In other words, Apple and Google are bad for taking a 30% cut, but Sony and Microsoft are not bad for taking a 30% cut plus having a (reportedly) vastly more onerous set of policies than Apple has.
When console makers start making the same profit margin on their devices as Apple does, as opposed to selling them at or even below cost, this argument will begin to make sense.
It is not fixed , depending on how large you are MS or Sony will pay you to launch on their store . There is volume discounts , AAA does not pay indie rates
That's a misleading question, because on other platforms you can choose to avoid the store. A better question would be "what's the lowest cut you need to give up to distribute to users of these other platforms?". And the answer to that is zero on basically all of them except iOS.
Since when? You cannot side load apps onto modern consoles, to the extent of manufactures like even Nintendo releasing updated hardware revisions to block homebrew exploits.
> That's a misleading question, because on other platforms you can choose to avoid the store.
That's definitely not true. You cannot run unsigned code on most video game consoles.
And for PC game marketplaces, those platforms still have market power. Surely there's a big difference between being banned from Steam and being banned from the Discord Store.
Video game consoles are specialized hardware. They do one thing and they do it well. It's kind of understandable that these companies want to review anything released for those. They want to ensure that games are of high quality so as to not hurt the reputation of the platform itself. They want games to help sell consoles. And that's how video game consoles always worked.
iPhones, on the other hand, are not specialized. They're general-purpose devices at this point — both by design and by how Apple markets them. The problem is, both developers and users see the app store and its policies as a nuisance.
> the magnitude of this is not immediately apparent unless you’ve worked in an agency / freelanced building iOS applications. You have no idea how many user-hostile and abusive things I’ve seen blown completely out of the water with the golden phrase "Apple won’t allow that". It wins arguments in favour of the user instantly and permanently.
> I’ve run up against Apple’s capricious review process more times than I can count, so I’ve got more reason than most to complain about it. But it’s impossible for me to argue that these rules don’t help the user when I’ve personally seen it happen so many times. It’s a double-edged sword to be sure, and I believe the best way of balancing things in favour of the end-user is to be more open than Apple is, but there are undeniable benefits to the user with the current system.
You and I know that they're locked-down computers with hardware DRM and a bit of custom silicon, but most users don't see them like that. To them, it's a device that is only capable of running games.
> You have no idea how many user-hostile and abusive things I’ve seen blown completely out of the water with the golden phrase "Apple won’t allow that".
I'm an Android developer myself but I've seen iOS apps released, and I'm friends with many iOS developers. You're going through this bureaucracy lottery every time you release an update. You can never be sure of its outcome, and you can never know how long it would take. Even most governments are more predictable.
Sure there exist rules that are genuinely in the interest of the user. But then there are rules that are in the interest of Apple as a business (the 30% cut for digital goods). There also are rules that are following US laws, and they're stringently enforced regardless of your target market because Apple happens to be a US company.
> To them, it's a device that is only capable of running games.
And Spotify, YouTube, Netflix, live TV, Plex, home automation, web browsing, Skype, etc. In other words, nearly everything an iPhone can do and probably very near 100% overlap with how iPhones are actually used.
> They want to ensure that games are of high quality so as to not hurt the reputation of the platform itself. They want games to help sell consoles. And that's how video game consoles always worked.
And my argument is that an overall better (according to each individual buyer's preference) software experience is a major (perhaps the single largest) differentiator of iPhones over competing smartphones. This has always been a major part of Apple's marketing and indeed is the primary reason I use an iPhone. Yes, on the iPhone it's "games and other apps" instead of just games, but I don't see that being a major difference (particularly since game consoles can serve other purposes too, like media consumption and home automation).
My argument is that iPhones are and have always been essentially "the game console of smartphones" or "the appliance of smartphones." In fact, that type of description is often used both pejoratively by iPhone haters and lovingly by iPhone fans. They're simply not made for or marketed to people who want a general-purpose Unix PC with a cell phone antenna built in, even though technically they are essentially that (note, of course, that iPhones and game consoles are technically general purpose computers, but that's not really relevant).
> They're general-purpose devices at this point — both by design and by how Apple markets them. The problem is, both developers and users see the app store and its policies as a nuisance.
I strongly disagree with your impression here. My impression has been that complaints about App Store rules have overwhelmingly come from a small number of extremely large developers (unsurprisingly, developers that are big enough that they want to make a play to shift some of Apple's market power toward themselves). I don't see iPhone owners complaining about App Store rules, and I suspect one reason is that anyone who values being able to sideload any software on their smartphone has many very nice Android options.
> I don't see iPhone owners complaining about App Store rules
Well, as someone outside of US and its culture, I see every now and then how people dislike Apple enforcing its morals on apps. Example: even if your app is rated 18+ and contains UGC, you still can't have any porn in it. Even if it's censored by default but there's a setting to show it. They demand that you completely obliterate any content that is even slightly erotical, let alone overtly pornographic, or have your app banished from the app store.
And don't even get me started on "illegal file sharing".
I've seen this from both sides. As a user, you blame Apple for seeing a placeholder when trying to view a VK group that contains suggestive imagery in one of its photo albums. As a developer, you roll your eyes when your bug fix update gets rejected an umpteenth time with the reason being "we turned safe search off, typed 'porn' into the search box and naked people came up". It just feels like a dictatorship state, and a very prude one.
By this definition, surely as long as Apple didn't market it free from the App Store, it doesn't qualify as a general purpose device?
If I could install a web browser and libreoffice on an xbox, would that meet your definition of a general purpose device? And isn't that an artificial, monopolising restriction that I can't?
Even if that were true (which is highly debatable given than an Xbox is basically a rebranded PC), there is no provision in US antitrust law that treats "general purpose devices" as different than "specialized hardware".
> That's definitely not true. You cannot run unsigned code on most video game consoles.
And I'm pretty sure many people would be quite against this practice and believe this is an harmful monopolistic practice. The thing is though, no one had the balls and/or the cash to defends this like Epic does right now against Apple.
Let's hope this will bring a more open future on video game consoles too.
Most people I've seen commenting on this Epic vs. Apple debate seem to think that it's okay on game consoles but not okay on iPhones, which is just preposterous. At least you're consistent. But what about e-readers, GPS devices, car entertainment systems, etc.? Should all Turing-complete computing devices be forced to provide a way for the owner to run unsigned code?
That's a bizarre argument. It seems to imply that Apple could avoid these allegations by either increasing or decreasing the restrictions they place on third-party developers.
How does it imply that? Which of those devices you mentioned (e-readers, GPS devices, car entertainment systems) have a store for downloading apps? If they do, then yes I would like to be able to put whatever I want on there without the approval of some corporation.
This is misleading, it doesn't apply to games and it's only if you link your customer directly into the app store (not if they go to the store and search for your app or find it some other way).
Roughly the same, I think the variance is about 10% with Steam being an outlier working in tiers tied to revenue. At least one allows developers to name the cut (including 0%) but 30% is the most common number.
My comment was actually intended to play a bit of devil's advocate - I'm not convinced that Apple has a monopoly, and I kind of don't mind living in the walled garden.
How much do Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo, Steam, Gog and etc. take from publishers on their stores?