Epic Games steps up Apple fight with EU antitrust complaint

It feels a bit hypocritical when Apple laughs at FB for complaining about their new tracking pop-up yet when the shoe&#x27;s on the other foot and Apple may actually have to compete on its own platform they double down and defend their right to be judge, jury and executioner.<p>Apple competing with third party app stores on iOS is going to be amazing. No computer platform should be allowed to prevent sideloading or other stores from competing.<p>This isn&#x27;t the case on Windows. This isn&#x27;t the case on Android.<p>Or Linux for that matter.<p>It&#x27;s more disappointing it takes 10 years for regulators to step-in and say &quot;that&#x27;s bad, no more, open up your platform&quot;.

A bit OT, but I still fail to grasp why Apple is allowed to restrict all browsers on iOS to the Safari rendering engine. Microsoft had to pay big because they didn&#x27;t asked their users properly for alternative browsers, yet Apple doesn&#x27;t even give other browsers a fair chance to compete on iOS.<p>Consumers suffer because Apple controls about 50% of the mobile market and if Apple decides a certain feature will not be available in Safari (e.g. Push API), no other browser vendor can even offer a solution.<p>Sounds to me like totally abusing their market position to uphold their anti-competitive behavior.

I can hardly wait to use Amazon App Store to install Amazon and then open up the Epic Game Store to install random game and then open up EA Game Store to install random game and then open up Facebook App Store to install Facebook and then open up the Apple App Store to install the Blizzard App Store to install Hearthstone and then go back to the Apple App Store and update the Blizzard App Store so I can get the latest Hearthstone updates.<p>Going to be super fun!<p>My gaming computer is already filled with like 8 different app stores each completely different then the other and a variety of privacy&#x2F;security issues on each. All of them need their App Store running in order to play their games, so half the time my computer has 4-5 App Stores running in the background so I can play a single game. And they are all electron&#x2F;qt webkit apps cause nobody builds apps anymore so each one consumes about 500mb of ram.<p>And each App Store also has their own chat system along with the others like discord.<p>I don&#x27;t agree that Apple should have a complete monopoly, but the alternative is not better. And while Android does have the main Google Play Store, and there isn&#x27;t to many &quot;alternative&quot; App Stores at the moment. Just give it time, the same thing that is happening to TV Streaming&#x2F;Game App Stores will happen on Android.

&gt; Apple said its rules applied equally to all developers and that Epic had violated them.<p>All developers except Amazon, they mean.<p>Now that it has happened, I&#x27;m actually surprised it took Epic this long to file suit in the EU. Given Europe&#x27;s stronger antitrust enforcement and general skepticism of tech giants, Epic likely has a stronger case there than in the US. If I were Epic, I&#x27;d have wanted to have both lawsuits ready to go simultaneously.

I avoid being a persistent fanboy&#x2F;hater toward any company, and try to consider each case on its merits. Some of the concerns regarding multiple app stores on the device (which raises issues of security, privacy, and even storage space) are valid. But they fail to address a huge problem: Apple&#x27;s draconian policy on in-app purchases. If IAP were to be opened up and become more competitive, I might stick with Apple&#x27;s just for security and convenience, but the alternatives would be there, and I personally wouldn&#x27;t mind a lack of alternative app stores.<p>Edit: to clarify, I&#x27;m saying I wouldn&#x27;t mind having one app store if Apple&#x27;s stranglehold on IAP could be relaxed (whether by choice or by law).<p>Another edit: Apple could also allow one-off sideloading, but not allow an app to install other apps (i.e. become a separate app store). This would be a win-win for consumers. Assuming that&#x27;s who everyone cares about, of course.

If a locked down app store is necessary for say safety, perhaps a good analogue is a water utility company. A water company has a monopoly in an area, due to the impractical nature of duplicate infrastructure. However, in return it may be heavily regulated in terms of its safety and pricing.<p>If you have to have a single app store then their prices should be regulated, and crucially there should be proper recourse for developers denied access to the platform

A lot of people here seems to think that what Apple is doing is fine and that people knew how iOS works when they bought the device.<p>Neither of those are true for most people. Just reading the comments on HN the last half year clearly shows that people are confused about what Apple demands. If the HN audience is confused then I feel I can safely state that very few people knows what they&#x27;re getting themselves into when choosing iOS.<p>Just the fact that you&#x27;re not allowed by Apple to inform users about the cut Apple takes should be proof enough that Apple don&#x27;t want users to know how much money Apple is costing them.<p>And the fact that iOS doesn&#x27;t have a decent browser also sucks. Also, users don&#x27;t understand that Chrome isn&#x27;t Chrome on iOS.<p>Users have no idea what they&#x27;re paying for, or that what they&#x27;re using is being controlled by Apple.<p>I hope Apple have to open iOS up so this can end.

