Also why limit to app stores. I want to sell my own cosmetics on their fortnite item store (jk, I don’t). Valve allows that for games like CSGO, if I understand that correctly. The whole „they build a platform, I want a part“ is weird.
Because app stores are acting as platforms as well as used to restrict third parties and improve first party products. Does Fortnite even have a platform for developing cosmetics and selling them? If not, then this argument misses the mark.
Why isn't Epic forced to make it a platform? They have a large captive audience with money and I want a cut of it. Opening it up to everyone will drive competition to the digital skin market, and as we all know from this thread, that's a good thing. Why does Epic get to monopolize their game's monetization?
That is a silly oxymoron. One game doesn't constitute a monopoly; users who don't like it for whatever reason can go play any one of the vast number of games that computing has produced for half a century.
What you're saying is like why should Burger King have a "monopoly" on what sauce goes into a Whopper? Gosh, darn it, the market should be open so that you can order a Whopper with MacDonald's Big Mac special sauce.
Yes. Exactly why the Epic store is not a monopoly. There are alternative stores available. There is no alternative to the App Store on iOS so one cannot go sell in another store.
Games and sports are usually their own artificial sub-context with intentional limitations and scarcity of items, rather than following the real-world market and having item cost being based on time to develop.
For example it's obvious that you could produce Pikachu Illustrator cards (https://i.imgur.com/Q9kUFq8.png) for far less than the $200,000 one sold for. Or create a new card with arbitrarily high stats.
I don't think it's reasonable to expect regular market rules to apply to a game, or vice versa.
> Why does Epic get to monopolize their game's monetization?
The answer to this question is quite obviously that the smart phone market is much much larger, and has a much higher impact on society, than an in game cosmetics market.
This is what courts care about. They care about real life consumer impact.
And anyone who is not stupid, or intentionally trying to mislead people, can understand than the smart phone market matters a whole lot more, than an singular in game cosmetics market, which means that preventing monopolization in the phone market is way more important.
How exactly are consumers impacted by Apple's App Store? Other than having a consistently good experience where they are safe from malicious actors, privacy violations, manipulative subscriptions, malware, etc.
> Apple has manipulated its rules and policies to disadvantage Tile, a popular Bluetooth finding hardware and app developer, in favor of its competing Find My App.
> if a Kindle customer wants to purchase an ebook from the Kindle iPhone app, they’re met with a confusing situation: consumers can search for books, even read samples, but there’s no option to purchase. I
Take it up with Amazon. Kindle gets a free ride on the App Store because they do this. They could allow purchasing through the app but they choose not to because they don't want to give Apple a cut.
Not being able to use apps that Apple deem inappropriate: there's no PornHub app for anyone who wants that. Or more recently Microsoft's xCloud streaming app has been blocked even though it's not different than something like Netflix.
To show good faith, I will wholeheartedly agree that allowing Netflix and Spotify but not allowing xCloud, Stadia, Facebook Gaming, and now presumably Luna will be the straw that breaks the camel's back, moreso than Epic et al. There is no practical distinction between streaming video frames of The Witcher from Netflix and The Witcher 3 from xCloud.
Edit: Genuine question. Is it common for any mix-use store, physical or digital, to have hardcore pornography available?
And that's why to me the issue isn't Apple's App Store, but rather Apple App Store's monopoly on iOS apps. I'm not asking for those apps to be on the App Store, but I think as an owner of the device, I should be able to get whatever app I want on MY device.
It may seem that way but I am 100% sincere. Of course, those questions are rhetorical because I know what the answer I will hear is and I believe the same answer applies to Apple. If you believe that rules apply to one multi-billion dollar company but not to another, I want you to at least sweat a little bit in defending it because it sounds absolutely ridiculous to me. The conclusion I'm seeing is that if you want to be a consumer-hostile monopoly, you better do it in a market that's bigger than all other forms of entertainment but isn't critical to day-to-day life like, say, video games.
Bethesda and valve tried this with skyrim paid mods, it didn't go over well and valve canceled it. They tried again with creation club, but it's not too popular. https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Creation_Club#History
