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Now they're casting out of the walled garden for not feeding the apple...?

Fruit trees benefit from seemingly savage pruning from time to time.This includes branches, ring barking where a ring of up 9/10ths of bark around the tree is removed. Root pruning is also an option. It is thought the near death experience forces them to be fruitful rather than just CO2 stores.

While I cast a very cynical eye upon Apple and their terms (and Google Play Store of course), Epic agreed to the terms and tried to pull a fast one. They probably did so knowing what Apple would do, and were ready with their legal challenge.

If Epic doesn't like the terms that Apple laid down, they shouldn't have played in their garden. Alternatively, they could have filed a suit while paying appropriate fees and seen if Apple would be foolish enough to cast them out without a valid reason - which would have played into Epic's legal hands.

*My reasoning is flawed if Apple changed the rules after Epic joined.

My understanding is that Epic did indeed do this on purpose to force apples hand.

Apple basically have a monopoly on apps deployed to ios devices.

They have to be deployed via the app store - and apple gets 30% of the price of the app - which is fair(ish).

BUT the issue is that they also take 30% of any transactions that take place in the app whilst mandating that developers cannot redirect users outside of the app to make purchases (or even reference that this is possible).

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A good example of where this is causing issues is the FloatPlane video streaming service run by Linus Media Group, If they allowed you to register for the service through the app apple would take 30% of your ongoing monthly subscriptions, because LMG cannot afford this on the tight margins that they run FP on the iOS app does not have a registration mechanism and is not allowed to contain any information telling users how to register for the service.

So a user downloading the FloatPlane app has to know in advance how to register for the service.

Basically apple are making the options for the developer :

1. Do registration in app and give us an ongoing 30% cut of your subscriptions.

2. Have a terrible user experience which will reduce the number of registrations that you will get.

To me that seems like an abuse of apples position.

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A transaction fee is reasonable if the payment goes through apple, but to charge an ongoing fee (of 30%) for transactions that do not touch any of their services?

1. Do registration in app and give us an ongoing 30% cut of your subscriptions.

Just for completeness - For subscriptions bought through apps, Apple take 30% for the 12months, dropping to 15% thereafter. Which is still far to high for various low-margin sectors. But worth noting it's not 30% forever.

However, paid apps and one-off in-app purchases (by far the most common transactions) are 30%.

"Just for completeness - For subscriptions bought through apps, Apple take 30% for the 12months, dropping to 15% thereafter. Which is still far to high for various low-margin sectors. But worth noting it's not 30% forever. "

Thanks - I was not aware of that.

Still, 30% for 12 months is ridiculous even dropping it to 15% is too much - Apple are adding no value to the service after the initial purchase of the app why should they get that much of a cut?

If you sell videos on iTunes, you pay 30% commission, which is probably reasonable, because distributing videos is very expensive.

If you distribute your own video streaming app, then you have to provide your own video distribution service, or pay Amazon or similar to do it for you. Yet Apple still take 30%. All Apple are doing is providing credit a card processing service, and other suppliers do that for about 3%, maybe a bit more for small transactions, but not 30%.

" All Apple are doing is providing credit a card processing service, and other suppliers do that for about 3%, maybe a bit more for small transactions, but not 30%."

YES, but its worse, because they prohibit you from using any other mechanism for getting the funds, not happy using apple to process your transaction so you offer paypal within your app... they still want their 30% even though they dont touch the transaction at any point.

I believe that its also a stipulation that if you take payments you have to offer apple pay as one of the payment processors which comes with its own high transaction fees (but your prohibited from passing this extra cost onto the consumer).

If ongoing transactions are not charged, the any app developer would set the app price as close to zero as possible, and have an ongoing transaction fee for a feature without which the app was was mostly useless.

The difference is that Apple does not allow other stores on iOS, going so far as to brick phones of people who try it.

Steam is the main game store in the PC world, but you dont have to use it, there are others (GOG, EA Origin, Ubisoft's Uplay). And since Epic didnt like the terms at Steam (the seemingly standard 30% cut) they did go and crate a competitor (Epic Games Store) which is probably now the number 2 games store on PC's (basically because Epic threw around all that Fortnite cash and gave a ton of free games away and nabbed PC exclusives).

On Android, Google Play Store is the king, but you can freely sideload apps and even other Appstores without much trouble - Amazon Appstore is a good example of this.

But when it comes to iOS, you have no choice but to go through the Apple Store. If Apple decided to raise their percentage to 50% of sales, there's nothing a producer could do about it. It is the definition of a monopoly market.

I'm not a fan of Epic at all, and this was absolutely a pre-planned move on their behalf, but if it opens up iOS so that customers have a choice of game store, then that can only be a WIN for us consumers.

Arguing that Unreal Engine is "essential" potentially makes Epic a monopoly supplier target in its own right. Which might backfire...

* Microsoft sticks the knife into Apple

* Pope confirmed to be Catholic

* Bears do s**t in the woods

...

