This puts Apple in a very tough spot. Last week, Tim Cook was questioned in an antitrust hearing re: Apple's anticompetitive practices (along with Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, and Sundar Pichai). The spotlight is already pointing right at them, so any move they make here is going to be noticed by lawmakers.<p>If they remove Fortnite from the App Store, Apple will probably be seen as the bad guy. After all, Epic is not taking anything off the top here; they make the same amount of money whether consumers choose to purchase through the App Store or through Epic's direct payment system.<p>If they keep Fortnite on the App Store, they're going to need to make a rule change to allow alternative payment methods within apps. One of Apple's main defenses during antitrust hearings was that App Review applies rules fairly and consistently. If they don't change the rules, that argument falls dead in the water.<p>Epic leadership knows that this is going to cause a firestorm. I'm happy that a large company with market power decided this was the right time to do this. I doubt Apple and Epic worked together on this; there's no way that this doesn't completely embarrass Apple and its App Store policies.<p>It will be exciting to see how this plays out, but my bet is that this is going to lead to a huge win for Apple developers.
My guess is that this is a gambit to force Apple’s hand during a time when there is the most intense antitrust pressure over the App Store since it’s launch.
If Apple cracks down then it’s just more fuel for the antitrust fire, and potentially evidence in court. If they allow it then it’s precedent that others can use to employ the same tactic. Either way it seems to me Epic is taking a calculated risk to induce change.
My money is on Apple cracking down hard on this. It looks clearly as if Epic remotely activated this direct payment option, thereby bypassing Apple's App Review.<p>Apple will not take kindly to this. Best case scenario for Epic (and Fortnite players): they invite Sweeney in for some hard negotiations. Worst case: Fortnite ends up getting removed from iOS for this.
>Does a new payment method on mobile mean purchases there are less safe?<p>>No. Thousands of apps on the App Store approved by Apple accept direct payments, including commonly used apps like Amazon, Grubhub, Nike SNKRS, Best Buy, DoorDash, Fandango, McDonalds, Uber, Lyft, and StubHub. We think all developers should be free to support direct payments in all apps. [0]<p>All of these services provide something physical. You can't buy Kindle Books, for example, on Amazon's app on iOS. This a bit disingenuous.<p>>We think all developers should be free to support direct payments in all apps.<p>Does this mean Epic will start allowing users of the Epic Games Store on PC to directly pay game developers and bypass the EGS cut?<p>[0] <a href="https://www.epicgames.com/site/en-US/fortnite-mega-drop-faq" rel="nofollow">https://www.epicgames.com/site/en-US/fortnite-mega-drop-faq</a>
Epic is declaring war on app store fees and other monopolistic app store practices. Tim Sweeney (no relation) has been a very vocal opponent of the app store practices of Apple and Google. He views them as monopolistic and anti-competitive.<p><a href="https://twitter.com/TimSweeneyEpic/status/1289611397702197248" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/TimSweeneyEpic/status/128961139770219724...</a><p><a href="https://twitter.com/TimSweeneyEpic/status/1289227550431031296" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/TimSweeneyEpic/status/128922755043103129...</a><p><a href="https://twitter.com/TimSweeneyEpic/status/1288521230702739457" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/TimSweeneyEpic/status/128852123070273945...</a><p>My inside sources tell me that this move is intended to start a legal battle with Apple and Google.<p>I really love Epic.
Maybe the Apple cut is too high, but I don't think it's unreasonable for them to take some cut. They are providing the distribution platform to get your app to millions of users, it's not free for them to provide that service. They have their own server, bandwidth and employee costs too.
Ballsy, I love it. Hopefully it can be used as evidence in any antitrust actions against Apple, in the US or abroad. It's clear that Apple's behavior negatively impacts consumer pricing.
I love how they are "passing the savings down to us" from a non existing digital item that they set the price of.<p>Ugh.<p>Anyway, this should be absolutely fascinating to watch how the antitrust cases against the app stores go!
