> you're not charging arbitrary, excessive platform access fees
What's your legally enforceable definition of arbitrary? What's your legally enforceable definition of excessive? How do they apply to Apple and not to (for example) the Steam store?
> Sony for example seems to have a pretty positive relationship
Emphasis on "seems". These relationships involve very aggressive NDAs which would have a chilling effect on developers speaking out. Not to mention most developers will work for very large companies who would frown upon freelancing their opinions about a corporate relationship that is responsible for 50% or 100% of the developer's revenues.
Compare that to the App Store, where a million rando developers have paid their $99 and are complaining because Apple won't publish their malware or torch app.
> There's also various accounts of Sony providing support for its developers
There are (relatively speaking) an extremely tiny number of game developers on these platforms, and a lot of potential upside in landing exclusives, so you can expect such largesse and personal treatment from Sony and Microsoft.
> including launching a $10 million fund
For the video games industry, $10 million is crumbs. No, it's fractions of crumbs. No, it's atoms. I haven't looked into this PR exercise aka "fund" beyond the link you offered, but how much do you want to bet that access to that fund requires a period of console exclusivity in return?
> I'd imagine we'd hear a lot more negative stories
Again, the number of console publishing licenses is relatively tiny.
> But it also works out in game developers' favor.
Does it? Or does it just lock out new entrants in the hardware space? If Sony and Microsoft were unable to sell consoles at a loss, perhaps new market entrants would be able to create new console platforms of similar quality, and compete for developers by offering better financial terms.
If you're a nice platform monopolist, you're not charging arbitrary, excessive platform access fees. You can have a monopoly on a platform, charge fees and still act in a way that makes those fees seem reasonable.
Sony for example seems to have a pretty positive relationship with its developers. Here's for example something I found related to the PS4 dev kits:
>Although this $2,500 price [for a PlayStation 4 dev kit] is being cited in development circles, the game-makers we spoke to all said that Sony had lent them dev kits for a limited period of one year, for free. As of right now, there are no dev kits being sold. Sony is sending whatever it has available to favored developers. "All the indies I know got them for free," said one developer. "Sony has been amazing about kits and development thus far."
>Another developer said that Sony is focused on loaners, rather than collecting fees. "They are handing them out like candy," he said.
There's also various accounts of Sony providing support for its developers, including launching a $10 million fund for independent developers.
https://sonyreconsidered.com/playstation-commits-10-million-...
If Sony and the like were every bit as bad as Apple, Google, Steam, etc., I'd imagine we'd hear a lot more negative stories about them. I tried to find stories of Tim Sweeney talking shit about Sony's cut, but couldn't really find any. Only really found things like this:
>“We’ve been working super close with Sony for quite a long time on storage,” he says. “The storage architecture on the PS5 is far ahead of anything you can buy on anything on PC for any amount of money right now. It’s going to help drive future PCs. [The PC market is] going to see this thing ship and say, ‘Oh wow, SSDs are going to need to catch up with this.”
Maybe developers are more forgiving towards platform fees when they feel like they are working together with the charging company rather than against.
>Such behaviours are anti-competitive as it would be exceedingly difficult for a new market entrant to compete with such artificially low console prices.
Sure. But it also works out in game developers' favor. Console makers are cutting the cost of the device to reach a larger install base, which then increases the potential customer base for game publishers and developers.
>What you're saying is that the US Government should enact laws which favour dumping and loss-leader activity.
I'm not.