Anyone know if they are going to pull this with the AS ecosystem as well - only software you can install will be via their curated store? I like Apple but they seem to have become the company we all hated in MS and before that, IBM.
So Epic agreed to the contract because they know Apple has an enormous base of customers. Then epic got greedy and thought they could be dishonorable and cheat the company (Apple) that helped them become a worldwide sensation. epic you suck for your dishonesty, lying to customers when you blamed Apple for the situation that you forced onto itself, stealing from the company that made you extremely wealthy.
I don’t care what quality games you produce, I will not support a greedy, lying, stealing company ever again. I'm done with you epic!
Fortnite was a world wide sensation on console and they remain that. 12% of all players of Fortnite play on mobile and this includes all mobile devices and not just IOS. Just wanted to put a little perspective out there. We all love Apple but let’s not frame this like they owe their success to IOS. That simply isn’t the case.
Does Epic see enormous dollar signs with IOS’ user base...absolutely they do and tapping into that cash flow without giving Apple their agreed upon due is exactly the sneaky shit they pulled. In order to have a reason to sue to force the issue which again is exactly what they did. They also hoped they could tarnish Apple and get other developers to get behind them.. which hasn’t really happened.
Hoestly the majority of young people that play this game don’t have loyalty to Epic or Apple. They just want to buy their VBucks and play the game. Epic gave them discounts and free shit to sway players opinions of Apple. All so they could make more money and not pay Apple. As someone else said here if you didn’t like the terms you signed and agreed to take Apple to court to sort it out. Not pull this childish fake robin hood nonsense to sway popular opinion of a huge company that YOU need. Apple doesn’t need a thing from Epic and showed that by shutting them down.
This whole thing hurts customers and players in the end. Epic does t seem to care about that.
I am now torn. I have been patiently waiting for Tony Hawk PromSkater 1&2 to release on PS4 ... now I don’t know if I want to give epic my money!
So Epic agreed to the contract because they know Apple has an enormous base of customers. Then epic got greedy and thought they could be dishonorable and cheat the company (Apple) that helped them become a worldwide sensation. epic you suck for your dishonesty, lying to customers when you blamed Apple for the situation that you forced onto itself, stealing from the company that made you extremely wealthy.
I don’t care what quality games you produce, I will not support a greedy, lying, stealing company ever again. I'm done with you epic!
If that's an "Apple Tax" then let's be fair.
Wal-Mart Tax Amazon Tax Nintendo Tax Microsoft Tax Target Tax Home Depot Tax Kroger Tax Best Buy Tax
So stupid.
Don’t forget the Epic Tax in their own store!
Calling something a “tax” is simply word chaff meant to elicit an emotional reaction. Applying a smidgin of critical thought neutralizes this ploy, and in this case, it’s totally irrelevant. From a developer perspective Apple’s 30% charge is simply a cost of doing business. It’s not different than having to pay UPS or USPS to ship packages to customers.
If having to fork over 30% of your app’s price to Apple erases your profitability then you have serious problem, like improperly pricing your app (a marketing blunder), inability to compete (a product blunder), lackluster appeal, or excessive development and overhead costs in your business that prevent you from making a profit. The reason that these accusations apply is because all of your competitors are subject to the same Apple-related costs of doing business.
Epic would have a legitimate concern if Apple was granting more favorable terms to one of Epic’s competitors. Instead, Epic is trying to do an end-around-run against not only Apple, but Epic’s competitors, to put themselves in a more favorable position against their competitors. Apple has created a level playing field and Epic is trying to tilt that field in their own favor. If Apple were to lower its service charge to 15% or 10% or whatever for all developers Epic would be right back where it started, trying to press its thumb on the scale to tilt the balance in their favor. Rather than using every means directly available to them to better market and sell their own products, like having more compelling features, superior quality, better design, more responsive customer service, and building customer loyalty, they instead are attacking one of their business partners and facilitators of their business. This is a loser move any way you look at it. It would be like Apple going directly to its customers to complain about how much FedEx (or any other shipping service) is charging them for shipping your new iPhone from China.
Here’s the deal, Apple’s service fee for Epic to keep and maintain its apps in the App Store is a deal between Epic and Apple. It’s no different than the financial arrangement Epic has with its software developers or the software development and testing tool vendors it uses. The particulars of all these deals are buried in the bottom line price that Epic charges to me as a customer. I don’t care what they pay their software developers and I don’t care what they pay Apple and other tool and service providers. If I choose to purchase an Epic app it will be completely based on the bottom line price they charge me for their product and whether I feel compelled to buy it.
