A Note

This was the first real story I wrote over on the AllThingsTech blog just over a year ago. Now that Epic Games has been handed a win in their battle over Apple’s control over the App Store I figured I would republish it here to remind people what this is really about. As a developer on Apple’s platforms I understand the frustrations that come from having to live by Apple’s rules, and I even think the outcomes of the recent rulings are justified and good for consumers. We’re going to see a lot of change on the way things are bought and sold on the iPhone and that’s really important. But it’s also important to remember the real reason why Epic Games was doing this. They may not have gotten their own store, but really what they cared the most about was getting their cut.

Remember the result of the rulings: Apple does not have a monopoly on the App Store and any suggestion of such is inaccurate according to court rulings. Where Apple had lost was regarding Anti-Steering measures that prohibited apps from completing purchases outside of Apple’s in app purchase system. Read about the latest in this story over on The Verge.

Background

So we all know what happened back in 2020: Epic Games knowingly broke the terms and conditions of both the Google Play Store and the iOS App Store by linking out to an external payment processor, skirting the 30% fee that both Apple and Google take from all transactions on their stores. As a result, Fortnite was removed from the stores and, at one point, Apple had shut down Unreal Engine, Epic’s game engine, used by many non-Epic parties.

When this happened, Epic immediately sued Apple and Google and released two pieces of promotional material: a webpage where they detailed everything that was going on with their motives for taking this step, there’s a section where they keep up with the various court proceedings, and then there’s an FAQ section, along with the webpage was a YouTube video that resembles Apple’s famous “1984” superbowl ad going directly after Apple and Google for their “unfair behavior” as Epic saw it.

The Epic Games Store

Fast forward to 2024 and a ton has gone on since this all started: we’ve had lawsuits in the US and in the EU with Apple and Google in the hot seat the whole time and a ton of other companies have joined in with Epic - Spotify being one of the more high profile names. In the US, Google lost its case, but Apple largely won with the only concession being that Apple could not stop developers from telling users that they could save if they went outside of the In App Purchase system.

In the EU, there’s now legislation that requires Apple to open up app distribution on the iPhone, paving the way for third-party app stores and, in some cases, direct distribution of software from the web. Each step of the way, with each concession Apple had to make, Epic Games insisted that it wasn’t enough. Apple had to allow for third-party payment processing, so they cut out the industry standard payment processing fee of about 3% per transaction (a popular alternative, Stripe charges about this and the fees charged by card processors like Visa and MasterCard are about the same as well). This wasn’t enough. The small developer program, which states that any developer making under US$1 Million/year only has to pay a 15% charge per transaction also wasn’t enough. Epic wanted more.

Now, we have the launch of the Epic Games Store in the EU (after fighting with Apple about actually securing a developer account in the EU which was a whole mess we won’t get into). And Epic has announced a 12% fee for apps on their platform. This happens to be the same fee for small developers who use a 3rd party payment processor on the App Store, resulting in a whopping nothingburger for the small developers Epic was allegedly fighting for.

Why Do I Find this Obnoxious?

So I’m going to be straight with all of you: I think this whole thing was completely stupid. Yes, there were some important concessions made on Apple’s part that had the potential to pave the way for making things better for developers and consumers, but that didn’t happen. You now have the choice to have 12% taken from you by Epic or Apple. It’s just more of the same. All of that fighting in court Epic did, all of the support it tried to gather from smaller developers, all of it meant nothing. Epic never cared about any of it. Their only problem with the App Store is that they weren’t able to do the same thing. The EU tried to pave the way for something better for developers and consumers, but all they did was open the door for a choice: which multi-billion dollar corporation gets to exploit you? And that’s not a good choice. As we get into the age of Big Tech regulation, we all need to think about what the end game is: is there an actual benefit to consumers, or is it just another case of companies trying to take their own slice out of the consumers? You can find me over on Bluesky or Mastodon.