https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21060628-epic-apple-injunction
On the other hand, Apple still maintains the ability to terminate anyone on their platform for any reason, so they don’t have to allow back Fortnite unless Epic agrees on paying the tribute.
So Epic really didn’t win. No one did.
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This is a huge win for developers. Everyone is going to switch off of apple’s 30% in app purchases for cheaper alternatives. Apple can’t ban them all. Gaming stocks all rallying on this news.
Very interesting. It’s good that it opens the doors to in app options, but keeps apple’s option on the table for convenience.
Seems like a pretty fair outcome.
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I don’t know – if it significantly changes developers’ habits towards 3rd party payment systems, I could see Apple charging per-download fees to pay for hosting, promotion, and its other developer services, now that this isn’t coming from a cut. That would be harder for me to stomach than the agency fee.
I’m also not sure that this is necessarily good for the health of a platform known for being simple and secure. If security breaches through 3rd party platforms or any extra inconveniences imposed by funneling users through external payment systems erodes trust in the iOS experience, it could have a draining effect on the whole pool. Time will tell.
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More is needed though. Absolutely nothing changed for developer freedoms. They don’t need a reason to remove your title if it for example fairly competes.
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If Apple made those kind of changes, I would expect we would see a significant drop in low effort and reskin apps, as well as a rebirth of actually charging money up front for the app. There will be less focus on getting a maximum number of downloads for your app, and more importance placed on retaining users with a quality app they want to keep using.
This might actually be a change for the better for both the health of the app store itself, and for the developers who put in a lot of effort into their projects. Bad news for those who reskin whatever garbage project they can find, or for the classic “asset flip” looking to get a few ad impressions before the uninstall.
Yes and no. If Apple displays a pattern of simply removing without warning any app which takes advantage of the terms of this injunction, this same court could find they are actually still implementing the policies they are ordered to no longer enforce, in violation of this court order. The one thing courts hate the most is when their orders are ignored.
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That seems like thin ice to be playing around with. I could see them being more hostile in the future if there’s grounds for them to defend their actions (users suffering significantly because of it), but I can’t see them poking that nest right after this lawsuit.
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An Epic win! 
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Not really right? Apple can introduce other “fees”.
Apple stance is that these “fees” are mostly for the development and maintenance, I’d imagine that if apps bypass paying Apple any fees, they may charge operation fees instead.
I see that gamesfromscratch made a video about it. I’ll watch it in a while.
I agree this seems like a good outcome. Apple banning any mention of other payment methods in the apps definitely feels like anti-competitive behavior.
If you take a look at what Epic wanted, it’s clear that this is the far more conservative concession. They wanted to put their own “app store” on the device, to completely remove the locked-down nature of the store and by extension OS. At this present juncture they didn’t get that, and IMO they shouldn’t–they shouldn’t get to force a niche competitor to abandon their niche.
Edit: The judge also made the explicit comparison to consoles during the trial, implying that whatever happens here will carry on to them. I don’t really know how it works on console, but according to this article it’s a pretty big component of revenue. That will most certainly be challenged in the future.
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I am just happy that capitalism has a little balance to it. Putting fees back into the hands of developers instead of sickeningly bloated ultra-capitalist corporations is a step forward for the world, no matter the scale.
I do think capitalism is a good thing, but it must be tempered and moulded, skewed in the favour of people, not ultra corporations, and you all know that.
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No. This is at best a small victory in the large war that is tearing down the walled garden. If Epic had properly won we wouldn’t have to live with the Apple Store being the only way to get apps onto Apple devices and all of the very tight restrictions that come with said store.
Of course that’s just my viewpoint. Meanwhile Tim Sweeney himself doesn’t consider this a win in any fashion.
https://twitter.com/TimSweeneyEpic/status/1436370670166945792
But the rock has shifted. Corps seem to be thinking we humans are actually their property to be bought and sold as data, to be grateful for access to other humans (gamer customers). That is not a store, it’s a milking farm. They milk everything from the data to the % to the growth that makes cattle buy new hardware to keep up with the latest OS changes so the cycle can continue.
You can dress it up how you like but Apple doesn’t even have the ability to change at this point, easily. I do suspect half of Apple would love to. Half of Unity would love to change too.
But when you get to a certain scale, you can’t change without being attacked legally. There just isn’t the structure that can make it happen. Only the CEO could, and most CEOs don’t have “generate less profits” as part of their resume.
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a) Apple’s removal of Fortnite from the App Store due to breaking the contract was upheld.
b) Epic have to pay Apple an estimated $3.5 million.
c) Apple only have to change their one most unfair rule, which they surely knew was going to go anyway. It might only be in one territory.
d) And Epic can’t directly benefit from point (c) due to point (a).
So tell me, please… if that is “winning” then what do you call “losing”?
Even Epic aren’t trying to spin it as a win. Here’s Tim Sweeney, bold emphasis mine:
Also, I know that gaming media doesn’t report much on this, but Apple are under massive anti-trust (and similar) pressure on multiple fronts right now, and have been forced to make more than one concession as a result of that. Similar and potentially more significant stuff recently happened in Japan and Korea, and is ongoing in Europe.
In that context, point (c) is potentially a huge win for Apple. They know they’re going to have to make concessions, and this one is small compared to what could have happened.
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America and China are the only markets any business cares to please. So of it happens in America, that’s all that matters. If you pass censorship in China, that’s all the matters. The rest of the territories just don’t influence decision making enough.
Top two ≠the only two. The GDPR certainly has impacts outside of the EU, for instance, despite not representing either of the top markets.
And moreover, the point is that Apple are being challenged on many fronts, and that’ll probably continue for as long as they’re a market leader - as it should!
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It’s also worth pointing out that the judgement specifically said that Apple was not a monopoly. That was a win for Apple on many levels.
Also, allowing payments outside of app store may be useful for games like Fortnite and such, but not for a vast majority of the IAP/FTP games. IAP via the app store (or google play) is largely successful because it is frictionless. If I have a casual game that sells “gems” or “coins” or whatever the soft currency in the game is, a huge chunk of that is from the causal players impulse buying $2-$5 bundles. Typically because they are stuck on a level and in a couple of taps, they can buy their way out. If they have to sign up for 3rd party to spend money, they likely won’t. Combine that with the fact that often those who do spend casually, will do so across various titles.
Which means that unless some mega “paypal” type system for multiple games grows out of this where a single dominate player is available across many games, then folks will probably just shift to another game that makes it easier to take their money. On the flip side if an IAP paypal type provider rises and becomes dominate… then all that happened is the problem shifted elsewhere. Might be more rev for dev, might be less. Will definately be more hassle, and for sure less of that easy frictionless casual IAP from the provider platforms. If you are using IAP to convert a demo into a full game, it might be worth it to go off platform if sales are high enough.
Epic was never trying win and support developers, they are trying to win for epic. Their rev stream and resources, and pretty much everything put them in a class of one. What works for them, won’t work for small studios / devs.
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