Especially as MS can still claim the 30% fee for purchases of Epic products made through the XBox app store - definitely a case of "do as I say, not as I do".

Interesting, does that include in app purchases too, or just the initial purchase of the game?

Have I understood what apple have done correctly?

If I've understood correctly apple have a dispute with Epic so they have said anything written by anyone which uses the unreal engine is banned from the app store?

So if I go and knock up a shitty FPS using the community version of the unreal engine and try to release it on iOS it will be rejected? Even though I have no affiliation with Epic and have not even paid them to licence the Engine?

If thats right then I cant see how apple have a leg to stand on, they are clearly abusing their position to hurt epic and their ongoing business by trying to force game devs off of the unreal engine.

Not quite - I don't think Apple are going to reject any app just because it uses Unreal Engine - but by removing Epic from the Apple developer program it effectively means Epic can't update their Unreal Engine to support any future iOS / macOS updates.

I was basing this assumption on the court filing that Epic made :

"If the Unreal Engine can no longer support Apple platforms, the software developers that use it will be forced to use alternatives. The damage to Epic’s ongoing business and to its reputation and trust with its customers will be unquantifiable and irreparable. Preliminary injunctive relief is necessary to prevent Apple from crushing Epic before this case could ever get to judgment."

This [PAYWALL - BUT FREE VERSION AVAILABLE] https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-games/2020/08/17/apple-cuts-off-epic-its-tools-endangering-future-unreal-engine-projects-ios-mac/ seems to back up by understanding that if you're using the unreal engine you're SOL on iOS.

If I've understood correctly apple have a dispute with Epic so they have said anything written by anyone which uses the unreal engine is banned from the app store?

Not quite. Apple yanked their developer account because of the Fortnite bruhah.

The problem is that without an Apple Developer Account Epic can't access the latest Xcode stuff or signing certs for the other half of their business, which is Unreal.

This doesn't stop anyone using Unreal and certainly doesn't mean their apps get kicked from the store, but it does stop Epic issuing patches. It means Unreal Engine is effectively unmaintained for iOS/macOS.

Additionally, by preventing updates to Unreal for new iOS/macOS versions, there's a fair chance of everyone's Unreal-based games breaking on the next major OS releases. So it's no longer just "Fortnite". Apple are dangling their entire Unreal customer base over the heads.

That makes sense, It also gives context to the statement that they made (copied above).

So existing developments will be fine, but realistically no one is going to use unreal to develop a game being deployed to iOS again until this is resolved.

So apple are not saying "We will stop people using the unreal engine on iOS" but they are saying "We will restrict your ability to update the engine so no one will want to use it going forward".

That's only slightly less shitty than I previously thought.

"there's a fair chance of everyone's Unreal-based games breaking on the next major OS releases"

I'd put money on it. Proper 90s Microsoft Behaviour, restrict your ability to update your app and then change the underlying APIs just enough to stop it working altogether.

I would actually be really surprised if Apple was stupid enough to do this on purpose unless it is due to an unavoidable new feature. Given the Dilbert rule, there is a pretty high chance of that happening.

I think Apple would do much better from this if they were to just go ahead and make the ongoing charges much more reasonable. 15% seems more than fair and it would encourage more software to make their subscription fees available in the App Store. The best of all would be to keep the 30% charge on all the purchases of "virtual goods" which have infected gaming culture. Taxing this heavily would discourage developers from building this kind of garbage into everything they make.

"unavoidable new feature"

Im sure someone is cooking up a "new feature" that changes just the right bits of the OS right now.

"15% seems more than fair"

Does it balls.

Im yet to find out what apple are doing to justify taking ANY money from the proceeds of in game spending or ongoing subscriptions.

Or...or they could just open the platform to the users who bought their products to load, purchase and otherwise use software from whom they see fit...

It might even encourage content creators to not use in app purchases to pay extortionate idiot taxes..

I can understand that being the issue for iOS, but last time that I checked, you can install anything on Mac OSX...unless you're talking about the Xcode development environment where you need Apple's compilers to compile code for Macs. So it seems to me that Apple canceled not only their iOS developer account, but their Xcode developer account too. Normally, I would say let them eat each other, but the Unreal engine is used by many and Apple's actions will hurt many in the game industry.

.i hope from my philasophical pov .... Epic stick to theIr guns >>> people are simple and simple is fickle...if kids can't play fortnight or the next what ever realeased through unreal then they wont want istuff. Simple

Ifones are like bmw'$ and bently'$....$tatus$ymbols..if either go under it's not going to stop simple buying cars!

If Epic switched focus to linux they may shake things up ... apple could keep it going in court for years, but they can't stifle imagination and inovation

And yeah fuck the money stuff they have enough!

I'm not sure I understand this. At first it looks like my enemy's enemy stuff. But then couldn't this damage Apple's market share of gamers?

Is it physically possible for Apple to allow updates to the unreal engine while still banning Fortnite?