And, no I don’t want Epic coming to me to complain about their cost of doing business. I don’t care.
So Epic agreed to the contract because they know Apple has an enormous base of customers. Then epic got greedy and thought they could be dishonorable and cheat the company (Apple) that helped them become a worldwide sensation. epic you suck for your dishonesty, lying to customers when you blamed Apple for the situation that you forced onto itself, stealing from the company that made you extremely wealthy.
I don’t care what quality games you produce, I will not support a greedy, lying, stealing company ever again. I'm done with you epic!
If that's an "Apple Tax" then let's be fair.
Wal-Mart Tax Amazon Tax Nintendo Tax Microsoft Tax Target Tax Home Depot Tax Kroger Tax Best Buy Tax
So stupid.
Don’t forget the Epic Tax in their own store!
Calling something a “tax” is simply word chaff meant to elicit an emotional reaction. Applying a smidgin of critical thought neutralizes this ploy, and in this case, it’s totally irrelevant. From a developer perspective Apple’s 30% charge is simply a cost of doing business. It’s not different than having to pay UPS or USPS to ship packages to customers.
If having to fork over 30% of your app’s price to Apple erases your profitability then you have serious problem, like improperly pricing your app (a marketing blunder), inability to compete (a product blunder), lackluster appeal, or excessive development and overhead costs in your business that prevent you from making a profit. The reason that these accusations apply is because all of your competitors are subject to the same Apple-related costs of doing business.
FunFact:
Surveys claim as many as 99.9 percent of mobile applications that appear on the App Store cost more to make than they ever receive back in App Store revenue.
The cream does not rise to the top on the App Store or Google Play, even the best designed app will almost certainly fail to be profitable. Discoverability and Apple/Google in store promotion sucks on both platforms.
So Epic agreed to the contract because they know Apple has an enormous base of customers. Then epic got greedy and thought they could be dishonorable and cheat the company (Apple) that helped them become a worldwide sensation. epic you suck for your dishonesty, lying to customers when you blamed Apple for the situation that you forced onto itself, stealing from the company that made you extremely wealthy.
I don’t care what quality games you produce, I will not support a greedy, lying, stealing company ever again. I'm done with you epic!
If that's an "Apple Tax" then let's be fair.
Wal-Mart Tax Amazon Tax Nintendo Tax Microsoft Tax Target Tax Home Depot Tax Kroger Tax Best Buy Tax
So stupid.
Don’t forget the Epic Tax in their own store!
Calling something a “tax” is simply word chaff meant to elicit an emotional reaction. Applying a smidgin of critical thought neutralizes this ploy, and in this case, it’s totally irrelevant. From a developer perspective Apple’s 30% charge is simply a cost of doing business. It’s not different than having to pay UPS or USPS to ship packages to customers.
If having to fork over 30% of your app’s price to Apple erases your profitability then you have serious problem, like improperly pricing your app (a marketing blunder), inability to compete (a product blunder), lackluster appeal, or excessive development and overhead costs in your business that prevent you from making a profit. The reason that these accusations apply is because all of your competitors are subject to the same Apple-related costs of doing business.
FunFact:
Surveys claim as many as 99 percent of mobile applications that appear on the App Store cost more to make than they ever receive back in App Store revenue.
I’m going to bet that this ‘FunFact’ is a made-up, hyperbolic guess.
Nonetheless, whatever the real figure is for apps in the App Store that don’t turn a profit for the developer, one should be mindful of the large volume of free apps, which presumably do not turn a profit, and then for the others, as with any enterprise, there are all the folks who come up with an idea and fail to find enough buyers to make that idea profitable. Given the very low bar to create an app and get it approved and posted on the App Store, one can imagine that there are quite a few apps out there placed by amateurs and startup ventures that sit on the virtual shelf and collect virtual dust.
Of course, none of that has anything to do with Apple’s cut that only comes when something sells. There aren’t many meat-space retailers that will freely give shelf space to anyone with a product idea, and will then leave that product on the shelf in perpetuity whether or not any of it ever sells. Overhead is overhead, and the majority of all business ideas fail, either because they don’t find enough customers, or they didn’t write a business plan that properly deducted overhead costs prior to reaching a bottom line that uses black ink. For apps that run entirely on the client device, that math is incredibly simple. After X apps sell at .7Y price, all the income is profit, with the exception for whatever effort the developer chooses to put into routine updates. For apps that require operation of back-end servers, the math is still relatively simple, so long as the developer doesn’t foolishly use Y price instead of .7Y. Outside of the Apple platform, it would still be a mistake to calculate using Y price, but particularly if they’re handling retail in-house, the math for that multiplier becomes more difficult to accurately suss out, and underestimating that factor is a common reason businesses fail.
