Epic Taking on App Store 30%

What if "not free and open" is their thing? What if that's why people buy their devices?

 

That's something that would have to be weighed in, but I don't think it's antithetical to the kind of thing Epic are asking for. It's not a question of just throwing open the floodgates, but allowing businesses to operate relatively freely on the platform without having to hand over a third of their earnings.

The whole idea of a monopoly is a difficult and complex issue, like many other thorny issues where the practical outcome is at odds with the theoretical ideal.

 

Well, to my mind the "relatively free and open ecosystem" should be broad enough to include the other devices and platforms that also exist. It does not necessarily have to mean that everyone within that ecosystem does things the same way.

One of the freedoms that I think should be protected is the freedom to deliberately buy into a system like Apple's.

 

In Apple's original document they mentioned that Epic wanted their own store with the ability to add software themselves. They wanted OS-level access (and they've explicitly stated that they think everyone should have the same capabilities). This whole case is about more than the 30% cut. I imagine the judge will parse it all out in time.

 

What if it isn't? What if people buy their devices because of their longetivity and popularity with their friends? I know some people like the idea behind a closed ecosystem but I'm willing to bet most of their customers don't know what that even is let alone care. In fact I'd go one step further with the bet and suggest the percentage of people who care about it is likely very similar to the percentage of people who insist on using Linux over Windows.

Fortunately it's not like it's impossible to have both a closed and an open ecosystem on the same platform. You just need to find a way to let people switch back and forth while making the process involved enough that people read the warning label (eg by requiring a multi-step process, or a factory reset to do the switch one way or the other).

 

Fair enough, I was really only referring to what I see as Apple taking an oversized cut of revenue from anything on their platform.

I certainly understand there's an advantage to not opening up the platform. But the way I see it, when you effectively own a public space like Apple does, it's not just a question of you and your brand any more.

I agree with this, I think that at this point, you should be able to operate on a platform like Apple without getting unduly 'taxed'. Their devices are not simply products, but a huge part of a global infrastructure that holds up people's private and professional lives. If you can't build an efficient business on top of this it's a significant negative for society in general.

Agreed.

 

No real rebuttal on "longevity," though since that's such a subjective thing (last year I got a Note 8 and I intend to keep it as long as possible, certainly more that two years) I'm skeptical of using that as a reason one "needs" the Apple device and thus Apple's closed ecosystem is anti-competitive.

If anything, network effects are favoring Android devices, given their dominant market share.

They may not relate to it in those terms, but how many want the simplicity of the iOS platform? And does "not free and open" play into that simplicity?

 

That'd be fine with me. I'd be keen to know if that'd satisfy Epic.

That said, it's it pretty much equivalent to options which are already available via 3rd party channels? I'm not seeing much of a practical change there.

 

And now facebook joins the fight too, this is getting more interesting.

 

Android isn't better, unless you are a big major phone manufacturer (like samsung) you can't just install a competitive store without problem, google will kneecap you:
- they control android, so they can change it to make it harder
- they have influence over vendor, so they will use the power of friendship to prevent his friend to make deal with you
- they are omni present, so they will outspend you to break your market

That's how I can't sell anything locally where I am, I literally can't make money because google decided we aren't cool enough to enable google wallet, so we can't pay, and we can't get paid, and we have no alternative. We are culled from the mobile market.

Epic is also suing google btw

 

Yes, longevity is subjective but based on everything I've read, hardware reviewers I've watched, my own experiences, etc the devices have had a longer practical life span than Android devices. That said I wouldn't be surprised if this were changing. I bought a Google Pixel 3a nine months ago and for the price it's a fantastic device and the latest model is $50 less.

By options are you referring to the idea that I can just buy a different device? Because I don't consider an option to be valid if it requires switching to a completely different platform and have to learn everything from scratch.

 

No, I'm referring to "jailbreaking". If you want to use your iDevice without Apple's restrictions then you can. They'll just have nothing to do with it after that and... fair enough.

But I certainly do think that buying a competing product is also a valid option. No developer is beholden to do things my way just because I learned to use their stuff. And it's pretty difficult to argue that learning it is a huge investment in the first place.

Edit: To clarify, I think it's fair enough for Apple to not support jailbreaking. I don't think it's fair for them to actively try to prevent it.

 

Apple now countersues

 

Logical extension of what's happened. There's no question that Epic circumvented Apple's rules deliberately.

This is kind of an interesting situation: does the question of whether or not Apple's rules are anti-competitive precede or proceed the "question" of whether or not Epic broke those rules? One might imagine Apple winning this suit, because Epic did break their rules, but losing in Epic's suit. And because Epic's suit will almost certainly take longer to litigate, Epic would have to pay out if they lost in Apple's suit.

As an aside 150,000 APIs sounds like hell to maneuver.

 

Those apple arguments are weak ass though

 

The lawyer in that video I linked disagrees. He thinks apple has a strong case on some of it's points and can do significant damage to epic and unreal. He says so here

 

Comes across to me as just another furious attempt to damage Epic at all costs.

