- cross-posted to:
- nintendo@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- nintendo@lemmy.world
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Nintendo does not sell hardware at a loss and, IIRC, has done so since the Wii. It was a huge deal back when they said they were going to make a profit off the hardware. Given how abysmally the Wii U did, I’m struggling to find coverage of that from 15yr ago that I only vaguely remember. However, that’s been a major point from Nintendo since the Wii, so it’s ridiculous that Epic wouldn’t know that and is clearly just an attack on Google (please don’t read that as me supporting Google or Epic).
PlayStations are not sold at a loss either.
They usually start out selling for a loss, but Sony reduces costs and scales production so they’re usually profitable (or at least even) after a couple of years. As far as I can tell the PS3 took the longest, releasing in 2006 and not breaking even until 2010, still 3 years before the PS4 launched.
It seems Xbox has always sold at a loss though.
On top of all this, Apple also sell their own hardware alongside their own App Store, just like Sony and Nintendo do.
The Apple model is extremely similar to the way the console manufacturers operate albeit with a few more freedoms on Mac.
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I think everyone is aware that Apple sells hardware, that’s not relevant to the discussion. What’s relevant is whether they sell it at a loss or not.
Personally, I don’t think that selling hardware at a loss is a good excuse to be anticompetitive with the software. I don’t understand how it (and any other kind of loss leading sales tactics) doesn’t trigger anti-trust laws.
So if Google sold its phones at a loss then Epic would have no problem paying the fee? Sure.
The more interesting part of the argument is saying that people will contact Microsoft/Nintendo/Sony for technical support with a game and expect them to help while Apple or Google would send you to the developer.
google isn’t the only company selling android phones.
google isn’t the only company selling android phones.
Other Android OEMs are allowed to ship whatever store they want in addition to Google Play. The Epic Games Store is on the Samsung Galaxy Store: https://galaxystore.samsung.com/detail/com.epicgames.portal
Honestly, they should sue Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo. The fact that we allow such restricted computers that can land you in prison for manipulating them is just absurd.
More realisticly Epic is just choosing their battles where they can see that they can make progress but they can’t say that.
They only need one big win. If they manage that, the rest would be much easier. As arguments will have been made and ruled. They can refer to the case against Google as precedent, making the subsequent court cases short, cheaper and/or not be necessary. If Google loses apple, Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo will all examine changing policy or settling any disagreements earlier.
Precisely, it would be a stupid waste of money to launch simultaneous lawsuits against everyone. Get one victory, then use that precedence to get settlements from the rest.
I mean don’t get me wrong, it’s absurd how locked down their stuff is, but I’m not aware of prison time for opening up consoles yet. You can get sued, like Sony vs Hotz, and get ordered to pay some outrageous restitution, but that road ends in bankruptcy, not prison. Still complete bullshit that they can bankrupt a person, but there’s no prison…yet.
I mean… Gary Bowser got three years and millions of dollars in fines for running the website of a modchip company.
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30% fees are insane. Those cost are passed down to us the consumer. We get shittier game because a third of the profit goes to these marketplaces.
I get the epic hate bandwagon but what the fuck is up with the constant bootlicking? Google sucks for doing this and all the other platforms as well. They ALL employ monopolistic tactics to keep their moats, stop defending them because the circle jerk tells you too.
30% fees are insane. Those cost are passed down to us the consumer. We get shittier game because a third of the profit goes to these marketplaces.
Whilst that may be the case, every single day one launch on EGS and other stores (GOG, Microsoft, Steam) launch at exactly the same price on Epic despite the lesser cut. Not one single title I’ve seen launch at a lower price on EGS.
I feel it’s naive to think that is, the consumer would ever benefit from a lesser cut, the fat shits at the top would just keep more.
And they’re hemorrhaging money
The consumer would benefit from a higher quality of games, since they would become more lucrative to make and the available budget after a successful title would be higher.
There’s also the indie scene that would benefit from every dollar. A 30% middleman tax can affect a lot more than just the price.
