The American studio behind Fortnite returns to the charge against the monopolies of Apple and Google, and in particular their commission of 30%. After linked with other companies against the taxation of the App Store, Epic Games goes there on its own initiative with virulent comments against the two platforms.
Epic Games shoot the practices of Apple and Google
Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney in an interview on Friday attacked Apple and Google for their respective App Store and Play Store policies, saying the two companies’ tactics were holding back innovation.
Sweeney, at CNBC’s microphone, called Apple’s App Store “an absolute monopoly,” pointing to the 30% commission on purchases and transactions through the tech giant’s app. The current success of the publisher, Fortnite, generates huge sums of money and is still one of the best games on the App Store and the Google Play Store.
Apple has locked down and crippled the ecosystem by inventing an absolute monopoly on software distribution, on software monetization. If each developer could use their own payments services and avoid the 30% tax imposed by Apple and Google, we could pass the savings on to all of our consumers and gamers would get a better deal. And you would have economic competition.
The CEO also challenged Apple’s decision to ban third-party app stores, including the Epic Games Store, from iOS.
The Epic Store platform launched in late 2018 on macOS and Windows as a cost-effective alternative to mainstream app stores. Unlike the App Store, the Epic Games Store demands a 12% share of sales, making it a more attractive option for developers.
They prevent a whole class of businesses and applications from being engulfed in their ecosystem by excluding competitors from every aspect of their business that they protect.
While Epic seems to have abandoned the idea of a port to iOS, the company is moving forward to bring its store to Android. But Sweeney also criticized Google for putting up barriers similar to those employed by Apple.
Google intentionally suffocates competing stores by having barriers and obstructions at the user interface.
Sweeney has long lamented App Store taxes. In 2017, the boss was already calling the App Store’s business models “pretty unfair” and claimed that companies like Apple “are making a huge profit from your payments – and they’re not doing much to help [developers ] ”.
Sweeney is one of several developers to criticize the policies of the App Store in recent weeks. Apple’s applications sector has been the target of multiple international investigations, including an antitrust investigation by the Americans into large tech companies that also involves Amazon, Facebook and Google. CEOs of each company were due to testify at a hearing on Monday, although the investigation was postponed at a later date.
Do you agree with all these voices being raised against Apple and its App Store rules? From the start, the 30% commission has been in place, and that hasn’t stopped Apple from offering two million apps and games to hundreds of millions of customers. Perhaps by revising the rate down, Apple would get away with it easily. But if she starts doing this, others might take extra effort …