It’s all about money. I don’t think epic wants a new App Store. In fact I do t think the majority of <i>developers</i> with legitimate complaints with the App Store want competing app stores.<p>They all want, from what I can boil down to, the majority of the time, two things:<p>1. Control over payments (to cut out the 30%)<p>2. More control over releases and updates (particularly upgrade pricing)<p>I think if Apple caved in on these all this would go away.<p>Likely, that’s about all we will see from a successful lawsuit too.<p>It’s never been about the App Store being the only game in town. It’s all about reviews, fees, release schedules and pricing mechanics. I don’t think the consumer wins if there are multiple App Stores. I do think the consumer and smaller developers <i>may</i> win if there is some shift around the above issues, though

Anytime Epic&#x2F;Apple thing comes up, a very relevant quote is what their judge (YGR) said on their case:<p>&gt; “Well plaintiffs always want me to define relevant markets as narrowly as possible. It helps their case. And defendants always want me to define markets as broad as possible, because it helps <i>their</i> case.”<p>The big elephant in the room is gaming consoles.<p>If you see iPhone more or less in line with PC&#x2F;Mac, you may already have made up your mind on how &quot;relevant markets&quot; are defined, and so naturally pre-inclined to side with Epic.<p>OTOH if you see it more or less in line with Xbox&#x2F;Playstation&#x2F;Switch (every one of them having a unique store that charges 30%), you may naturally be pre-inclined to side with Apple.<p>The judges will eventually get to define what the &quot;relevant market&quot; is, and no amount of HN arguments will change that.<p>If I were Apple, I would just make a version of an iPhone hardware-enabled to have alternative stores, and I would sell it for a surplus of $1000. This way both sides can have their cake, and the market can decide.

There is room for 3rd party app stores. Epic will argue that Apple does an absolutely ghastly terrible job of curating the Apple app store, as Apple really has little incentive not to suck completely. The EU court will agree. Apple will spend a year or two saying “it can’t be done”, then issue a signing certificate to Epic.

Apple does not actually have a monopoly, Android exists, has more market share, more options and features, and a better ecosystem of compatible smart devices.<p>If Apple is forced to allow third party app marketplaces it is clear what will happen. Every major player will make their own marketplace and force you to use it to access their software and whatever other software they have paid to make exclusive. Epic is one of the absolute worst offenders for this sort of behavior. So to everyone claiming &quot;you will still be able to use the curated app store&quot;, I guess that&#x27;s true but only technically.<p>IOS will not be a better place should Apple be forced to go through with this. This is not being an &quot;Apple apologist&quot;. I think we all agree that Apple will happily exploit the people forced to offer services through their platform. But if they are forced to take their hands off the wheel they will lose the power that allowed them to push through some fairly groundbreaking privacy protections, including sign-in with Apple, which I personally deeply appreciate.

Such vendors are free to create game catalogs for their games (Steam-like), taking the user to the App Store for downloads. They can also have IAPs, Subscriptions and alls kinds of payment options. Apple&#x27;s own Arcade follows this same architecture so I don&#x27;t see Epic&#x27;s argument at all.<p>When I am using my iPhone&#x2F;iPad, I expect all apps to work with services connected to my Apple account. No user should be required to provide payment information to a shady 3rd party like Epic, Microsoft or whatever.<p>It is clear that the &quot;antitrust&quot; action is designed to allow Epic (and similar) to push a solution which is fit for their business model.<p>As a developer, I don&#x27;t support the idea of alt-stores at all, it would mean that only big corps will have the resources to create and maintain such distribution channels. Nobody will go through the trouble of installing an alt store for my FooBar pet-project game. Also who is going to review these apps?

