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cross-posted from: https://sopuli.xyz/post/10062367
Apple Terminated Epic’s Developer Account
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Lmao. I’ve no love for Apple, and even less for Epic. It’s like two grotesquely unlovable toddlers are throwing a hissy fit in their little sandbox and I’m here for it.
Yes, it’s kind of funny with Epic complaining about fairness, when they arrange exclusivity agreements for their own game store. 🤪 And they actively sabotage it working on Linux.🤔
Regardless of the irony, someone needed to start this fight with Apple, so it might as well be them.
Between the two of them, I’m not willing to “support” either, but I’m slightly more inclined to hope Epic comes out on top because they’re not also in a hardware dominance position. Epic can be as shitty as it likes about certain platforms, but they at least can only affect their games. They aren’t gatekeepers to a massive audience of users, and by far one of the largest gates at that. The Epic store actually has competition.
Between an abusive developer and an abusive gatekeeper, the gatekeeper is the bigger issue.
Regardless of the irony, someone needed to start this fight with Apple,
Absolutely.
Ok, I really don’t get Epic hate. Sure, they’re using shitty practices to attempt to compete with the megolith Valve is, and it sucks. However, how are they sabotaging it working on Linux. They made Easy Anti-cheat work on Linux, which is huge, and also UE5 seems to run better on Linux than Windows by most accounts I’ve heard, including my own experience.
Make reasonable complaints all day, but sabotaging Linux compatability is not something they’re doing.
Ok, I really don’t get Epic hate. Sure, they’re using shitty practices to attempt to compete with the megolith Valve is, and it sucks.
Meanwhile GOG attempts to compete by offering features that other platforms don’t offer, like DRM-free installers and a multi-platform game launcher.
If Epic got to #1 place, what guarantees there are that they would stop using exclusivity deals to hinder their own competitors? It might just be that we end up with a more anti-competititve market leader, and then what would be the benefit of having overtaken Steam?
I like GoG. They don’t hold any control over the market though. I wish they did, but they aren’t competing.
I can agree that GoG doesn’t have a large share of the market, but I’m still unconvinced of the benefit of this call for competition for competition’s sake when it’s introducing anti-competitive practices. Usually we want competition to push back against anti-competitive practices.
Epic takes less revenue than Steam.
They both have anti-competitive practices. They’re just different practices. Epic tends to favor helping developers and Valve tends to favor appealing to users. Valve doesn’t need to force exclusivity because games have to take a loss to not use them, because they’re already the market leader. There’s no knowing what Valve would be doing if they were the underdog, but people need to stop assuming Valve is good. No company is ever good.
No company is good but that doesn’t mean they are all equally, identically bad.
We have seen what Valve did when it was not the market leader because it didn’t spawn in such a place. What they did is lock their own games to their own platform, which is something most other PC storefronts do or did at some point.
We did not yet see what Epic would do if it would got to the top. Is it even guaranteed that they would continue to take less revenue?
And really, if all companies are bad, what’s the point of rooting for Epic to overtake Steam?
However, how are they sabotaging it working on Linux.
For example they discontinued support for Rocket League on Linux (and Mac) after buying Psyonix.
It’s got a platinum rating on ProtonDB. It looks like the native versions aren’t being supported anymore, but they still work. I don’t blame them. The game has gotten a lot smaller over the years and I’m certain there’s very few Linux players on it. Regardless, the Windows application seems to work perfectly fine for Linux users. Yeah, native is ideal but it costs extra money to maintain two (or three) versions.
Anyway, you can’t say they’re sabotaging Linux support when they also purchased EAC and had them add Linux support. They may not be perfect with Linux, but they aren’t sabotaging it.
Edit: Why is this being downvoted? If you want to downvote you should be able to articulate why. What is the expectation for them to do? The game has clearly been on the decline for a while, and I’m sure they’ve got the numbers for their player counts by system. They have limited money and need to support the game still. Why would they waste it on supporting a native Linux version if it isn’t being played and the windows version works perfectly on Linux? If they didn’t want Linux to exist, why would they make EAC work on Linux? Explain how you think they’re actively trying to harm Linux (sabotage) instead of merely maybe hurting it as a side effect passively.
Silly you, you should know that it is not allowed to say anything that could be construed as remotely positive about Epic (or anything negative about Valve/Steam, for that matter) on this site.