So Epic agreed to the contract because they know Apple has an enormous base of customers. Then epic got greedy and thought they could be dishonorable and cheat the company (Apple) that helped them become a worldwide sensation. epic you suck for your dishonesty, lying to customers when you blamed Apple for the situation that you forced onto itself, stealing from the company that made you extremely wealthy.
I don’t care what quality games you produce, I will not support a greedy, lying, stealing company ever again. I'm done with you epic!
If that's an "Apple Tax" then let's be fair.
Wal-Mart Tax Amazon Tax Nintendo Tax Microsoft Tax Target Tax Home Depot Tax Kroger Tax Best Buy Tax
So stupid.
Don’t forget the Epic Tax in their own store!
Calling something a “tax” is simply word chaff meant to elicit an emotional reaction. Applying a smidgin of critical thought neutralizes this ploy, and in this case, it’s totally irrelevant. From a developer perspective Apple’s 30% charge is simply a cost of doing business. It’s not different than having to pay UPS or USPS to ship packages to customers.
If having to fork over 30% of your app’s price to Apple erases your profitability then you have serious problem, like improperly pricing your app (a marketing blunder), inability to compete (a product blunder), lackluster appeal, or excessive development and overhead costs in your business that prevent you from making a profit. The reason that these accusations apply is because all of your competitors are subject to the same Apple-related costs of doing business.
FunFact:
Surveys claim as many as 99 percent of mobile applications that appear on the App Store cost more to make than they ever receive back in App Store revenue.
I’m going to bet that this ‘FunFact’ is a made-up, hyperbolic guess.
For apps that run entirely on the client device, that math is incredibly simple. After X apps sell at .7Y price, all the income is profit, with the exception for whatever effort the developer chooses to put into routine updates.
Ongoing support, developer fees, the cost of marketing because Apple's not doing it for you. Another FunFact: At one point Clash of Clans was making nearly a $Million in revenue per day, but it cost 'em $40 million in marketing to do so.
As far as that stat no need to guess. If you're actually curious do like I did: Look it up with a search. "What percentage of apps are profitable". There's no shortage of articles with research on the percentage of apps that recognize a profit and not simply some revenue, assuming there's any of that to begin with.
So Epic agreed to the contract because they know Apple has an enormous base of customers. Then epic got greedy and thought they could be dishonorable and cheat the company (Apple) that helped them become a worldwide sensation. epic you suck for your dishonesty, lying to customers when you blamed Apple for the situation that you forced onto itself, stealing from the company that made you extremely wealthy.
I don’t care what quality games you produce, I will not support a greedy, lying, stealing company ever again. I'm done with you epic!
If that's an "Apple Tax" then let's be fair.
Wal-Mart Tax Amazon Tax Nintendo Tax Microsoft Tax Target Tax Home Depot Tax Kroger Tax Best Buy Tax
So stupid.
Don’t forget the Epic Tax in their own store!
Calling something a “tax” is simply word chaff meant to elicit an emotional reaction. Applying a smidgin of critical thought neutralizes this ploy, and in this case, it’s totally irrelevant. From a developer perspective Apple’s 30% charge is simply a cost of doing business. It’s not different than having to pay UPS or USPS to ship packages to customers.
If having to fork over 30% of your app’s price to Apple erases your profitability then you have serious problem, like improperly pricing your app (a marketing blunder), inability to compete (a product blunder), lackluster appeal, or excessive development and overhead costs in your business that prevent you from making a profit. The reason that these accusations apply is because all of your competitors are subject to the same Apple-related costs of doing business.
FunFact:
Surveys claim as many as 99.9 percent of mobile applications that appear on the App Store cost more to make than they ever receive back in App Store revenue.
The cream does not rise to the top on the App Store or Google Play, even the best designed app will almost certainly fail to be profitable. Discoverability and Apple/Google in store promotion sucks on both platforms.
Fuck off with your repeated attempts to make it appear most developers don’t turn a profit as a dig at The App Store.
Last time you used the flawed calculation of dividing total revenue by number of Apps to make it appear each developer made very little, and with big companies (like games) raking in large amounts of money the amount left for smaller developers is even less.
I explained this to you years ago, and you’re back again with the same bullshit?
A large number of Apps are provided as a service. All my banks and credit cards have free Apps. They obviously employ full-time developers (they won’t trust this to an App studio to create for them for security reasons) and since the App is free those development costs are never recovered. Or are they?