There&#x27;s already a lot of discussion about alternative App Stores, but I was wondering if we could talk about how Apple keeps spouting this line:<p>&gt; the App Store guidelines that apply equally to every developer and protect customers<p>This is not only subjectively false, it is <i>objectively</i> false, provable with just a few minutes of reverse engineering. You don&#x27;t have to be a fly on the wall at some secret meeting between corporate giants to know it, or listen to the plight of app developers. You can literally just go to Apple Configurator and download an IPA file for an app and inspect it to see that Apple does <i>not</i> in fact apply its rules equally to all developers. So why do they keep repeating this? Who will be the first party to hold them liable for perjury?

I know this isn&#x27;t the first time this happens, but it&#x27;s a curious thing when a large US company has to resort to using the EU court system to resolve their beef with another US company.

&gt; We as legislators need to ensure that these platforms who act as gatekeepers in the digital market have to respect a predefined set of rules in order to guarantee fair competition and balanced market powers,” he said in a statement.<p>One of these rules is (hopefully), if i purchase a hardware gadget, all of its capabilities are my possession. Restricting the access on purpose is frault. Epic&#x27;s case is just a consequence of the missing regulations when providing software AND hardware.<p>long live the EU and their friends.

I think the solution is pretty clear.<p><pre><code> * Platforms MUST display the amount of the processing fee taken from the payment in a clearly visible format inside of the app and&#x2F;or the IAP flow. * Platforms MUST allow developers to implement alternative payment options (potentially cheaper due to lack of additional processing fee). * Platforms MUST allow advertisement of alternative payment options inside of the app and&#x2F;or the IAP flow. * Platforms are allowed to reject apps if they think their alternative payment options are fraudulent but actionable feedback MUST be given within a reasonable time frame. * Platforms MUST provide a list of trusted payment alternatives which will be unconditionally approved during the app review process. To prevent cartel, the list MUST be periodically audited by FTC. </code></pre> If the convenience from the integrated IAP can justify the 30% fee, the users will keep using it. If not, the price will be brought down. Let the market decide.

Should we force Nintendo as well to allow people to side load apps ? Because I don&#x27;t see the difference with Apple.

This problem is not limited to Apple mobile devices, it is shared with every manufacturer curating all the software on their platforms. Apple, Nintendo, Sony, John Deere, and so on. Every manufacturer gatekeeping their platform for security, financial, community, repair, or quality standards. They should all instead bust the machines wide open, allow anyone&#x27;s operating system software to be in control, and give up the notion that curation in exchange for restrictions is something anyone can willingly buy into. If you go after Apple, you go after all the other platform companies, because their justifications do not hold water either. If you go after just Apple, you have to convince the judge that there are good reasons Apple must conform while nobody else has to.

Let&#x27;s start with the obvious issue: Apple does not sell the most phones. It does not have the most phones on offer. It is not a majority, let alone a monopoly.<p>Now the less obvious issue: I like what apple does and I am prepared to pay for it.<p>I agree with those arguing for consumer choice, but I come to the exact opposite conclusion, and find those others hypocritical. I want an option to have a locked down environment. I want to have the choice to buy an Apple product. Given the choice between the Android system or the Apple system, I choose Apple. More people choose Android.<p>The argument that we should use &quot;consumer choice&quot; to remove this choice from me, and instead to demand that every business must make the world look like Android users want, is not logical.