Cutting ceo pay is a good idea too but one problem doesn’t forgive another and regulating soft monopolies would be a first step in that direction anyways.
The price is the same because of a Most Favored Nations clause in Steam’s ToS. Publishers have to sell it at the same or higher price on other platforms to keep their product on Steam, which is the lion’s share of the market. This is part of the accusation in the lawsuit: https://programming.dev/comment/5159579
Now you could argue that even if it were removed, publishers would still sell at the same price and keep the extra profit, but that’s just hypothetical at this point.
Even on EGS exclusives? No such clause should affect the price if it’s not on sale on another store.
Not one single EGS exclusive has been sold at less than standard prices afaik.
The whole thing is bullshit.
How do you compare it with other platforms if it’s exclusive to EGS? For timed exclusives, it would mean the price would have to go UP on EGS when the Steam version launches, which seems like pretty dumb marketing honestly.
I know I’m playing devil’s advocate defending Epic and publishers, but I don’t see how defending rent extracting monopolies is any better.
Not that hard to compare to be honest when games launch at price parity with console launches despite the lesser cut.
Borderlands 3 launched on Xbox, PlayStation and EGS, each at $59.99
PlayStation and Xbox had a 30% cut and cost the same.
0 benefit to the consumer.
Fuck them. It’s all bullshit.
Sony also has an MFN, not sure about Xbox: https://tryhardguides.com/epic-games-ceo-says-sony-is-the-reason-they-cant-lower-prices/
The real reason Epic hasn’t sued Sony is because they’re an Epic shareholder
I don’t even think Sony’s MFN is an issue as Alan Wake 2 is $10 cheaper than on consoles, a boon for the consumer and something I could get behind, but no.
Vbucks aren’t even lower cost on pc where 100% of the sale goes to Epic. No 30% cut there but prices are the same.
I’m all for supporting the message that Tim is trying to portray but they’re so inconsistent with the way they manage the business I can’t for the life of my accept that they’re being honest.
They briefly cut the price of vbucks on mobile when they pulled the stunt and could easily do the same on pc permanently. PC Vbucks aren’t transferable to Playstation wallets so they should be able to do something.
Didn’t that clause already go to court, and it was found to only apply to steam keys, not all releases of the game?
No, the trial hasn’t started yet. In the complaint, the plaintiffs quote Valve saying that it applies not only to Steam keys but to everything.
They don’t set the prices.
Who is they?
The publishers could already set the prices lower on EGS by default with the 18% difference being put in consumers pockets making EGS a more enticing place to buy games for now, instead, they want to sell games the same price on EGS vs all other stores they offer titles on pocketing the difference.
EGS Exclusives even launch at the standard pricing despite the money they used to receive up front from Epic and the lesser cut. None of this grandstanding is a benefit to me as a consumer and I won’t give a fuck in supporting Epic/Tim until it is.
Epic, of course.
Man, just imagine the shitstorm if a game launched at $50 on Epic, then a year later increased prices to $62 everywhere due to Steam’s terms and conditions so that the dev could maintain the same profit from steam.
Of course that will never happen because there’s zero consumer benefit and instead they just launch at $60 on Epic. If that did happen and the savings were benefiting the consumer then Epic might have a point.
The 30% covers storage, distribution, discovery, and probably more. If you had to implement that yourself you’d wind up with a shittier version for probably more money.
This is horseshit. Apple is making billions of dollars a year on the app store.
Setting a CDN and a document search service take like 5min on Azure / AWS / GCP, and get you 90% of the way there, and your annual bill for them might push into the hundreds of thousands, but nothing close to approaching the amount of money that Google and apple are taking in through the app store.
People really need to stop defending this horseshit behaviour. If it’s so hard to run an App store then why won’t Google or Apple fairly compete against any?
Google does, not sure what’s up with apple.
Except even without the fees games generally get released at the same price
You’re just licking someone else’s boot. Epic is by no means pro-consumer.
And yes, google is evil. But that doesn’t imply there’s someone good in this situation.