Despite those costs these companies continue to make Apps. Why? Because it saves them money. These Apps are similar to websites in that they’re not designed to sell products or earn revenue. Their benefits are the services they provide to customers that avoid those customers having to go to a physical location or tie up a representative on the phone. By transferring many tasks to a website/App they’re lowering their support expenses while at the same time increasing customer satisfaction. Those benefits don’t show up in these stupid App studies because they only look at revenues generated by The App Store vs total number of Apps/developers.
Heres a bunch of Apps I have on my iPhone that fall into this category (free Apps provided as a service).
TD Bank BMO Visa Mastercard Translink (local transit company) BC Hydro (electric company) Telus (TV/Internet) Rogers (cell phones) Paypal (hate it, but some places only use it) Desjardins (my group insurance policy) BMW Connected myChevrolet My local butcher My rec hockey league My daughters public schools My daughters Karate school Our local recreation centre Our local library
Our family doctor Our family dentist My daughter’s orthodontist My local flying club
Some of these are large corporations while some are small local businesses or public services. All are free and obviously cost money to develop that isn’t directly returned via the App itself. They did/do, however, support the developer(s) who created them and provided them with a salary.
Edited: The last group on my list require no marketing. They don’t compete with anyone so there’s no need to advertise. They never show up in The App Store unless you know exactly how to find them. They are discovered when you patronize a local business and you either see their sign about their App or are told about it by staff. Every year I order my Christmas turkey through the App for my butcher, which I only found out about the very first time I ordered in person.
I wonder what Epic is thinking... I get they are frustrated with the 30% “Apple Tax” but their actions make no sense.
I'm thinking that for them, they can only win. They can't lose:
Their game is to break down the walls of the walled garden.
-- If they succeed then they win
-- if they don't succeed then they go back to obeying the rules -- and have lost very little (but gained a bunch of free publicity!
A quick study of the Reddit dedicated to Fortnite Mobile shows that fans of the game know what's up. That Epic f'd up and they bear the brunt of the responsibility for this mess. So whatever publicity they have gained is largely negative, I think. JMHO
We now have Tim Sweeney and Mark Zuckerburg as the mouth pieces of opposition to Apple’s (and other digital storefronts) fee structure. Tell me again why I should care about what two total scum bags in real life say?
So Epic agreed to the contract because they know Apple has an enormous base of customers. Then epic got greedy and thought they could be dishonorable and cheat the company (Apple) that helped them become a worldwide sensation. epic you suck for your dishonesty, lying to customers when you blamed Apple for the situation that you forced onto itself, stealing from the company that made you extremely wealthy.
I don’t care what quality games you produce, I will not support a greedy, lying, stealing company ever again. I'm done with you epic!
If that's an "Apple Tax" then let's be fair.
Wal-Mart Tax Amazon Tax Nintendo Tax Microsoft Tax Target Tax Home Depot Tax Kroger Tax Best Buy Tax
So stupid.
Don’t forget the Epic Tax in their own store!
Calling something a “tax” is simply word chaff meant to elicit an emotional reaction. Applying a smidgin of critical thought neutralizes this ploy, and in this case, it’s totally irrelevant. From a developer perspective Apple’s 30% charge is simply a cost of doing business. It’s not different than having to pay UPS or USPS to ship packages to customers.
If having to fork over 30% of your app’s price to Apple erases your profitability then you have serious problem, like improperly pricing your app (a marketing blunder), inability to compete (a product blunder), lackluster appeal, or excessive development and overhead costs in your business that prevent you from making a profit. The reason that these accusations apply is because all of your competitors are subject to the same Apple-related costs of doing business.
FunFact:
Surveys claim as many as 99.9 percent of mobile applications that appear on the App Store cost more to make than they ever receive back in App Store revenue.
The cream does not rise to the top on the App Store or Google Play, even the best designed app will almost certainly fail to be profitable. Discoverability and Apple/Google in store promotion sucks on both platforms.
Fuck off with your repeated attempts to make it appear most developers don’t turn a profit as a dig at The App Store.
Eric being Eric.
My comments applied to both Google Play and the App Store if you actually bothered reading my post beyond the first sentence.
So Epic agreed to the contract because they know Apple has an enormous base of customers. Then epic got greedy and thought they could be dishonorable and cheat the company (Apple) that helped them become a worldwide sensation. epic you suck for your dishonesty, lying to customers when you blamed Apple for the situation that you forced onto itself, stealing from the company that made you extremely wealthy.
I don’t care what quality games you produce, I will not support a greedy, lying, stealing company ever again. I'm done with you epic!