Tim Cook vs Tim Sweeney, this is a serious round, with possible big implications for many developers and companies.<p>In the end, both Epic and Apple are big corporations that should not be blindly trusted, but my money is on Sweeney, I have greater faith in the uber-nerd vs the perfect production manager.
Epic is conveying that the 30% cut on App Store was raising the prices. But Xbox and PlayStation has the same cut, yet Epic has lower pricing on these platforms.
How are they justifying this? A linked blog post goes into more detail: <a href="https://www.epicgames.com/fortnite/en-US/news/announcing-epic-direct-payment-on-mobile;" rel="nofollow">https://www.epicgames.com/fortnite/en-US/news/announcing-epi...</a> but it seems like they are extending the payment processing tools which they built for web to mobile. There are loopholes but not clear which one they're claiming to use (if any).
Yeah I wonder they did a backroom deal with Apple and Google. These backroom deals that Apple/Google are doing is so anti competitive for small app developers and they keep on stressing that they are helping millions of developers. If this is not unfair I don't know what is.
If you squint, this is kind of like the deal that Apple made with Amazon so that you can use your card-on-file with Amazon to rent videos via Prime Video: <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/01/apple-agreement-with-amazon-lets-you-rent-movies-through-prime-video.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/01/apple-agreement-with-amazon-...</a>
> PERMANENT DISCOUNTS<p>That's a bold promise if Apple shuts the practice down. Will need to go back on the promised permanency or take the loss.
Epic: Apple employs anti-competitive, anti-consumer practices, and we're fighting against that!<p>Also Epic: We'll be locking as many games as we can afford behind Epic Store exclusive contracts since our store isn't good enough to compete with Steam on functionality or price.
EDIT: interesting, I just found this tweet (<a href="https://twitter.com/ballmatthew/status/1293903865557979136" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/ballmatthew/status/1293903865557979136</a>) that mentions other companies like McDonalds and Starbucks are also exempt<p>Indeed this is huge, well it will be huge if the app is still in the store by tomorrow ... I wonder what apple will do? I wonder if apple greenlighted this? If they didn’t get this greenlighted, I wonder how they bypassed the Apples app review process (in app updates instead of a store update?)?<p>I can’t wait to see how all of this unfolds, years ago I was part of a team that built a music app that got refused in the app store because we had included payments via a credit card processor, bypassing the 30% apple tax and today I’m in the process of building another app which is impacted by this … I also imagine companies like spotify are following this very closely
Per the App Store Review guidelines: <a href="https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/#unacceptable" rel="nofollow">https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/#una...</a> If payment is taken IN the app, not using Apple Pay, and not to an approved non-profit, it's in direct violation and should be removed.<p>I've had to update multiple apps that took donations, in order to pay for development work, and Apple absolutely won't let that fly anymore. On Apple's behalf, this unacceptable, illegal, and infuriating. I might consider joining a class-action lawsuit like this one: <a href="https://www.hbsslaw.com/uploads/case_downloads/apple-dev/2019-06-04-complaint-apple-developers.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://www.hbsslaw.com/uploads/case_downloads/apple-dev/201...</a>
If fortnite had an alternative payment method that wasn't exposed in the iOS app (e.g. only on the web, but you would buy credits that you could use in the app) then I don't see how Apple would have a leg to stand on.
Epic already had a lawsuit ready for this:<p><a href="https://twitter.com/FortniteGame/status/1293994211621167105" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/FortniteGame/status/1293994211621167105</a>
The Apple/antitrust angle has been covered, but this Direct payment bypass also affects Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo, and Google. Won't they take issue with it as well?
Curious what Epic would do if game developers started offering an option in their games to just not pay the 5% Unreal Engine tax and passed the savings onto consumers.
I wonder if the only reason for having "both" payment systems in place, is some kind of unwritten rule (or secret handshake between Epic Games and their Apple account manager of some sorts) that will allow them to keep Fortnite on the app-store!
Reminder: Tencent owns 40% of Epic.<p><a href="https://www.pcgamer.com/every-game-company-that-tencent-has-invested-in/" rel="nofollow">https://www.pcgamer.com/every-game-company-that-tencent-has-...</a><p>Their dumping power can be almost limitless.