[pawnednow]

Maybe Facebook should go make phones and then try and waive fees that help third parties build momentum that they will eventually capitalise on..

I can understand the 30% tax being tough for indie publishers but when I see companies like hey.com and FB & Epic taking this stance, I feel like they are being treated exactly how they will treat others if they were in position of power in the relationship.

[brendoelfrendo]

Epic has already demonstrated that they wouldn't treat others this way if the roles were reversed; they have their own Epic Games Store, where they take a 12% cut on any third-party games sold [0]. They explicitly called out Steam, which takes a 30% cut like Apple (for the first $10 million in sales, at least; Steam operates on a tiered model) [1]. Cynically, this is because they wanted to eat Valve's lunch in a space where Valve is the dominant player. But ultimately, that's exactly Epic's point here: on PC, it is possible for someone to introduce a competing platform, while Apple prevents such an ecosystem on iOS.

[0] Side note: I do think that Epic is guilty of anticompetitive practices here, because if your game uses the Unreal Engine, they roll the 5% engine royalty into that 12%, giving a huge advantage to using their product on their store: https://www.polygon.com/2018/12/4/18125498/epic-games-store-...

[1] https://www.polygon.com/2018/12/3/18123649/valve-steam-reven...

[judge2020]

Epic is by no means turning a profit on the Epic store right now.

It's like calling out the taxi companies for being more expensive while Uber and Lyft are still subsidizing rides with VC and IPO money.

[brendoelfrendo]

Yes, they do make a profit: https://gamerant.com/epic-games-store-revenue-split-explaine...

"Sweeney also said that Epic Games makes approximately 5% profit from that 12%, and this could grow to 6-7% as the store grows."

They chose 12% specifically as a balance between profit and undercutting the competition.

[judge2020]

That's profit from game sales, which doesn't necessarily mean profit on a scale of the entire store when you account for paying developers, running the servers, getting content to users via CDN, etc. Once Epic is on-par with steam[0], i'd at least expect a 20% epic tax.

0: https://twitter.com/shroudschair/status/1120464329239867392?...

[user5994461]

If they don't turn a profit it's only because they're paying millions of dollars to game developers to use the epic store and remove their game from steam.

[MaxBarraclough]

> Epic has already demonstrated that they wouldn't treat others this way if the roles were reversed

That's not really the same role. Epic are currently pushing hard to drive adoption of their store, whereas Steam's position is already entrenched, as is Apple's.

As mFixman points out, Epic also lack the monopolistic position that Apple have over iOS devices.

[mFixman]

Except that this is a completely different thing.

1) You can install programs in Windows without Epic's permission.

2) Epic allows their games to be distributed through Steam or other platforms.

[brendoelfrendo]

That was my point? And it's also the entire point of Epic's lawsuit against Apple?

[munk-a]

Usually big industry payers would just use their power to negotiate a better position. I don't think FB or Epic are altruistic or even marginally honest actors themselves - but they are shining a light on a policy that hurts indy developers and might end up accidentally helping them.

[spike021]

It's definitely kind of surprising coming out of Facebook when technically they're the ones profiting off of users' data without any kind of cut.

I'm not even one to usually complain about that, but this certainly gives off a double-standards vibe.

[avalys]

The “cut” that users get is the ability to use all Facebook services for free?

[bcassedy]

Why are you lumping Hey in with the rest of these folks? They are orders of magnitude smaller and have some of the most customer friendly businesses around with Hey and Basecamp.

[duskwuff]

> Maybe Facebook should go make phones

They tried in 2013. (HTC First.) It was an unmitigated failure, with perhaps as few as 15k units shipped.

[lern_too_spel]

This is Apple blocking an app for critizing Apple. Facebook doesn't block posts that criticize Facebook.

[goatinaboat]

Facebook does monkey with posts to rival services and has done for a long time.

https://thenextweb.com/facebook/2015/07/22/facebook-throws-s...

[lern_too_spel]

That looks like a suggestion instead of a block. If Apple had suggested to Facebook that it not criticize the fee, it wouldn't be as big a deal.

[return1]

facebook's platform has existed since before ios and it has made thousands of developers millionaires. It was always completely free. Facebook payments exist, but they are optional. If anything, FB is the complete counter-example to apple

[mrgordon]

Don’t they charge the same 30% for Oculus apps?

[bryan_w]

Oculus allows sideloading, unlike Apple.

[cblconfederate]

oculus is not the FB platform. and, as pointed out, even that is not restrictive