I don't believe so.. As part of Epics business strategy since the Tencent investment they have been working to reduce license and distribution costs across the industry to the benefit of a lot of developers; and themselves of course.

Now Epic is worth over $18b, has some VERY big name investors, and controls the most popular game on the planet. They have the power to sway public sentiment against Apple, a legal leg to stand on as far as anti-trust, deep pockets, and powerful friends.

My guess, and hope, is that Epic takes Apple to the cleaners.

This seems like a huge bridge-burning move.

If I owned a grocery store chain, and some food company decided to trash me in the press, mock me, and sue me, I would never allow a single one of their products on my store's shelves again, forever, regardless of the outcome. I honestly don't understand what Epic hopes to achieve here. Why wouldn't Apple just ban Epic products from their store for good after this?

Epic probably plans to win the case and force Apple to loosen restrictions on iOS.

Apple isn’t the store owner, they are the shelf manufacturer. We are the store owners, and Apple is telling us what we’re allowed to put on our shelves. You know, I don’t think this is a great metaphorical framework.

Apple definitely is the store owner. They built and run the AppStore app and backend infrastructure, set the rules for what goes on the shelves and what doesn't, take a (large) cut for providing distribution, arrange things on the shelves, point people to products. Whether you disagree with Apple or not in this case, these are functions of a store, and it's clearly Apple's store.

> My guess, and hope, is that Epic takes Apple to the cleaners.

They're not asking for money, they're just asking for an order ordering Apple to stop their anti-competitive behavior with the app store and with payments. No cleaners are likely to be involved in this process win or lose.

That phrase has two common meanings..

Uh?

The only meaning I'm aware of is "to take tons of money from", what's the other?

2. To soundly defeat or best one; to succeed over one by a wide margin.

-- https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/take+to+the+cleaners

Apple is worth 2 trillion if we are looking at market cap. They can literally buy out epic if they wanted to.

Not necessarily. Tim Sweeney owns more than half of Epic Games, and (presumably, I'm obviously not privy to what contracts he has signed) has no obligation to sell for any amount of money. He is also rich enough to have "fuck the world money" and not accept a price that is far above what his share in Epic Games is actually worth.

That would be a stupid strategy for Apple, for a multitude of reasons:

1. Fighting it out in court, and then paying damages is probably going to be cheaper than 18 billion USD.

2. I don’t know if AppStore profits (NPV of discounted future profits) make it even worth 18 billion USD.

3. If they buy out Epic, they’re signaling weakness which is basically asking the next company to play the same game.

4. It just provides more evidence & impetus for those pushing for antitrust action.

There is technically a chance Apple might eventually acquire Epic, but if so, that would be driven by Apple seeking an interesting platform for its VR hardware, not to just close down this lawsuit.

Apple would have to be insane to do that. Within a month they would have the same problem with the rest of the top 10 paid apps.

Only if Tim is willing to sell it.

You just don't start a fight without a plan. The legend of David and Goliath says that you need to be clever to take on an oppressive opponent that is far more powerful than yourself. Apple forgot that as it became the Goliath.

> This reads as pre-planned ...

Aka planned.

> My guess is Apple will soon introduce some reduction of platform fees ...

My guess is that Apple will fight this vehemently, to the highest courts they can, and try to minimise the financial damage by constraining whatever compromises they are forced to make on a per-country basis, and will continue to actively discourage this behaviour.

> and co-ordinated to me

Except the part were Epic goes to court. To involve the legal system for a stunt would be largely unwise, unethical and punishable.

The part where they go to court is the core of the plan. They've timed it to coincide with the antitrust case. Apple will have to be very careful how they defend this case to avoid their statements coming up in the antitrust case that could cost them much much more than giving Epic a lower appstore fee.

If Apple charged 5% (which is still more than a credit card processor), I doubt so many companies would be complaining.

Apple still needs to pay credit card processors.

Avoiding most of the 30% cut is actually rather easy for consumers, but not for developers.

App Store Gift Cards can be purchased from retailers with a 15% to 20% discount (https://www.ozbargain.com.au/product/itunes-gift-card). And those retailers aren't making a loss either.

> Apple still needs to pay credit card processors.

That's why I said 5%. They don't need to run it at-cost or take a loss from it, but considering it's a closed platform, it shouldn't be a massive profit center, either,

In many states gift card balances remain with Apple if they expire or are lost. They may make close to more money from that than the discount.

Apple gift cards don't expire.

In some states they can earn interest on them, meaning they still effectively expire over time unless we hit deflation.