These conversations always rapidly devolve into the same old generic iOS versus Android nonsense. But I&#x27;d like to try to keep a super narrow scope here. The specific problem Epic and others are fighting here is <i>&quot;App Store payment system and control over app downloads&quot;</i><p>Now to be fair, as far as &#x27;App store payments&#x27; goes, both Google &amp; Apple charge the 30% fee on all transactions. The reason Epic is battling Apple here mostly has to do with the &#x27;walled garden&#x27;, and the fact Apple&#x27;s &#x27;control over app downloads&#x27; is totally locked down. Epic avoids the Google play 30% fee by having users side-load the APK, so that&#x27;s a fight for another day I suppose.<p>Now, for the 30% fee problem. Does anyone really think that is fair an equitable? Come again? They hover up 3&#x2F;10ths of all business transactions? It just seems so obvious to me that the answer is <i>absolutely not</i>. There is no way I can twist my brain to believe there is <i>any</i> justification for that. If the issue is that it costs Apple (&amp; Google) a lot of money to maintain servers and infrastructure to provide the app store services, then there are other ways to charge developers to cover this cost, and even make some profit.<p>Apple charges $100 a year for the &#x27;Apple Developer Program&#x27;. This yearly fee model is the fair way to do this I think. You could add more tiers too this that scale with usage. $100 for the entry level package, and that covers &#x27;X&#x27; amount of usage. There could be enterprise tiers for huge customers like Epic. They are using more of the resources of the app store, then they should pay more. I&#x27;m sure Epic would be happy to pay, IDK I&#x27;m just making up a number, something like $500K a year for their developer license instead of 30% of every transaction.<p>I&#x27;m just spitballing here, I&#x27;ve not fully formed all these ideas, and I don&#x27;t know what fair pricing for tiers &amp; usage would exactly look like. But I think most of us can agree a system like that would be much more fair and equitable. I have just never heard a convincing argument of why Apple &amp; Google deserves to own 3&#x2F;10ths of all the business on their platforms.

EU probably won&#x27;t pass up this opportunity to levy an extra tax on Apple. We already think they dodged too much with their Ireland construction.

I wonder if this isn’t going to have the opposite effect. If Apple doesn’t get to restrict application developers through the App Store, then will they follow the gaming console model of restricting access to the SDK? I mean, this isn’t a new issue. It’s been the bane of game distribution for as long as we’ve had independent game developers. But if you want to have some semblance of control over a software ecosystem, could there be a similar shift where users could install whatever software they’d like... but the developers would have to be better vetted by Apple first?<p>For the sake of argument, let’s just assume there are legitimate security&#x2F;privacy concerns here and ignore competitive issues a la Spotify for now.

Is Epic&#x27;s fight technical or business related? I can&#x27;t figure it out. Sometimes it&#x27;s about payment processor choice, other times it&#x27;s about the revenue share. Which is it? Even though Apple collects the revenue share through its payment processor, these seem like completely separate issues. Apple could easily let Epic transact using it&#x27;s own payments infrastructure yet also invoice them for the 30% of those transactions.

Anti trust case against Apple in the US made sense due to Apple&#x27;s dominance in both the share of users and the share of the app store revenue. EU may not be as clearcut.<p>This news article does not mention anything about the basis for antitrust. Is it the marketshare of iOS phone users or it is the revenue. Seems like iOS marketshare as defined by the number of users is about 20%, revenue share should be higher.

I hope Epic loses in a spectacular way.<p>At this point, if Apple is forced to allow third parties, I&#x27;ll lose one of the best time savers I have in my life. Having switched all of my family and close relatives to Apple gives me the freedom of not having to provide almost any support. They are trained to use the platform (and its UI has been stable for years), and I can trust that they won&#x27;t do anything too crazy just because [insert social network] or [crappy game in vogue] want to sideload a lot of bloatware and spyware on their phones.<p>When they had android phones, I would get regular phonecalls that went like this:<p>&quot;My friend X has an app that does [irrelevant stupidity that requires full permissions], how can I do that?&quot; &quot;You shouldn&#x27;t, this will have access to all of your info&quot; &quot;I don&#x27;t care, just tell me how to do it&quot;<p>Then 2 weeks later I&#x27;d get another call complaining of how full of ads everything is when they try to open a browser. I tried to disuade them by saying &quot;Your phone can&#x27;t do that&quot;, but that just meant that they ended up changing phones, because now they feel that their phone is inferior.<p>When they switched to iPhones, i can just tell them &quot;Your phone doesn&#x27;t do that&quot;, and they had no problem. They realized that bragging for 10 minutes was an idiotic thing to do anyway, and they felt great, because they still have a flagship phone, &quot;it&#x27;s an iPhone!&quot;.

I can&#x27;t shake the feeling that Epic is a puppet, being used as a wedge to hash security on iOS devices. As much as it would be nice to have more control over one&#x27;s iPhone, the horror of the Android marketplace is enough to give a body more than a little pause.

I know of several apps in my local app store that have their own payment system instead of the in-app purchases. I don&#x27;t see why Apple doesn&#x27;t enforce this policy for all apps.