If that's an "Apple Tax" then let's be fair.
Wal-Mart Tax Amazon Tax Nintendo Tax Microsoft Tax Target Tax Home Depot Tax Kroger Tax Best Buy Tax
So stupid.
Don’t forget the Epic Tax in their own store!
Calling something a “tax” is simply word chaff meant to elicit an emotional reaction. Applying a smidgin of critical thought neutralizes this ploy, and in this case, it’s totally irrelevant. From a developer perspective Apple’s 30% charge is simply a cost of doing business. It’s not different than having to pay UPS or USPS to ship packages to customers.
If having to fork over 30% of your app’s price to Apple erases your profitability then you have serious problem, like improperly pricing your app (a marketing blunder), inability to compete (a product blunder), lackluster appeal, or excessive development and overhead costs in your business that prevent you from making a profit. The reason that these accusations apply is because all of your competitors are subject to the same Apple-related costs of doing business.
FunFact:
Surveys claim as many as 99.9 percent of mobile applications that appear on the App Store cost more to make than they ever receive back in App Store revenue.
The cream does not rise to the top on the App Store or Google Play, even the best designed app will almost certainly fail to be profitable. Discoverability and Apple/Google in store promotion sucks on both platforms.
At least from a tax liability perspective, if you are never making money from what you consider a “business venture,” it isn’t really a business at all, it’s a hobby. I suspect that there are lots of hobby developers on the App Store as well as non hobbyists who use free or low cost apps as loss leaders to attract potential paying customers to other parts of their business portfolio.
The business value of the App Store to developers who decide to voluntarily participate in Apple’s App Store is something that app developers have to personally assess. If it’s working for them, that’s great - party on. But if it isn’t, why are they wasting their time working on something that’s not providing them any value, monetarily or in some other form?
Nah. It’s clear you don’t own a mac, huh? Soldered storage is faster, more reliable, and less prone to failure as plug in components. This is fact, not opinion. So you’re not going to be buying a new Mac sooner because of it. My Macs last close to a decade anyway when they are put to pasture. Macs have a longer useful lifespan than PCs, so you’re just peddling hater conspiracy theory. Pathetic.
My 2TB PCIe SSD in my W10 PC benches faster than my soldered-on 2019, 2TB Macbook SSD. This is fact, not opinion. Sure macs are good and all, worth it is subjective, stop being blinded by corporate marketing. My 32GB of 18-19-19-39, 4400MHz DDR4 also benches significantly faster than the 32GB in said same laptop. My gaming PC lasts infinity, because I modularly upgrade, so you’re just peddling hater conspiracy theory. Pathetic.
See how this works? Your use case ≠ "peddling hater conspiracy theories".
So Epic agreed to the contract because they know Apple has an enormous base of customers. Then epic got greedy and thought they could be dishonorable and cheat the company (Apple) that helped them become a worldwide sensation. epic you suck for your dishonesty, lying to customers when you blamed Apple for the situation that you forced onto itself, stealing from the company that made you extremely wealthy.
I don’t care what quality games you produce, I will not support a greedy, lying, stealing company ever again. I'm done with you epic!
If that's an "Apple Tax" then let's be fair.
Wal-Mart Tax Amazon Tax Nintendo Tax Microsoft Tax Target Tax Home Depot Tax Kroger Tax Best Buy Tax
So stupid.
Don’t forget the Epic Tax in their own store!
Calling something a “tax” is simply word chaff meant to elicit an emotional reaction. Applying a smidgin of critical thought neutralizes this ploy, and in this case, it’s totally irrelevant. From a developer perspective Apple’s 30% charge is simply a cost of doing business. It’s not different than having to pay UPS or USPS to ship packages to customers.
If having to fork over 30% of your app’s price to Apple erases your profitability then you have serious problem, like improperly pricing your app (a marketing blunder), inability to compete (a product blunder), lackluster appeal, or excessive development and overhead costs in your business that prevent you from making a profit. The reason that these accusations apply is because all of your competitors are subject to the same Apple-related costs of doing business.
FunFact:
Surveys claim as many as 99 percent of mobile applications that appear on the App Store cost more to make than they ever receive back in App Store revenue.
I’m going to bet that this ‘FunFact’ is a made-up, hyperbolic guess.
For apps that run entirely on the client device, that math is incredibly simple. After X apps sell at .7Y price, all the income is profit, with the exception for whatever effort the developer chooses to put into routine updates.
Ongoing support, developer fees, the cost of marketing because Apple's not doing it for you. Another FunFact: At one point Clash of Clans was making nearly a $Million in revenue per day, but it cost 'em $40 million in marketing to do so.
