I doubt Apple could or would really want to ban the Unreal engine, right? I guess at some point Epic could create a new Apple account again (perhaps after some court order by a judge) and just continue testing their engine on devices. They don't need to release games themselves on the AppStore, as long as 3rd party devs can release software based on the Unreal engine on the AppStore.
I think what Epic wants to see gone is Apple's condition that IAP sold on the AppStore should be priced the same on any other outlets (e.g. websites, Play store, etc...). And I can see a judge agreeing this is unfair of Apple to ask.
As for me, I mostly like the idea of the AppStore. As a consumer I feel more confident downloading software from the AppStore as compared to e.g. the Play store. What I don't like about the AppStore is that discovery of new products is very hard. And there also doesn't seem to be an easy way to look for apps that are ad-free or that becomes ad-free by paying a 1 time IAP fee.
App Store takes the same 30% as Xbox, Sony, Switch, Target, Walmart, Walgreen, etc...
Purchase a console game at Walmart? Walmart takes their cut after the console creator took their cut. In fact if you think your game is gonna sell like crazy that you press (DVD/BluRay) 1 million copies, you are in debt to the Console manufacturer for their 30%.
Retailers take far less than 30%. Consoles provide first-party QA, disc/cartridge manufacturing and distribution, bandwidth, and customer service among other services. Whole apps on the mobile stores also have similar services provided by the platform - testing (nowhere near as rigorous as consoles), discovery, bandwidth, customer service, etc. In both cases, a large cut can be reasonably argued for.
IAP is nothing more than moving money around, in an app the user has already discovered and downloaded, that will affect a user's account on the developer's servers. The service to the end user is indistinguishable to what is provided by any other payment gateway for ~3% (Stripe, Square, Paypal, etc.) Your card is charged and you have something new in the app.
The only reason I can think of for why IAP takes the same cut as whole apps is that most if not all apps would be "free" but open up to a screen that makes you pay for the app via IAP to take advantage of the reduced fee.
This could be mitigated by ToS restrictions preventing this exact situation, but there would still be a ton of gray area like "pro" versions of apps.
Opening up to third-party payment processors for IAP would create a vacuum in one of their highest margin and most consistent revenue sources so they won't be doing that willingly. Opening up to third-party stores would be more tolerable but any sufficiently large developer will move to their own store and do everything themselves and pocket the ~27.5% (if they are their own payment gateway, interchange fees are ~2.5%)
It's an interesting situation because the platforms want to be paid for all the services I listed above, but in Epic's case they already have the infrastructure to handle everything on their own, and they offer a fully-featured game for free, with the only source of revenue being a conversion of actual money to V-Bucks.
There is no place where the platform can provide a service that Epic would get any value from, but they are imposing a 30% fee in the only place they can, payment processing.
Retailers don't get 30%. Not even close. Try 0.5% or something like that. As for MS, their cut on the MS app store is 5%. 30% is just really really steep, and I think consumers would win if that got reduced.
Retail is not the place to compare markup. The lowest markup I saw recommended was 10%. Average was 20-30% and big box was at least 40%. There is no guaranteed win for consumers at all as prices are set what the market will bear.
Part of the original thing was Epic offering a discount of 20% on V-Bucks if they processed the payment through Epic instead of Apple.
The end user got a nice discount and Epic still pockets more because interchange fees are ~2.5% and not 30%.
The Epic Games Store had a similar strategy, cut the fee for devs and incentivize end users to move onto their platform (weekly free games). They still make a boatload of money even though it's not as much as Valve's money printer.
In general I see this as a great thing for devs (indie in particular) if it triggers more competition to bring platform fees down across the board.
Epic isn't being overtly greedy with end users (yet)
I don’t know about that. I could imagine it going both ways. But even if Epic pockets more, there might be other apps which pass on the savings. And if not, well at least you can now subscribe to Spotify and Netflix directly on device.
apple has never ever targeted that kind of gaming market. there are a lot of video games you cannot play without bootcamp on a mac.
i wouldn't be surprised if it turns out they have been trying to jettison the fornite group. it's just not consumers they want to have on their ecosystem.
mobile game discovery is big pain point for devs as well, and that none of Apple/Google seem to do anything about is frustrating. This is in sharp contrast to, say, steam, where discovery is something they are constantly trying to improve.
Funny cause both stores (App and Play) are always promoting games to me. Usually crap like Fortnite which stinks on any mobile device. Yes devs have to pay for those promos but just like in Steam, Retail and all the console markets you pay for marketing.
Yes you can pay for promotional spots on both mobile stores and steam, but that is not to say that they are remotely similar in terms of discoverability.
Discoverability would include things like a recommendation algorithm but also filtering features, promotional spotting, social graph relevance (do my friends own this game? do they want to?) and general UI accessibility, to name some factors.
Steam has put so much work into making sure users can find a title (regardless of that title's marketing budget) that fits their arbitrary preferences that they are now LEAGUES ahead of mobile stores on that metric.
One example that is easiest to point out is the main carousel (and entire front page) of the steam store. Everyone's carousel is customized to their profile and will show both old games and new based on an algo that weighs your preferences against a title's relevance and performance metrics.
The irony that google, a company that made its name in SEARCH, has an app store who's discoverability is so abysmal that i can't find certain titles without explicitly typing in the name or digging through 100s of "more titles like this" lists is not lost on me.
It's just really bad. The game categories are too few in numbers, and there's no tagging to speak of so finding something remotely hybrid is a pain and the categories themselves have become unhelpful.
I think what Epic wants to see gone is Apple's condition that IAP sold on the AppStore should be priced the same on any other outlets (e.g. websites, Play store, etc...). And I can see a judge agreeing this is unfair of Apple to ask.
As for me, I mostly like the idea of the AppStore. As a consumer I feel more confident downloading software from the AppStore as compared to e.g. the Play store. What I don't like about the AppStore is that discovery of new products is very hard. And there also doesn't seem to be an easy way to look for apps that are ad-free or that becomes ad-free by paying a 1 time IAP fee.