If you did not see technically yesterday, you missed the whole afternoon worth stuffing hands of popcorn in your mouth while your wide-eyed eyes stood to the screen and you wondered what madness followed. It was a day. Epic bans both Apple and Google in bans Fortnite of their respective app stores and did so with a full game plan in mind – including an anti-Apple video event in-game and two very public lawsuits.
Beyond Epic, I have a lot of tech topics to weigh in this week that I did not have a chance to tackle because I worked on our review and video for the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra – save me if you have any questions would like to see addressed in it.
But before we get to the Battle Royale between these three companies, I can not quickly talk about the Microsoft Duo. Holy wow that phone / not-in-phone looks really interesting but also seems overpriced and underpowered. I’m decided on team “specs do not tell the whole story”, but I am also on team “better specs are a safer bet, especially if the thing costs $ 1399.” Long story short: I love the idea of meeting devices, but the burden of proof is on Microsoft with these. I absolutely can not wait to check it out.
We will have a lot of analysis that goes much deeper into everything Fortnite op The edge today. Expect a long discussion on The Vergecast and articles from reporters about our tech and gaming crews. We have a page where you can also see all the updates: Everything you need to know about Epic’s fight against mobile app stores.
For my part, I’ll just give you a brief and very incomplete timeline of some of the relevant app store dramas that bought us to the point that the most important gaming company on the planet made a video parodying Apple’s famous 1984 Superbowl. commercial. I’ll start … sooner than you might expect.
January 22, 1984: the national Super Bowl broadcast of Apple’s famous Macintosh ad. It was a beautiful, wildly influential ad. Directed by Ridley Scott, it told the story of a revolutionary startup that would break the totalitarian rule of the monopolistic behemoth that dominated the sector.
June 2016: Apple changed its App Store rules a bit to reduce its cut on subscription apps from 30 percent to 15 percent after its first year. It was a moment that Apple finally began to reduce, if only slightly, to the rules that give it a 30 percent cut on everything in the store.
August 3, 2018: Epic name Fortnite off the Google Play Store because it was annoying that Google took that same 30 percent cut. Epic was able to do this in the first place, because Android, unlike iOS, allows people to install apps directly from any source. It just asks “OK” to click on a batch of relatively intimidating security warnings.
January 17, 2020: The House Judiciary Committee held a hearing in Colorado on how big tech treats smaller businesses in its job. Short answer: it’s often a “shakedown.” Sonos (which Google accuses), PopSockets, Tile, and Basecamp all testify that they were kicked out by Apple in various ways.
April 3, 2020: we learned that Apple had given Amazon a special deal that it could do things that other developers could not. Apple claimed it was “a fixed program”, but we saw it all through: Amazon got a deal because Amazon had leverage.
April 21, 2020: Fortnite went back to the Google Play Store. Turns out all those warnings about third-party apps (and maybe the lack of easy discovery) were too much of an issue for Epic. Epic CEO Tim Sweeney was pretty dumbfounded at how unhappy he was to have his app back.
16 June 2020: Basecamp’s new email app, Hey, was rejected by the Apple App Store because it offers no way to sign in directly to the iPhone – especially since it does not have to pay Apple’s fees. Exactly one week later (just in time not to limit it to Apple’s developer conference) a compromise was reached: Hey offered some sort of minimal functionality that could sneak it to the App Store.
July 29, 2020: the Judicial Committee met again, and called in the CEOs of Google, Apple, Amazon, and Facebook over video conferencing. It went better than expected, if only because the commission showed some semblance of technical knowledge. Yet it did not create lasting moments. In particular, Tim Cook and Sundar Pichai were not significantly pressured about issues from the App Store.
August 6, 2020: Apple reiterates its policy regarding streaming gaming platforms: not allowed. Microsoft, Google and Facebook all want to offer their streaming game services to iPhone users, but Apple insists it gets a cut on digital purchases en that it has the ability to instantly check and list any match. Microsoft and Facebook issued condemnations of the policy.
Okay, that’s a lot of history. Believe me when I tell you it’s very incomplete – there’s a very different Spotify timeline, European Union timeline, and Android timeline we could do here. However, from this imperfect timeline, here are the key points to keep in mind as we forget yesterday’s hijinks.
- First, there has been a lot of unhappiness related to Apple’s monopoly over app distribution on the iPhone, and anger at both Apple and Google over their 30 percent cut. Developers see an opportunity to push back.
- There has also been a general decline in confidence and confidence in big tech (duh).
- Eventually, there has been growing interest from regulators to start enforcing some antitrust laws.