As far as that stat no need to guess. If you're actually curious do like I did: Look it up with a search. "What percentage of apps are profitable". There's no shortage of articles with research on the percentage of apps that recognize a profit and not simply some revenue, assuming there's any of that to begin with.
Uh. $1M in revenue per day, and $40M in marketing? Surely you mean $40M total marketing budget or at least per year, right? Because that would be a $14.6 billion annual marketing budget if you’re trying to suggest that they spent $40M per day to make $1M. Apple doesn’t even spend anywhere near that much on marketing.
So we’ll go with the first idea, that Clash of Clans had a $40M marketing budget. What’s your point? Apple isn’t offering every app developer marketing. That would be dumb, and nobody has that expectation. So what exactly is your point? The App Store gives any developer a low bar to access iPhone users who are accustomed to the simple expectation that apps downloaded from the store will be reasonably intuitive to use, and will be very unlikely to crash or otherwise damage their device. So if an app is reasonably priced, iPhone customers won’t hesitate to give it a try. None of those things were true in the software business prior to the App Store.
It’s up to the developer to make customers aware of their app, just as it would be if there were no App Store. It’s just that now, once they’re aware, it is then incredibly easy to get them to buy the app and put it on their device. That’s not the case if the customer also has to go to the developer’s website, create an account, and also check into the trustworthiness of the developer, as well as the reliability and compatibility of the application. Those are all things that lose customers before they ever get to the point of buying and installing a software application the “old way.”
So sure. App developers have to either be lucky and go viral, or pay for their own marketing if they want to sell a lot of apps. So?
So many people, and you may be one, really don't understand Google does not sell your information. They don't. What they are is an intermediary between consumers and advertisers. A company like Apple chooses the audience they want to market to, and Google matches an anonymized basket of Advertising ID's to place those ads in front of. The data never leaves Google, nor are your name or address or any other private information ever exposed to the advertiser.
If Google did as you thought they did I too would have a serious issue with it. That's why I refuse to update credit information for a card provider O already deal with because credit bureaus sell information to companies that aren't even offering you credit. I also don't use rewards cards because that transaction data is sold to assorted data aggregators.
I do what I can to make sure any personal information I decide to share remains with the entity I chose to share it with, not passed on to another party. I trust Google not to sell my data on to others. I don't have the same trust in credit providers and credit bureaus, banks, insurers, stores, or pharmacies.
This is a well stated point and I bet you are right that many don't realize that the data itself isn't typically being sold.
Unfortunately, those people who do realize it may still have a problem with Google because the value of the data is often what it implies about a person...interests, ideologies, persuasions, etc. and Google is more than happy to sell that without permission or authentic transparency.
Some of us would prefer to use Google's many excellent products and pay for the privilege directly in subscriptions or fees to avoid being used as the product. Being tracked, analyzed, and targeted constantly with ads is ok with a lot of people, but some people would prefer to have their privacy. I'm willing to take my chances that I can successfully figure out what to spend my money on without help from Google and it's advertisers. Unfortunately, Google and others like them don't seem willing to allow the direct pay business model to emerge which makes some of us look elsewhere for solutions whenever possible.
As I understand Apple is not taking fixed 30% fees, those are set between 15 to 30%. I don't care how much is Apple charging as much I don't care how much is charging a bank to different shops for purchases I made.
As I understand Apple is not taking fixed 30% fees, those are set between 15 to 30%. I don't care how much is Apple charging as much I don't care how much is charging a bank to different shops for purchases I made.
The problem is that the App Store is not an App Store. Talk about sneaky off-branding. The App Store is the worlds one of two gateways to consume mobile content. It’s huge.
If you would only have two stores in the world to buy your food, let’s call them Flubbermarket and Yabbermarket. There would be no other store or food delivery service. They would control what is in the store, what is promoted, and they would operate the same way as Apple before, that wouldn’t fly also. Nobody would accept that.
As I understand Apple is not taking fixed 30% fees, those are set between 15 to 30%. I don't care how much is Apple charging as much I don't care how much is charging a bank to different shops for purchases I made.
The problem is that the App Store is not an App Store. Talk about sneaky off-branding. The App Store is the worlds one of two gateways to consume mobile content. It’s huge.
If you would only have two stores in the world to buy your food, let’s call them Flubbermarket and Yabbermarket. There would be no other store or food delivery service. They would control what is in the store, what is promoted, and they would operate the same way as Apple before, that wouldn’t fly also. Nobody would accept that.
