David Hanak The CEO of Epic Games, Tim Sweeney, took care of quite a stir yesterday. In Cologne, Devcon is currently taking place (alongside the better-known Gamescom), which is an event intended for game developers across all platforms. And it was Sweeney who appeared on his panel yesterday and, among other things, sighed loudly about how developers are being ripped off by companies like Apple and Google through their trading platforms. There were even words related to parasitism.
It has been talked about for a long time that Apple (as well as others, but in this article we will focus primarily on Apple) charges relatively high amounts for all transactions that take place through the App Store. It's only been a few months since Spotify called out loudly, who don't like the 30% cut that Apple takes from all transactions. It has even gone so far that Spotify offers a better subscription offer on its website than in the App Store. But back to Epic Games…
In his panel, Tim Sweeney dedicated a short time slot to the development and monetization of games on mobile platforms. And it is precisely monetization and business terms that he does not like at all. The current situation is said to be very unfair to the developers themselves. Apple (and co.) are said to take a disproportionate share of all transactions, which, according to him, is unjustifiable and borders on parasitizing on someone else's success.
“The App Store takes a thirty percent share of your app sales. This is strange to say the least, as Mastercard and Visa do essentially the same thing, but only charge two to three percent of each transaction.”
Sweeney later acknowledged that the two examples are not directly comparable in terms of service delivery and the complexity of running the platforms. Even so, 30% seems too much to him, realistically the fee should be around five to six percent to correspond to what the developers get back for it.
Despite such a high share of sales, according to Sweeney, Apple does not do enough to somehow justify this amount. For example, app promotion is lousy. The App Store is currently dominated by games with marketing budgets in the order of tens of millions of dollars. Small studios or independent developers logically do not have access to such finances, therefore they are hardly visible. Regardless of how good a product it offers. Therefore, they have to look for alternative ways to reach customers. However, Apple also takes 30% from them.
Sweeney ended his speech by appealing to developers not to be treated like this and to try to find some solution, as this state of affairs is unsatisfactory and harmful to the entire gaming industry. Apple, on the other hand, will definitely not change anything about the current situation. It is quite realistic that it is precisely these App Store transaction fees that have shot the economic results of Apple Services to the dizzying heights in which they are currently located.
Source: Appleinsider
If these platforms didn't exist, there wouldn't be any development studios and the person in question would be engaged in the development of shareware on Windows.
It's not clear to me, is someone forcing Epic Games to put their games on the App Store or Google Play? So if I don't agree with the terms, I'll go another way, I'll prepare my own platform...
he is not above conscious sheep, it is only thanks to him that the Bolsheviks ruled here for 40 years
but that was a nice colonel... I used applications from Adobe, especially the combination of AI and PH. I stopped liking their policy when they switched to subscription mode. Well, you switched to Affinity. What's the problem? Didn't the Bolsheviks just tell entrepreneurs what to produce, for how much and to whom they can sell it? You are contradicting yourself a bit. But yes, let's order them at least within the EU... we are already telling entrepreneurs more things, this will already be lost.
but that was a nice colonel... I used applications from Adobe, especially the combination of AI and PH. I stopped liking their policy when they switched to subscription mode. Well, you switched to Affinity. What's the problem? Didn't the Bolsheviks just tell entrepreneurs what to produce, for how much and to whom they can sell it? You are contradicting yourself a bit. But yes, let's order them at least within the EU... we are already telling entrepreneurs more things, this will already be lost.
Yes Col is your post. iOS and iPhone do not form the device, but the application inside, unfortunately there is no other legal way to be an iOS user and not be in the AppStore.
In theory, it would be enough for them to sell applications outside of their website and to have a valid certificate. As long as they weren't selling a virus, Apple wouldn't cancel them. Anyway, being on the AppStore is more convenient.
I'm not advocating 30%, it seems too much to me, but the option is, they can try it... On the other hand, if every application goes through a certain "quality control", I don't think 30% is too much. But it's a fact that as a developer (I'm going to the AppStore, but for now I'm supported by other things and developing for iDevices is just a hobby and that's why it looks like that) I'd like the fee to be 10%...
The problem is that 90+% of users have no idea that they can install apps, with the restrictions lifted, outside of the AppStore and that's it.
No one wants to do that, there is quite a high risk of viruses, snooping, etc.
So you confirmed my point and realized the pointlessness of your post.
I think it's not worthless, at least people know there are options.
However, installing the developer version is not so easy for users. And people don't really understand security in general, so I wouldn't recommend it to anyone. In addition, it requires seeing the sources (one has to understand that) or having absolute trust in the one who developed it (which is quite difficult from non-established companies).
Otherwise, there are people who have used alternative stories for a long time and comfortably, but it required Jailbreak. It was quite fine for the user there (when the jailbreak was already done). And despite the fact that some of them drove legally, even bought from them and did not use stolen SW versions, they simply kept the risk that one of the developers was a fraud. And surprisingly, it happened more than once ;-).
It's true that if the development studios were to slowly close shop, we users would have a hard time, just like Apple ;-). Then he would probably like to discount his services ;-).
That's why Google also had the first year or two of free registration for all new developers to catch up with Apple ;-).