Actually, Apple Store and Google Play (and Steam, yeah) are the same: they are monopolistic platform, either formally (Apple) or de facto (Google). A bit like IE browser in Windows in the 90&#x27;s<p>I think that each editor can still provide an App Store, with specific price model for editor&#x2F;users, and have to allow competition (with different features... for example, less curation) by providing THE SAME access for the user. For example, every app store must include other main app store. Right now, if you want to use F-Droid, you cant do it as smoothly as using Google Play because it&#x27;s not on Google Play (but Amazon apps are I think).

Once you file a lawsuit, you have declared war. And all&#x27;s fair in love and war. Who said that?

Why is everyone talking about allowing third-party app stores and not side-loaded apps?

&gt; Apple competing with third party app stores on iOS is going to be amazing. No computer platform should be allowed to prevent sideloading or other stores from competing.<p>The walled garden is a selling point, a feature - I don&#x27;t care about sideloading at all. You want to sideload? Grab and Android.

If epic were to win, any estimate on how long that would take?

Does Apple pay tax on that 30% to the EU for sales in the EU?

At this point I wish there was a way that both could lose.<p>It&#x27;s the monopolist vs the predatory casino, both throwing out thinly veiled user centric arguments at the press while their true motives are greed and user exploitation.

I Agreed on most. But i still have some questions

the LotR quote &quot;One ring to rule them all&quot; has never been more appropriate!

There are still a lot of people, especially on the general web stuck in the Steve Job&#x27;s era believing in bad developers, quote;<p><i>&quot;What happens sometime though is that some people, uh, lie. Some people use unpublished APIs and their app gets rejected. Some people submit an app that they say does one thing, but really does something else. They try to hide it from us, they get very clever about that. They try to hide it from us and we find it and we reject it. And they run to the press and tell a story about oppression and it gets written up and they get their 15 minutes of fame because they hope it will convince us to change our minds which never does, but they keep trying to do that. And it’s unfortunate, but we take it in the chin. That part of what we do. We don’t run to the press and go, “This guys a son of a bitch liar.” &quot;</i><p>That was in All Things Digital D8 Conference 2010. Nearly 11 years ago. The landscape has changed, the context has changed. iPhone has only <i>sold</i> 50M unit in total since launch in 2007. These days Apple has 1 <i>billion</i> active user and Apple sell about as much iPhone per <i>quarter</i>. Smartphone and Apps went from nice thing to have to near or already a necessity in modern society. Surely you cant apply the same rules in a modern era, not to mention those App Store rules has <i>evolved</i> since Steve Jobs passed away. Many Apps that Apple used to exempt from the 30% cut now has to comply.<p>I really wish HN folks read the great piece from Benedict Evans ( <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ben-evans.com&#x2F;benedictevans&#x2F;2020&#x2F;8&#x2F;18&#x2F;app-stores" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ben-evans.com&#x2F;benedictevans&#x2F;2020&#x2F;8&#x2F;18&#x2F;app-stores</a>) and Matthew Ball ( <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.matthewball.vc&#x2F;all&#x2F;applemetaverse" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.matthewball.vc&#x2F;all&#x2F;applemetaverse</a> ). It is by far the best I have seen on this issue. I submitted both a few times but never got on HN Front page. Hopefully after reading both, people will stop using it is Apple Store they could do whatever they want as argument.<p>I think there are many things Apple could do as a compromise to satisfy vast majority of people and interest.<p>Break the App Store into Game Store and App Store.<p>Nearly 80% of App Store Revenue comes from Gaming. As long as all games are still going through Game Store, like console maker are doing which Apple should have a very strong case, they continue to keep the 80% of revenue ( or near raw profits ). Apple could also argue their continue investment into Metal API and the so called Apple&#x27;s own GPU ( Which is still PowerVR ) as rational. Breaking this case would hurt lots of other interest including Microsoft&#x27;s Xbox.<p>Lower the App Store to a flat rate of 10%. And the same apply across all Apps. Software, Services, Subscription or not with an annual Cap of Fixed amount ( minus CC processing fees ) , say $1M per App per year. So Apple isn&#x27;t rent seeking per se on your revenue. If you sold $100M, instead of $10M to Apple, you now pay $1M max per App. Work load for Apple per App is fixed and doesn&#x27;t scale with how much revenue an App Generate. And very few Apps ( not games ) make that much money. With Subscription which generate long term revenue benefits the most.<p>( EU &#x2F; AUS has ruled both MasterCard and Visa to lower their price. Compare to the ridiculously 2-5% processing fees, they are closer to 1% in both EU and AUS, There are no reason why other countries wont start looking at App Store from Apple and Google in similar fashion. i.e Those 30% from Apps will be gone sooner or later. Better to make some good will than to have no option in court.)<p>Allow Side-loading of Apps in <i>restricted</i> mode. Where performance and Gaming Related APIs are limited. Access to Camera, Photos and Phonebook or any files requires consent <i>everytime</i> they try to access it with no option to disable or Dont ask again. The reality is 99% of user dont really need or want to side load Apps. And provides enough security and choice for its users. For a lot of Apps, this provide good enough for like News, Email, or other Subscription Apps which really is just a Web App accessing online information without needing the to go though Apple&#x27;s <i>permission</i> for Apple Store.<p>And finally, a clear, open, transparent process and pages for developers to App Store rejection. Which makes it much more of a PR problem for Apple that has their interest tied to provide best service.<p>I really hope Apple do change. Tim Cook is far too focused on Apple&#x27;s Services Revenue.