Of course, that’s not accurate. You can install third-party apps on Android devices without going through Google’s app store. There are quite a few alternative “stores” for that, and though I’m not an Android user, I’m pretty sure you can choose to install any random app from any random place on your Android device. That’s great if you’re into that. If you’re not, that leads us back to the fact that Apple’s walled garden App Store is itself a consumer choice. I and many others choose iOS devices because of the greater security provided by having an exclusive gateway for applications to get onto iOS devices. That is our choice and we’d be very happy if others would stop trying to take that choice away from us.
Comments
That's what I'm hoping.
If that's an "Apple Tax" then let's be fair.
Epic Tax
Wal-Mart Tax
Amazon Tax
Nintendo Tax
Microsoft Tax
Target Tax
Home Depot Tax
Kroger Tax
Best Buy Tax
So stupid.
Very.
If having to fork over 30% of your app’s price to Apple erases your profitability then you have serious problem, like improperly pricing your app (a marketing blunder), inability to compete (a product blunder), lackluster appeal, or excessive development and overhead costs in your business that prevent you from making a profit. The reason that these accusations apply is because all of your competitors are subject to the same Apple-related costs of doing business.
Epic would have a legitimate concern if Apple was granting more favorable terms to one of Epic’s competitors. Instead, Epic is trying to do an end-around-run against not only Apple, but Epic’s competitors, to put themselves in a more favorable position against their competitors. Apple has created a level playing field and Epic is trying to tilt that field in their own favor. If Apple were to lower its service charge to 15% or 10% or whatever for all developers Epic would be right back where it started, trying to press its thumb on the scale to tilt the balance in their favor. Rather than using every means directly available to them to better market and sell their own products, like having more compelling features, superior quality, better design, more responsive customer service, and building customer loyalty, they instead are attacking one of their business partners and facilitators of their business. This is a loser move any way you look at it. It would be like Apple going directly to its customers to complain about how much FedEx (or any other shipping service) is charging them for shipping your new iPhone from China.
Here’s the deal, Apple’s service fee for Epic to keep and maintain its apps in the App Store is a deal between Epic and Apple. It’s no different than the financial arrangement Epic has with its software developers or the software development and testing tool vendors it uses. The particulars of all these deals are buried in the bottom line price that Epic charges to me as a customer. I don’t care what they pay their software developers and I don’t care what they pay Apple and other tool and service providers. If I choose to purchase an Epic app it will be completely based on the bottom line price they charge me for their product and whether I feel compelled to buy it.
And, no I don’t want Epic coming to me to complain about their cost of doing business. I don’t care.
Surveys claim as many as 99.9 percent of mobile applications that appear on the App Store cost more to make than they ever receive back in App Store revenue.
The cream does not rise to the top on the App Store or Google Play, even the best designed app will almost certainly fail to be profitable. Discoverability and Apple/Google in store promotion sucks on both platforms.
Nonetheless, whatever the real figure is for apps in the App Store that don’t turn a profit for the developer, one should be mindful of the large volume of free apps, which presumably do not turn a profit, and then for the others, as with any enterprise, there are all the folks who come up with an idea and fail to find enough buyers to make that idea profitable. Given the very low bar to create an app and get it approved and posted on the App Store, one can imagine that there are quite a few apps out there placed by amateurs and startup ventures that sit on the virtual shelf and collect virtual dust.
Of course, none of that has anything to do with Apple’s cut that only comes when something sells. There aren’t many meat-space retailers that will freely give shelf space to anyone with a product idea, and will then leave that product on the shelf in perpetuity whether or not any of it ever sells. Overhead is overhead, and the majority of all business ideas fail, either because they don’t find enough customers, or they didn’t write a business plan that properly deducted overhead costs prior to reaching a bottom line that uses black ink. For apps that run entirely on the client device, that math is incredibly simple. After X apps sell at .7Y price, all the income is profit, with the exception for whatever effort the developer chooses to put into routine updates. For apps that require operation of back-end servers, the math is still relatively simple, so long as the developer doesn’t foolishly use Y price instead of .7Y. Outside of the Apple platform, it would still be a mistake to calculate using Y price, but particularly if they’re handling retail in-house, the math for that multiplier becomes more difficult to accurately suss out, and underestimating that factor is a common reason businesses fail.
Another FunFact: At one point Clash of Clans was making nearly a $Million in revenue per day, but it cost 'em $40 million in marketing to do so.
As far as that stat no need to guess. If you're actually curious do like I did: Look it up with a search. "What percentage of apps are profitable".
There's no shortage of articles with research on the percentage of apps that recognize a profit and not simply some revenue, assuming there's any of that to begin with.
