanwhile spending billions on lobbying to make daily life for the average citizen impossible without them, which the Google-Apple cartel has. Fortnite has also never gained market share by pursuing claims about being an open source platform or not being evil, again unlike Google. These differences.. make all the difference. Call me when my kids are forced to agree to Fortnite EULAs to participate in schooling all around the world.
- pjmlp 10mo agoThey can come to Portugal, we don't do Chromebooks, or to most European countries for that matter. Unless all around the world is the usual "world === USA".
- deaux 10mo ago> Unless all around the world is the usual "world === USA". Not at all. US isn't even the leader on this. For example in many countries it's already much harder to do any kind of digital banking without a Google/Apple-approved phone than in the US. In Europe as well, more and more places where it's completely the norm for schools and teachers to do all their communication through Facebook or Whatsapp. Sure those have web, but are arguably the worst of the three. Portugal nor most European countries are above this at all. If only they were. Look at all the national IDs rolled out, those too more and more mandatory Apple/Android 2FA. Will Portuguese teachers never downgrade any students who do all their homework on e.g. OpenOffice and it doesn't look nice on the teacher's MS Office? Doubt it.
- lobito25 10mo agoDevelopers pay Google to access its services. Infrastructure costs account for less than 1% of the profit margin and are practically negligible. Google acts like a pimp, obsessed with squeezing profit above all else.
- musicale 10mo agoIf Google allowed other App stores on Android then maybe Amazon could make one. Or maybe they could add a setting to allow users to install their own APKs somehow.
- bloppe 10mo agoYou can install your own APK already. It's only slightly inconvenient. But apparently that's inconvenient enough to get zero business.
- shakna 10mo agoIt also involves around three or four "I know this could be dangerous" click-throughs. That is harder to get an audience of everyday, than settling for paying someone you are probably already paying.
- Ferret7446 10mo agoIt only takes 2-3 clicks once (go to settings via direct link, enable allow installs, go back and install). It is a non-issue
- shakna 10mo agoThe average person will not click through a security warning. And if they do, they don't know what they're expected to do on that settings page. They are trained _not_ to bypass security.
- metiscus 10mo agoThey're also killing this off next year and you'll have to install via adb, unless something changed and I didn't hear about it.
- radley 10mo ago> I’m very curious how Tim Sweeney will react to this. “Epic has indicated that it opposes the service fees that Google announced it may implement in the future and that Epic will challenge these fees if they come into effect.” https://www.theverge.com/news/848540/google-app-fees-external-link-downloads-alternative-payments https://www.theverge.com/news/848540/google-app-fees-externa...
- dagmx 10mo agoI’m sure they’ll oppose it but I’m not sure what footing they’d have if this doesn’t fall under googles collusion case, seeing as it’s for everyone in the same boat.
- charcircuit 10mo ago>they’re outside what most people would spend Free mobile games work via whales subsidizing free users. It may be more than the median user, but it's less than the average spend per user.
- dagmx 10mo agoThe key part is “free to play” These would not be free to play. They would have an up front cost beyond what the free users would be paying otherwise.
- charcircuit 10mo agoIt could still be free to play. Free users would be subsidized by paying users and / or by watching ads.
- dagmx 10mo agoPaying users to use your app is against the App Store rules, I’m pretty sure.
- charcircuit 10mo agoThe term "paying users" referring to users that are paying the app developer as opposed to those who play for free. And with the money they earn from those users they are able to subsidize the cost of acquiring more users which hopefully acquires another paying user to continue the cycle.
- jacquesm 10mo agoEven a dollar would be too much.
- kotaKat 10mo agoHe'll be mad, because he can't sell more nearly-nude Kim Kardashian skins to 12 year olds and make his extra ten cents per sale.
- bl4kers 10mo agoThe skins are almost fully clothed