For those who have been keeping a close eye on the ongoing legal battle between Epic Games and Apple, you may have noticed that the conversation has somewhat lulled in recent weeks – whilst things were seeming to be heating up in September and October, November had held relatively little movement. This had been somewhat expected as the legal battle was already thought to become a slow burn as each established their own position, but one big change did come from Apple as the pressure had seemingly shown to have an impact.
The announcement came as Apple stated from 2021 any publisher making less than $1 million in revenue would have the marketplaces tariffs cut in half, only required to pay 15% instead of the existing 30%, and whilst this does little to quiet the ongoing argument, it is a step in the right direction. Although the ongoing claim from Epic will likely be that even 15% for the top earners on the platform is too steep, whilst Apple has suggested that much of the success of games like Fortnite have come from the way they have been represented on these market places, there are still huge amounts of money that have been made by both – whilst there may be the argument that Apple should at least have the opportunity to earn something from this deal, the question may boil down to just how much is reasonable, and if the 30% fills that reasonable number.
(Image from macrumours.com)
The change may encourage others to jump onboard with these marketplaces however, the high prices may have deterred many from being willing to join especially where big deposits are necessary for the business model, this has remained particularly true for platforms such as online casinos where a 30% cut to deposits is a huge portion of expected income, a growing number of services have had to adjust their operations to avoid regulation such as Gamstop or other restrictions that have recently been placed upon them as players find casinos sites here, but soon many may look to these marketplace platforms as long as many of these similar restrictions can be avoided as a benefit to players.
There’s a long burn left, and one of the players have yet to really be involved in the process – the third party here of Google also had many lawsuits against them for the same reasons but have largely been able to fly under the radar as the battle between Epic and Apple had heated up instead, once Google are pulled back into the conversation it could cause some big changes in the way the legal situation is handled as it’ll no longer be a two party fight but also including a third party and bringing up more questions around the differences between the two marketplaces but also the similarities, and where the similarities overlap is where the biggest change could be seen, particularly in areas such as this as Google are yet to follow Apple and make the same tariff adjustment down to 15%.
