Epics master plan vs Apple

[Matty]

https://amp.abc.net.au/article/12568286

This was i believe a long term plan of Epic to attack Apple.

It required them embed their software in a large segment of the market both for entertainment and more serious purposes  (eg medical software) and then create one killer app to use to bring down the ship so to speak...

[ImJustAnotherCoder]

Just two hard-hitters having a fight in the playground over stealing each others dinner money.

I'll keep an eye on this one though as it'll be interesting to see who backs down first.

[GfK]

End of the day, them's the rules.

Epic agreed to Apple's terms of use, then broke them.  This is the consequence.  Why should Epic be exempt from sticking to the rules?  If they don't like the terms then they shouldn't have agreed to them.

I generally think Apple are King Cnuts but on this occasion, I kinda agree with them.

[Steve Elliott]

I have no sympathy for companies engaging in in-app payments.

[GfK]

My 11yo plays a game called Star Stable.  Paid something like £50 for the "full version" and thought that was the end of it, since it said "pay once and never again".  [edit] Just checked - still says that.

This was bullshit.

She's constantly bombarded with "new horses", "amazing special offers" - all of which cost more money (up to €80).

This is a game aimed at Children.

[Steve Elliott]

That's disgusting, and people are clearly taken in with 'play for free' quotes, when the game is very much not free because of all these in-app purchases.  While anybody that is honest and tells you it's a one off payment gets told I can get games for free, er no you cannot!  To charge a fee and still have in-app purchases, well in my eyes that company are the lowest of the low.

I really cannot understand what was wrong with the old shareware model.  You get a free working demo with a few levels, then you pay for the full version if you like it - and that was the end of the matter, rather than ripping people off.

[dawlane]

My 11yo plays a game called Star Stable.  Paid something like £50 for the "full version" and thought that was the end of it, since it said "pay once and never again".  [edit] Just checked - still says that.

This was bullshit.

She's constantly bombarded with "new horses", "amazing special offers" - all of which cost more money (up to €80).

This is a game aimed at Children.

Contact trading standards. I'm sure they have broken UK law with that.

[GfK]

To be fair, it's the same business model as Amazon Prime.  You pay your subscription, but you still have to pay again if you want to watch much other than shit straight-to-TV films or The Grand Tour (which I don't).

[dawlane]

@Gfk: "pay once and never again" doesn't sound like a subscription model to me. This sounds more of pay once for the game and get updates for free, which you would get with most games to start with for the life cycle of that game. I would contact the developer and if they didn't give a satisfactory explanation, then I would contact trading standards, as what they have put on their site is not clear and misleading.

[GfK]

Even if I could be arsed - which I can't - I'm pretty sure trading standards have no jurisdiction outside of the UK.  Star Stable comes from Sweden or Norway or somewhere up that way, IIRC.

[Xerra]

Shareware was a great way to do things and developers could easily adopt that method now, even while having to use App Stores. Just release your game for free and have a few levels in it. Have one - and I mean one - in-app purchase, which is to just unlock the full game. That's the business model that seems perfect to me.

With software I think the times have changed and more developers have gone to a subscription system, where the app does receive regular updates, but you're paying a maintenance licence for it, instead of actually owning the product. Keep up the payments and you get them as they come out but, if you stop doing so then you're allowed to still use the last version you received (if you're lucky) or, more likely, you'll get locked out from continuing to use the app any more.

I've become a bit more accepting of this over the last few years, even though I feel most software is just updated to add more bloat and justify grabbing more of your hard-earned, but it's the same model for most new cars pretty much too. You pay a fixed amount every month for three years or so and then you can either pay a lump sum at the end to keep the car you have now, or they'll give you a brand new one and lock you in for another three years. As most people who use this system often don't have enough cash to buy out the rest of the vehicle value after three years, and would prefer to have a nice, new shiny anyway, it seems to work pretty well there. Software doesn't lock you in to a fixed term but you mostly never own it either.

Of all the stuff I use I can think of a few that I have a subscription on now. Office is the obvious one but that's not too bad at £6 a month and you can use it on anything plus have 1TB of cloud storage for backups.

As for the original debate on Apple pulling FortShite from their store - good for them. Epic obviously decided they were too big to follow the Apple terms and conditions, despite making a shedload of money through their store, and thought they would try and get even richer by not paying Apple a share, even though Apple had facilitated them. That's like me asking you to sell copies of my latest novel and agreeing that you can take 10% of each sale, then coming along and demanding all of the money. It amazes me how they have the balls to drag it into court and try to justify that.

[grindalf]

As somebody that actually plays Fortnite I can say the in app purchases are completely cosmetic and add nothing to the gameplay at all so it really is a free to play game you dont even need to spend any money to enter into the competitions(and you can win ALOT of money in them) as for their crusade against Apple im not sure who I agree with. They are getting people on their side by giving people a 20% discount on vbucks(the ingame currency) as long as people buy them directly from them and not from the app/play store.(so the line here is we are taking away from apple and giving back to you the people)
Lets face it apple are a bunch of money grabbing bastards but at the same time epic did agree to their terms and conditions(does that mean that once you have agreed to be robbed you should let it continue..... i dont know)
I think epic has a bigger picture planned myself. They knew it would come to this, within minutes of being blocked on the app store they had a promotional video playing on Fortnite(you can see it on youtube) and had their lawsuit ready to go.
Im not sure what the play is here but I think its going to revolve around getting the epic store on apple phones, I don't really think its just about 30%

[Steve Elliott]

It just seems to me like 2 (as you put it) money grabbing bastards fighting...I have no sympathy with either, but one of them wanted to make money playing in the other's arena and suddenly didn't like the rules!  Tough.

At least Apple is allowing people on PC's to develop for Mac now.

[GfK]

At least Apple is allowing people on PC's to develop for Mac now.

Wait what?  How?

[Kryzon]

I have no sympathy for companies engaging in in-app payments.