I gotta say though, if there's one thing that these giant tech companies fear the most, it's being branded a monopoly. I've heard Peter Thiel go into all the lengths these kind of companies go trying to diversify their identities and pretend they aren't even in the business that everybody knows they are, just to avoid that possibility.

So I'm not at all surprised at how this is going.

 

Companies aren't the only ones jumping through hoops to avoid being labeled a monopoly. Just look at how far their own customers are trying to argue it too.

 

So, this really isn't an update on the state of the case, but the judge hearing the case verbally slapped Epic around a bit for it's claims and behaviors.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/28/tech/apple-fortnite-epic-hearing/index.html

I am curious though, if Epic is legitimately concerned about the players, couldn't it just remove the offending feature and resubmit while the case continues in court?

 

The way I see it, complying with the very thing they are trying to fight would undermine their argument, especially in the court of public opinion. It would be seen as benefiting from a system they are claiming is conceptually wrong.

I really don't understand the claim that Epic is being dishonest in forcing Apple to enforce its rules before starting the fight. It's simply clarifying the situation. What difference does it make, unless Apple wasn't planning to stand by them? I don't think Epic is trying to claim that it was surprised by the outcome.

I do get that they are attacking the foundations of Apple's business model, and the consequences for Apple if things are found in Epic's favor could be pretty severe. But that's maybe the price you pay if you do something that isn't constructive.

 

Another form of "malicious compliance" would be to simply not have any way to buy v-bucks on iOS. Players on iOS can play the game for free and... that's it. Players don't miss out on the game, Epic aren't supporting Apple's supposedly anti-competitive payment rules because nothing is being paid for, and Apple still foot the bill for at least some of the game's distribution costs.

And I suspect that people on iOS know where they can get some v-bucks if they want to, anyway.

 

I think what the judge is referring to it that Epic claimed it posed no security threat and was a credible/trusted business, however they submitted an update that they knew was a violation of Apple's policy. When you submit a build, you have to agree to the terms, they lied when they submitted the build and uploaded a feature that circumvents the agreement. You can't simultaneously claim you are no threat and at the same time be submitting builds that intentionally violate something you agreed to. It is contradictory.

Yea, might be. But I still feel if their actual concern was players and not profit, they would have taken a different approach, something that lets players play. Dunno. I guess the whole thing still feels like publicity stunt to me. No one is the good guy here. Epic could have been if they would have gone different route. They bottom line is the claim that Apple is using it's scale to control things. Epic is trying to do the exact same thing.

 

That's fair enough, if Epic signed the dotted line saying it agreed to the terms and conditions that's not ideal. But still, I don't consider it to be malicious on Epic's part. They wanted a publicity stunt and got it, I don't think they would have been actually trying to sneak it past. I can imagine it would rile up the judge though, not to mention Apple themselves.

I'm not ruling out that Epic or someone associated with them has nefarious intentions. It's not exactly clear what their motivations are in the long run, but so far I'm willing to entertain the notion that this 30% cut thing is too much. For hobbyist indies it's kind of OK, but scaling up with that kind of burden would be a bit difficult. I see a lot of people here who already consider Unreal's 5% royalties to be too much, and a game engine arguably provides much more substantial benefit than simply adding an app to an online store.

Regardless of what the specific intentions are or where they come from, it's clear that the goal is to increase competitive pressure and I gladly welcome that. I think the Epic Store gave Steam a well-earned kick in the butt and maybe this is more of the same.

 

I wonder how many of those people are even remotely able to hit the one million dollar per product threshold.

 

It's not even a threshold, it's that for the 1st million the royalties are waived, meaning if you make 1.5million, you pay 5% of 500k.

 

Yeah for most people it's not even an issue. I have no problem with royalties and in fact I think it provides good incentives to focus on the right things. 5% for me is a no-brainer for such a useful asset as a game engine.

Whenever I see post mortems of games though, everything sounds good until they factor in taxes and Steam's 30% cut. That's a double blow that makes something that's precarious already way more difficult. In the end you're left with what, 30-40% of revenue? We're not dropshipping widgets here, there is no manufacturing cost and margins should be much higher than that.

That's not to mention publishers etc.

 

"5% if you succeed" is a good model. The only downside is that you can use no more than 20 products with this payment scheme at once.

 

Was this intended to be a joke? Because at worst you're only ever paying 5% of your revenue to Epic.

 

It was a half-joke.

This payment scheme was attempted by other companies as well. IIRC autodesk fusion at some had a "hobbyist" license whcih used similar terms. However, Autodesk axed it. Unfortunately.

 

At worst you sign up with more than 20 different other suppliers on similar terms and owe more than 100% of your income to other people.

But you'd have to be pretty silly, and it's not any of their fault.

 

I didn't want to bump this thread myself, but yeah things have been interesting. There was also the formation of an actual group of companies trying to take on Apple and their 30% take (including Epic of course), which in my opinion is the way they should have gone about this in the first place.

