Category: Game Distribution Platforms
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Disney-Epic Games alliance has important past and current connections with Apple, Google app store fights
App store antitrust matters are not mentioned in the announcement of Disney’s $1.5 billion investment in Epic Games, but there are important implications, some of which are not merely speculative.
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U.S. court certifies 12-year-old consumer class-action claiming Apple’s standard App Store tax should be < 14%, not 30%
A 2011 consumer class-action lawsuit over Apple’s App Store that says a competitive commission would have been 13.69% instead of 30% has finally reached the point of class certification, but significant hurdles remain.
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Meta CEO Zuckerberg confirms Apple’s rules in response to EU DMA discourage creation of alternative iOS app stores
Meta founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg confirms what others have said: Apple’s new EU rules generally don’t create an opportunity for alternative app stores.
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Google wants Epic’s jury trial win overturned or at least a new trial, then without a jury: long list of arguments
Context: Last year, a San Francisco jury found for Epic Games on all counts against Google in an antitrust litigation over the Google Play Store. A motion for judgment as a matter of law (JMOL) that Google brought before jury deliberations even began was limited by the judge to only two pages, yet provided an…
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Epic Games formally tells U.S. court Apple isn’t complying with App Store injunction, announces contempt motion
Context: On January 16, 2024, Epic Games’ 2021 anti-anti-steering injunction under California law (but of nationwide scope and to the benefit of all app makers in the U.S.) entered into force after the Supreme Court of the United States declined to hear the matter (games fray article). Within hours, Apple filed an obviously prepared notice…
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Microsoft criticizes Apple’s new EU rules: what this means for Xbox app store, xCloud iOS app, UK CMA investigation
Microsoft Xbox president Sarah Bond called on Apple to be constructive and shared a much more aggressive statement on Apple’s new EU app rules by Spotify. It’s important to distinguish between the cloud gaming issue, which is a worldwide rlue change and where the UK CMA won’t let Apple off the hook too easily.
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Explaining the disproportionate impact of Apple’s 50-cent fee in response to the EU Digital Markets Act
Apple’s fee of 50 eurocents (US$0.54) per user per year if developers wish to distribute via alternative app stores has an effect that is way bigger than the seemingly small number suggests.
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Apple’s FRAND-centric litigation strategy against the EU’s DMA protects its monopoly rents for years
Based on further analysis, games fray is now in a position to explain Apple’s litigation strategy with a view to foreseeable DMA enforcement efforts by the European Commission and/or private parties. To enable effective competition, it will be inevitable to determine so-called FRAND rates.
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No sideloading, no viable payment alternatives, no truly competitive app stores: Apple’s new EU rules render Digital Markets Act pointless
Contary to widespread misbelieve and misreporting, Apple is not really opening up app distribution in the EU. Plus ça change… The simplest example of misinformation: the truth is that sideloading isn’t allowed.
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Game and other app makers can take billions of dollars away from Apple every year with this strategy, leveraging Epic’s U.S. injunction
While Apple’s new link and button rules for apps in the U.S. market are hard to overcome, there is a workaround that games fray has identified and describes in this article.