Last time you used the flawed calculation of dividing total revenue by number of Apps to make it appear each developer made very little, and with big companies (like games) raking in large amounts of money the amount left for smaller developers is even less.
I explained this to you years ago, and you’re back again with the same bullshit?
A large number of Apps are provided as a service. All my banks and credit cards have free Apps. They obviously employ full-time developers (they won’t trust this to an App studio to create for them for security reasons) and since the App is free those development costs are never recovered. Or are they?
Despite those costs these companies continue to make Apps. Why? Because it saves them money. These Apps are similar to websites in that they’re not designed to sell products or earn revenue. Their benefits are the services they provide to customers that avoid those customers having to go to a physical location or tie up a representative on the phone. By transferring many tasks to a website/App they’re lowering their support expenses while at the same time increasing customer satisfaction. Those benefits don’t show up in these stupid App studies because they only look at revenues generated by The App Store vs total number of Apps/developers.
Heres a bunch of Apps I have on my iPhone that fall into this category (free Apps provided as a service).
TD Bank
BMO
Visa
Mastercard
Translink (local transit company)
BC Hydro (electric company)
Telus (TV/Internet)
Rogers (cell phones)
Paypal (hate it, but some places only use it)
Desjardins (my group insurance policy)
BMW Connected
myChevrolet
My local butcher
My rec hockey league
My daughters public schools
My daughters Karate school
Our local recreation centre
Our local library
Our family dentist
My daughter’s orthodontist
My local flying club
Some of these are large corporations while some are small local businesses or public services. All are free and obviously cost money to develop that isn’t directly returned via the App itself. They did/do, however, support the developer(s) who created them and provided them with a salary.
Edited: The last group on my list require no marketing. They don’t compete with anyone so there’s no need to advertise. They never show up in The App Store unless you know exactly how to find them. They are discovered when you patronize a local business and you either see their sign about their App or are told about it by staff. Every year I order my Christmas turkey through the App for my butcher, which I only found out about the very first time I ordered in person.
My comments applied to both Google Play and the App Store if you actually bothered reading my post beyond the first sentence.
“Epic’s Failure.”
My 2TB PCIe SSD in my W10 PC benches faster than my soldered-on 2019, 2TB Macbook SSD. This is fact, not opinion. Sure macs are good and all, worth it is subjective, stop being blinded by corporate marketing. My 32GB of 18-19-19-39, 4400MHz DDR4 also benches significantly faster than the 32GB in said same laptop. My gaming PC lasts infinity, because I modularly upgrade, so you’re just peddling hater conspiracy theory. Pathetic.
See how this works? Your use case ≠ "peddling hater conspiracy theories".
So we’ll go with the first idea, that Clash of Clans had a $40M marketing budget. What’s your point? Apple isn’t offering every app developer marketing. That would be dumb, and nobody has that expectation. So what exactly is your point? The App Store gives any developer a low bar to access iPhone users who are accustomed to the simple expectation that apps downloaded from the store will be reasonably intuitive to use, and will be very unlikely to crash or otherwise damage their device. So if an app is reasonably priced, iPhone customers won’t hesitate to give it a try. None of those things were true in the software business prior to the App Store.
It’s up to the developer to make customers aware of their app, just as it would be if there were no App Store. It’s just that now, once they’re aware, it is then incredibly easy to get them to buy the app and put it on their device. That’s not the case if the customer also has to go to the developer’s website, create an account, and also check into the trustworthiness of the developer, as well as the reliability and compatibility of the application. Those are all things that lose customers before they ever get to the point of buying and installing a software application the “old way.”
So sure. App developers have to either be lucky and go viral, or pay for their own marketing if they want to sell a lot of apps. So?
This is a well stated point and I bet you are right that many don't realize that the data itself isn't typically being sold.
Unfortunately, those people who do realize it may still have a problem with Google because the value of the data is often what it implies about a person...interests, ideologies, persuasions, etc. and Google is more than happy to sell that without permission or authentic transparency.
Some of us would prefer to use Google's many excellent products and pay for the privilege directly in subscriptions or fees to avoid being used as the product. Being tracked, analyzed, and targeted constantly with ads is ok with a lot of people, but some people would prefer to have their privacy. I'm willing to take my chances that I can successfully figure out what to spend my money on without help from Google and it's advertisers. Unfortunately, Google and others like them don't seem willing to allow the direct pay business model to emerge which makes some of us look elsewhere for solutions whenever possible.
I don't care how much is Apple charging as much I don't care how much is charging a bank to different shops for purchases I made.