All this suggests to me is Epic has a limited path to growth without courts deciding they indeed are entitled to more profit without producing anything net new.

I assume this doesn&#x27;t affect the UK any more?

There are no good guys here. Apple wants to tax everyone in the world 30% for almost every software transaction while Epic wants to bring more loot box gambling to iOS and keep all the money.

Epic know they can&#x27;t win this using the Law. Apple will argue they built a market of nBillion customers, which anyone can access for a fee.<p>What Epic hope to do, is win commercial support and build pressure on apple to lower their fees. Might work too.

Good, anti-trust action against Apple&#x27;s policies is long overdue. Looking forward to competing browsers to become available for iOS users which should reduce Apple&#x27;s ability to hinder Web standards.

Full support to Epic! Time to bring some balance. Would also love to have Apple allow api access to PWAs, they are hindering progress of PWAs just because of the App Store money.<p>Would love to hear Tim Apple&#x27;s opinion on this stuff, on being in this position. I remember quite fondly how he berated Facebook and Zuck personally, by saying he as a CEO would never be in such a situation regarding media scrutiny and regulatory issues.<p>Oh how the tables turn.. As a dev, I do not like Apple an ounce more than Facebook. So kudos to Tim Sweeney..

I&#x27;m not excited by the proposition of either party coming out on top. I hope the EU sees the forest for the trees and understands that the situation is a lot more complicated than either party would claim.<p>Apple is acting as a leader in reducing the footprint of general computing hardware; albeit their devices have among the longest service lives, they continue to be further restricted in their operation over time. There is a danger here with the population switching en masse from using PCs to using Phones as their primary computing devices. Forcing it to allow third party marketplaces might be a start in reversing that trend.<p>Epic is a leader in the development of anxiety-driven consumer software. Fortnite&#x27;s primary capital isn&#x27;t the player&#x27;s competitive standing, it&#x27;s the uniqueness of their cosmetic gear. They target the most vulnerable and maleable markets, tweens and children, and ply them with social anxiety; one of the most insidious and emotionally distressing devices for that age group. See also, yesterday&#x27;s lengthy discussion. [0]<p>So I kind of hope that the EU allows third party stores, but allows Apple to place curation constraints on the sort of purchases that are available to users.<p>0: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=26153331" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=26153331</a>

Good luck, iDevices are a very tiny portion of European mobile market.<p>Looking forward to the EpicOS Phone, running yet another SDL&#x2F;Qt variant.

Epic has too much money and IDK if Tim Cooks plays in the same league with and once Jobs, Sweeney and Huateng. Plus Zuck who just got started. I wouldn&#x27;t want to be in a war with them together.<p>Tim is not dumb, not at all but he just maintained one of the industry&#x27;s strongest network effect&#x2F;lock-in, not more. Beyond M1 there is not a lot that is <i>not</i> from Jobs&#x27; inheritance. Ah yes, broken keyboards for more than three years.