Epic (the game engine and middleware developer) and Epic Store (the one that sells games) seems to have different priorities. Customers of Epic game engines and middlewares want linux supports, so they provide it. Meanwhile, Epic Store don’t want the burden of maintaining linux ports for their games, so they remove supports for linux in games they acquired.
Tim Sweeney is pretty openly against any Linux support for some reason so I think that soured Linux gamers against them.
I have been gaming on Linux for 15 years and it is so much better these days, but we are still not a 1st party target. I get why, but it sucks to be ignored and told to just deal with it forever. I spend as much or more on hardware and software than windows gamers (except for a Windows license I suppose) and I guess I have to vote with my wallet.
The only sad thing about this is that only one of them can lose the lawsuit.
But there is a satisfying FAFO aspect to this.
fabulous amphibian feeling its organ ? fat alluring fungiform obelisk ?
(I will look this up, it’s just a good opportunity to practice my English)
Fuck around and find out.
Basically a vulgar way to say that if you do something very stupid, don’t be surprised when something bad happens.
Very vulgar and tbh very beaten, redneck level childish expression mostly used overtly in bullshit reactions with almost zero regard to the context.
I mean yeah it’s mostly used by meatheads who get excited that somebody got punched, regardless of context…but I’m not exactly clutching my pearls at the use of a gasp bad word.
Dunno why that got down voted even though it agrees with and elaborates on the comment I replied to.
It is just a statement. I didn’t even urge, encourage or request anybody to stop using that, so not even pressing on the toes of anybody except really insecure people like the other commenter on your level.
Hell, it is used by those insecure people who can’t handle a criticism about their beliefs, usually in context where the subject is women, minorities, people living difficult lives, people enjoying crazy shit harming no one (else), rebellious populations that are directly or indirectly fucked by the colonialism.and fight back with whatever they have, even if it looks primitive in the face of their adversaries firepower.
And here I am making just one criticism about the use of a word that has almost become the Reddit’s “this” in Lemmy political environments, and I’m the one clutching pearls or being insecure.
LOL someone feels insecure about something lol.
Out of curiosity, what companies do you love?
Edit: oddly unpopular question lol
Edit2: a lot of people seem to think this question is a statement.
It’s pretty silly to love a company: they’re not human and behave as a sociopath would.
To love a company (which is really just to love their brand) is just to be easilly influenced by marketing and having a tendency to simplify one’s view of the world down to labels to make it easier to mentally understand it - in consumer terms it means that when you’re making a purchase decision you can just take the mental shortcut in your decision of directly choosing the “loved” brand, rather than needing to evaluate products and their suitability for you to make an informed buying choice, which is cognitivelly more costly.
While “brand love” is understandable and not abnormal, it’s not a quality but rather it’s just a pretty flawed cognitive shortcut that goes against making informed choices, so expecting it from others is like expecting that everybody has a specific mild character flaw.
You do your thing - it’s your life and your money - just don’t think that others must share that same reductive way of making purchasing decisions.
Do my thing? What statement did you assume I was making by asking a question?
Your question as formulated has the expectation that people must love some company.
From that I assumed that you yourself “love” one or more companies and hence use “love” for companies in your purchasing decisions.
My “do your thing” applies to you making purchasing decisions following “love” for companies. A different stating of the idea I was trying to pass in that sentence is: “You do your purchases guided by love for companies if that’s your way, just don’t think that others must share that same reductive way of making purchasing decisions.”
They said they “have no love for Apple,” which has the expectation that they must have “love” for another.
I was simply asking them. (Not you)
That expectation makes no logical sense.
“Having no love for Apple” does not imply that one “must love some other company” because “loving no company” implies “having no love for Apple”.
This is probably why you got the downvotes: there are plenty of people around whose relation to companies does not involve loving any of them and who don’t like it when others expect them to.
Personally I neither downvoted nor upvoted your original post as I don’t really mind if you expect that since it’s quite a common way people behave in this day and age of Marketing-heavy Consumer Society and you’re not harming anybody by asking even if your ask carries an erroneous assumption.
I don’t really give a shit, I just thought it was an interesting response to a simple question. People love to get mad, and it’s fascinating.
By their own quote of the law, there’s no wording that would stipulate that apple has to allow epic to have their third party app in apples app store. Just that they would have to essentially allow it to be side loaded, or installable in some way onto the phone.
