A Jury Will Decide If Google's App Store Is an Unjust Monopoly
3 years ago by Lee Duna to c/technology
Epic games decided they don’t want to pay 30% of every transaction to Google or Apple. They sued Apple already and lost. They’ve filed an appeal, so we will hear more on that soon ish. I’m not an epic fan at all, but 30% of all sales is ridiculous. Epic themselves take 12% on the epic store. Valve, Apple, Google—none of these companies should get a third of the sale price for everything sold through an app downloaded from there store. Not just the price of the app, but all app revenue. Every in app purchase. All of it.
The $25 registration fee is just for the account. That’s negligible considering Apple charges $100 a year. It’s the commission these companies take that epic is suing over.
The Epic Games Store isn't profitable so it may not be a good example for how fees should be set.
Also, Epic is trying to argue lower fees would benefit consumers but games generally aren't cheaper on Epic's store than on Steam.
Yeah I mean they're handing out games for free left and right, their store sucks, their reputation sucks (both among gamers and most devs), of course they're not making a profit. Their 12% cut is only able to about cover costs because it doesn't include transaction fees and while I'd like Stream to lower their cut they're providing a fuckton of service for devs and the health of the wider ecosystem. I'd wish Gabe would finally figure out succession, though, e.g. make Valve a foundation, think Zeiss or Bosch, to make sure it stays bound to statutes instead of finance for eternity.
They aren’t cheaper in epic, but more money goes to the publishers and developers. It sucks when a game studio you like goes under.
I’d argue they aren’t profitable because of steam. Everybody uses steam, and most people will wait 6 months to get the epic exclusives after the exclusivity runs out.
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It's such a monopoly!! Epic Games decided they don't want to pay Google a 30% cut so didn't put Fortnite on the Play Store, and now they have absolutely no way of making an Android version! (/s)
What's up with Apple not allowing sideloads? They also have an app store, AND don't allow installing from outside of it. Users can only do that if they hack their devices. You can kinda de-Google stock Android, and disable all Google apps to not show up, and install a third-party store. You can fully de-Google it by rooting. There is a literal button to unlock the OEM, and then you can unlock the bootloader, and root or install a custom OS. Sure, it's not that easy, but you can. No matter how scary the warning is that it gives at boot, it's still an intended thing. Just because it gives a warning when you install an *unsigned app, it isn't a monopoly. Windows SmartScreen also does it when an app is unsigned, and the install anyways button is hidden behind a more details button.
Ok, it can't auto-update without root and Play Store doesn't allow other app stores to be put on it, I just don't understand why they are targetting Google out of all things.
They could make a section in the Play Store that lists other trusted app stores, and maybe even allow downloading them directly from the Play Store, but I can't decide if they should manually put them there, allow free submissions, or allow submissions while still having to pay. And they should make implementation of auto-updates for non-system apps easier.
This is definitely not an unjust monopoly tough.
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