Re:Apple just kicked Fortnite off the App Store
by danShumway on Friday August 14, 2020 @02:31AM
(#24154440)
> but why does there even need to be centralized stores at all?
Well, discoverability is a big problem. Yes, in theory we could do discoverability a different way, but in practice we haven't built that kind of infrastructure (yet).
There are other problems regarding payment processors and transactions/refunds, tracking where users came from for tax purposes... there's just a lot of infrastructure.
Now, that's not to say we couldn't ever get rid of centralized stores. It would just be a lot of work to build a lot of open infrastructure, get some better payment processors that are easier to sign up for, build the kind of systems and lists you're talking about around discoverability.
I don't think it's impossible to imagine a world with fewer centralized stores and more self-hosted games, and I don't think it's unreasonable to say that world might be nice to live in. I just think that world is far away and that getting there would be a lot of work.
Currently, I can set up an Itch account from scratch and be selling a real game to real people for real money in, like, an hour? Maybe 2? And it'll handle stuff like archiving all of my old versions, and I won't need to set up accounts for my users, and there's a nice integrated blogging platform, and people can comment, and currency conversion is just not an issue. Plus as a user, I don't need to provide my name/address to each developer either, only Itch needs to know where/who I am. So that neatly bypasses the privacy problem of payment systems like Paypal.
Again, none of that is impossible for us to provide in a decentralized way. But the decentralized tools aren't comparable right now; if you want to sell directly it's going to be a lot more work.
Well, discoverability is a big problem. Yes, in theory we could do discoverability a different way, but in practice we haven't built that kind of infrastructure (yet).
There are other problems regarding payment processors and transactions/refunds, tracking where users came from for tax purposes... there's just a lot of infrastructure.
Now, that's not to say we couldn't ever get rid of centralized stores. It would just be a lot of work to build a lot of open infrastructure, get some better payment processors that are easier to sign up for, build the kind of systems and lists you're talking about around discoverability.
I don't think it's impossible to imagine a world with fewer centralized stores and more self-hosted games, and I don't think it's unreasonable to say that world might be nice to live in. I just think that world is far away and that getting there would be a lot of work.
Currently, I can set up an Itch account from scratch and be selling a real game to real people for real money in, like, an hour? Maybe 2? And it'll handle stuff like archiving all of my old versions, and I won't need to set up accounts for my users, and there's a nice integrated blogging platform, and people can comment, and currency conversion is just not an issue. Plus as a user, I don't need to provide my name/address to each developer either, only Itch needs to know where/who I am. So that neatly bypasses the privacy problem of payment systems like Paypal.
Again, none of that is impossible for us to provide in a decentralized way. But the decentralized tools aren't comparable right now; if you want to sell directly it's going to be a lot more work.
Maybe that will change in the future.