But really, why should and app store have to foot the server bill for another company to get to install an app intended to make money while giving none to the company that owns and operates an app store?
I sure as hell wouldn’t.
Sucks to be an iOS developer. Apple will never give up it’s 30% of your money. EVER.
And the flat $100 fee, which disproportionately iffects small devs
I took an app development course in college. Everything was android and I tested on my own device, except one project had to be on apple. I managed to snag an ancient iPhone off a friend to test, but no, turns out you need a dev account to even be able to load your own code on your phone. Fuck apple forever.
Dev accounts are free. It’s only when you want to post stuff to the store that you start paying.
Did this change? It was about a decade ago. I could develop and test on an emulated device, but testing on hardware was 100% locked behind a $100 paywall.
You mean when you want to make it available to download in the only way Apple makes possible? It’s not like you can just send the apk to someone to run on their iPhone, if you want to share the app with others on an iPhone, you have to use the Apple App Store, you have to pay them $100 + the cost of an Apple computer. Just to share your FOSS app with your friends.
If dev accounts are free your friends can get their own accounts and load the app.
It just works™️
Sideloading on android is also more complex than the play store
How is the $100 a obstacle to any legitimate developer? The only one it hurts is those who would otherwise flood the app store with crap submitted from throw away developer accounts.
Who said anything about legitimacy? I said small, synonyms hobby, FOSS. It is an obstacle to be forced to pay money to Apple for the ‘privelidge’ of being able to install it on their devices. And they are Apple’s devices, you do not own anything you buy from Apple.
I said small, synonyms hobby, FOSS. It is an obstacle to be forced to pay money to Apple for the ‘privelidge’ of being able to install it on their devices.
It’s $100, basically a symbolic amount.
Ah fantastic, can you give me $100? It’s basically nothing, a symbolic amount.
Signed, a disabled and unable to work guy who enjoys IT and programing
Signed, a disabled and unable to work guy who enjoys IT and programing
You don’t need to pay to develop an app, you only need to pay to put it in the store.
So develop your app. If it’s any good, pay the $100, sell it in the store and it’ll pay for itself. It may even make you a little profit. If it’s not good enough for that, why does it need to be in the store?
Some capabilities actually need a paid developer account even if you don’t plan to put the app on the store.
The Capability library shows only the capabilities available to the target type and your program membership. If you are not a member of the Apple Developer Program, the capabilities you can add are limited.
Say you you’re maintaining a FOSS app on your own time. How interested would you be to pay Apple $100 annually for the privilege of giving their users free stuff?
Say you you’re maintaining a FOSS app on your own time. How interested would you be to pay Apple $100 annually for the privilege of giving their users free stuff?
Depends on the reason you’re maintaining that app to begin with. If it’s a hobby, then $100/year is a pretty cheap hobby.
As an open source developer, you’re right IMO.
It’s a shame you’re being downvoted based on feels.
Thanks for the block request
Sucks to be a Steam dev then
Steam and AppStore are not equivalent in many important ways, though
I don’t need steam to install your app on my pc, unless you choose it to be that way.
Does it? Steam does not monopolize a platform, or demand exclusivity. With Steam you are 100% free to sell through other channels, and even be able to still use Steam. Also there are actual services on Steam, and there are possibilities for lower rates.
Well, they’ve become ubiquitous, but I get your point.
Well not really, AFAIK they sell only about 20-50% of games sold for PC, depending on source. Not at all comparable to Apple that has maintained 100% for iPhone.
Also Steam is an independent alternative to Microsoft store on Windows now. So again quite the opposite of the Apple monopoly control of their platform.I don’t know where you got that 20% statistic, but everything I’ve read and can find on short notice has it up around 70%.
I just checked up on it, because it’s a number I remember reading earlier. What I have noticed is that when the 75% market share is mentioned, it’s downloads, that’s a pretty meaningless number. The only number I could find was 18% SALES from 2013. No doubt that has increased in 11 years. I corrected the number to 20-50% since there is no way it can be 75% with several of the biggest game developers like Microsoft, EA, Epyc and others almost completely avoiding Steam. Together with independent sales, and Epic and Microsoft store, and smaller outlets like GOG and Humble Bundle.
Every other store charges 30% including Steam, PlayStation, Xbox, Google Play, etc. Epic doesn’t and they aren’t profitable, so I don’t know why people pile on Apple.