… And now, welcome to August 13, 2020. I assure you, all the events below happened in one one day.
┏ Epic is offering new direct payment in Fortnite on iOS and Android to get app store fees. Epic immediately posted an update of the server to the app that was not checked by Apple or Google. That is no-no number one. No-no number two is the big one, though: offering direct payments without giving Apple or Google a cut.
You can already see the seeds of what’s coming here. The move was blatant and it was also designed to curry favorites among users, presenting the new options with a 20 percent discount. (Interesting, not 30 percent, but there are also credit card costs and other issues that can be accounted for that discrepancy. About arguments, the point is missing.)
┏ Apple just kicked Fortnite out of the App Store. Apple stuck to its guns. Fortnite broke the rules, Fortnite is out.
┏ Epic will mock Apple’s most iconic ad as possible revenge for Fortnite’s App Store ban. It becomes clear that the original option for direct payment was along with a setup. Epic aims to make it a big issue and rally its fans to its cause.
to be clear, I am fairly confident that no one was surprised by this move. I’m sure that before the decision was made to kick the app out of the store, Apple knew Epic would do something like that.
┏ Epic Games lets Apple dress up. But did Apple know that Epic would pursue? Who knows? There are two things to note about the Epic lawsuit:
- It starts with very readable, very passionate language about how Apple used to be good, but now it’s bad.
- It positions its anti-trust argument very cautiously by saying that Apple has a monopoly over iOS distribution, not over all smartphones. The anti-trust arguments for any large tech company tend to hang on to some question of “market definition.”
┏ Microsoft releases Surface Duo press video with 30 minutes of demos. Yeah okay this has nothing to do with anything else but it’s worth it to look at. I love gadgets, what can I say?
┏ Check out Epic’s Nineteen Eighty-Fortnite short mockery of Apple here. I can not begin to express how bad this video is. It reflects Apple’s famous anti-IBM commercial shot for shot. It contextualizes Apple as the bullshit. It … tells the story of a revolutionary startup that will break the totalitarian rule of the monopolistic behemoth that dominates the sector.
┏ Epic calls Fortnite players against Apple with a warning that they will miss next season. Of course there is a hashtag. But also, there are real and immediate stakes. Apple and Google banned Fortnite from their stores, but they still work on any device on which they are already installed. That a bunch of users may just look at this as a fight that will be over before it affects them. Epic even makes these people realize that this is a problem for them.
┏ Fortnite for Android has also hit the Google Play Store. I have to be honest with you, I expected Google to just sit this one out and let Epic break the rules for a day or two. Nope. Let Google day trade. It also suggested that there are other ways to install apps on Android. Not just site-loading, but through other stores.
You know how back in the day that Microsoft was happy that Apple existed, because then Microsoft could say it was not a total monopoly? That’s exactly the vibe I get when Google talks about the Samsung Galaxy App Store.
Sidenote! Both Epic and Microsoft point users to the Samsung Store. That’s because they are apparently able to get their in-app purchases without paying a 30 percent fee. What fee do they pay Samsung? Unclear – and Samsung did not return a request for comment.
┏ Epic claims Google submits for removal of Fortnite from Google Play Store. Epic had a lawsuit ready for Google as well, but no video parody. Of course, it followed the same script as the Apple process. Google once had this “do not be evil” motto, you see.
┏ Google forced OnePlus to decimate a Fortnite launcher deal, Epic Games claims. One coward in the Google lawsuit: We’ve got another example from Google that describes companies that may not want to put Google’s front and center services on their phones out of the box. This seems like a small thing, but it is very close to the practice that the EU imposed a large fine on Google and forced it to use a browser vote on Android.
What have we learned? As I write this evening, I have some very preliminary thoughts:
- Apple and Google do not want to be shunned by anyone, not even the most important gaming company today.
- Apple and Google are so incredibly rich and powerful that they might just be too big to be shunned anyway.
- Whether you like him or not, you have to admit that Tim Sweeney, CEO of Epic, certainly wants how he puts on a show. No wonder Fortnite is so popular.
- The backlog against app stores is real and growing.
- Apple has for the most part managed to prevent them from being seen as a bully, but that perception could change. Truly, that is one of the main goals of Epic here.
- I do not know what will happen next, but I would be very surprised if Apple goes backwards first.
- One of Epic’s intended audiences – perhaps the most important – is the regulators who are considering potential antitrust actions. There is a lot of fodder here for them if they want it.
Disclosure: My wife works in the Oculus Store, including setting policies for that store. I excuse myself from reporting on Oculus, VR, and Facebook and so am not familiar with what Oculus’ policies are. Here’s mine ethical statement.