Edit: the downvotes are funny. Why? You don’t like someone pointing out the truth?
At least with Google Play and Steam you are not locked into it due to your device of choice.
This is just a list of shit service providers leeching profits from developers and making the gaming industry worse.
Oh yeah Steam is totally making the gaming industry worse!
🤡
Wow, they do this just 2 days after being fined $2 billion by EU!
Unless you don’t know this “Tim Apple”, those fines have a tendency to increase with repeated violations.They better increase quickly. Apple’s bank account is large.
$2B on day one. Double that every instance. EU will own Apple in a week or two.
They’ll just stop selling their products in the EU before that bridge is even on the horizon.
What’s not to love? Then do the same with Suckerberg please, kthxbye.
I’m an American but even I know your in the minority with that opinion. You tell everyone in the EU to throw away their iPhone and delete their Facebook, I’m sure it’s gonna be really easy to convince your EU friends. I have a little respect for Apple, not a lot of companies will psudo stand up to the US government after the Boston Bomber on privacy grounds, even if it was just for show.
You would be surprised on how Europeans can adapt to that very quickly. If you take Apple out of the European market sure it will cause some fuss, with time we adapt.
$2 billion, that’s 4 whole days of profits for them.
Ah yes but those people love money so much, they are probably devastated.🤪
So you wouldn’t mind if 2% of your yearly salary after tax would disappear, right?
2% of nothing is still nothing 🤷
I’m glad you will sacrifice your salary for the greater good!
Buff
That’s a false comparison. Salary after tax is not comparable to profit. Profit is after ALL expenses. So if I did something really really stupid, after being warned about it and repeatedly, and was fined 2% after ALL expenses, I’d say I got off easy.
No, it’s not false.
$2B is actually 2% of their profit. That’s 7.3 days.
There’s no wording in that law that says apple has to allow third party apps for alternate app stores or anything to be made available within apples app store. More like apple just has to allow sideloading. Why would Apple want to pay for the server expense of another company by-passing giving apple a share of the profits?
I hate both companies, but if I owned Apple, I’d be after doing the same thing. Epic can get people to sodeload that crap.
Apple said one of the reasons they terminated our developer account only a few weeks after approving it was because we publicly criticized their proposed DMA compliance plan. Apple cited this X post from this thread written by Tim Sweeney. Apple is retaliating against Epic for speaking out against Apple’s unfair and illegal practices, just as they’ve done to other developers time and time again.
Epic breached the terms of its agreements with Apple and Google to kick off its lawsuits against them in 2020, and now that Sweeney is openly complaining about Apple’s terms for third-party app stores Apple doesn’t trust Epic not to breach those too. Seems reasonable.
Seems reasonable.
Careful. There are quite a few terms of service that you’ve agreed to over the years that if certain aspects of them were enforced, you wouldn’t think they were very reasonable.
I honestly don’t know why there are so many people around here willing to back apple on this kind of shit. Who cares if they had the right to do it? The inherent problem here is that they had that right, when they really shouldn’t.
Careful. There are quite a few terms of service that you’ve agreed to over the years that if certain aspects of them were enforced, you wouldn’t think they were very reasonable.
Epic has an entire legal department to read over agreements like that, and yet they deliberately breached the terms. That’s hugely different from someone unknowingly breaching a TOS that they didn’t read.
Please clarify it to me because I read this debacle as Apple blackmailing developers HARD into not talking bad things about the company. I get they’re evil and petty but I’m having a hard time to believe they’re this childish and stupid, specially with the DMA knocking at their doors.
This isn’t some random developer, it’s a developer that has already breached a contract with Apple. It’s reasonable for Apple to be wary of entering into another contract with them when the CEO is publicly complaining about the terms.
There’s definitely a case to be made that Epic shouldn’t need an Apple developer account to make their own app store, but Apple is well within its rights to deny them an account based on their history.
I can just see them responding to the EU like, “Yeah, we’ll allow other people to build app stores for iOS. They just need a dev account that we won’t approve. That’s not us specifically blocking alternate app stores though.”
How did they breach the contract?
Epic changed the mobile versions of Fortnite to add an option to pay for V-Bucks through their own system, which is against the terms of both Apple’s app store and Google’s. That got them kicked off of both app stores and then they sued Apple and Google.
Slurping that knob eh