A couple things to think about:

The judge offered to have Fortnite revert their terms-violating update, being reinstated on the App Store, and put Apple's 30% take "in escrow" until the court proceedings were finished. Apple was open to the idea, but Epic completely rejected it.

The judge explicitly brought up Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo as other examples of walled gardens. That implies that whatever arguments against Apple's position are implicitly arguments against those companies' ecosystems as well.

Epic's claim about 63 million accounts or users only ever using iOS was kind of a red herring: Apple brought up that only 10% of their daily logins were from iOS devices.

Apple argued that Epic's introduction of the hotfix allowing them to bypass Apple Pay is a security vulnerability, and thus Unreal in general (aka the developer account) is a security vulnerability. From what I heard the judge seemed sympathetic to this position but unwilling to take such drastic measures as allowing Apple to block that account (I also can't agree with Apple's desires here).

Someone mentioned something about iOS being more profitable for developers, and it's true. This is in combination with Android being by far the dominant phone OS. Why do people spend more on iOS? Is it due to the closed nature of the platform, offering greater security and reliability and general trust? And will that change if the platform is forced open?

Does it? I'm not so sure. I'd argue that it's a lot easier to, on your own, learn how to do something in an engine than it is to get your software in front of a (much, MUCH) larger group of people. My personal fear is not that I won't be able to make the games/books/music I want to make; it's that I won't be able to reach a large group of people.

And more generally, that's the thing: the "value" of these stores like Apple's App Store or Steam is inversely proportional to the size of the entity using them. An indie or hobbyist may not have the resources to host their own servers, or be well enough known to drive people to a separate location. But the big guys do and are. The big guys are to some degree subsidizing the existence of the indies on these stores. If the big guys get their way, it might wind up harder for indies to compete (because Apple and Steam and Xbox/PlayStation/Nintendo will make up that revenue in other ways that more directly disadvantage indies).

 

To put it in simple terms, if the App Store was just an app store, and just another competitor among several, its value to developers would be directly proportional to the service it provides as a store. The difference for me is that there cannot be any other competitors for iOS. So that kind of makes the value artificial.

As far as the question of what the value of it is for indies, the value of anything is highly variable. A loaf of bread can be either worth $1.50 or $1,000,000 (or whatever value the difference between life and death has) depending on your situation. One of the most important factors in determining the true market value of something is competition, and it's not possible here.

I'm not exactly sure what is the 'right' thing to do here, but I think that in many areas already, these massive tech companies are heavily interfering with the openness and efficiency of the markets that they operate in, building all sorts of connected ecosystems that are more or less completely under their control. The way that these work together makes it very difficult for competition to put pressure on any individual area without taking on all of them at once, which is virtually impossible to do.

 

In what way does the lack of iOS competitors invalidate deriving value from provided service? How does that make value artificial? "Value is artificial without competition/choice" is a really, really strange claim.

I'm not sure how you can say that when just above my reply to you, in the same post, I quoted an article with actual numbers showing the competition between apps on iOS and Android...and showing that iOS had disproportionately higher revenue for developers.

Assertion: Based on the higher developer revenue compounded by a significantly smaller user base, iOS and its walled garden is "better value" for developers, just the way it is, than Android's open ecosystem. Do you disagree? Upon what grounds?

This sounds noble, but to me, taking something that I created, breaking it apart, and mutilating its design so other people can profit off of it absent my will sounds morally reprehensible.

(...for what it's worth, I thought the speech about the gold standard was ridiculous. I only made it a third of the way through the book before dropping it. I tell myself I'm not one of them but then I say something like that ^ and I'm not so sure...)

Anyway. We're not talking about Facebook buying Instagram before it could eclipse their own service. We're talking about an ecosystem designed from the ground up the way it is. The nuance is important here.

 

Related: Google announces crackdown on in-app billing, aimed at Netflix and Spotify

Perhaps surprising in light of what I just said, but...I'm against this. Partially because Google is vacating their current open position to become more closed (unlike Apple, who is attempting to maintain the status quo), and partially because it sounds like they're explicitly trying to exclude paying for things through a Web browser, not true "in-app purchases."

It's a distinction with merit, I think: does Apple also act against apps that send users to a Web browsers to pay through other means? Epic's dispute doesn't seem to be about that.

 

Here's a thought experiment: Lets imagine for a second that Apple decides you're right, the value in the App Store is artificial, the 30% charge is unreasonable, they shouldn't be doing any of that. So they stop accepting submissions, close the store at the nearest opportunity, and from then on only distribute their own software to their devices. Everyone is cool with that, right? The "unfair" thing stops and nobody lost anything of real value...

Here's another thought experiment: What if Apple hadn't ever let other people put software on their iDevices in the first place? A whole lot of businesses who exist today simply wouldn't, for starters. Many others would have had to work far harder to reach their customers due to a lack of developer-accessible internet-enabled computers in people's pockets. Even if you want to overlook the value of getting those computers into people's pockets so that there's an audience to sell stuff to in the first place, you can in fact directly figure out how much it would cost people to distribute content, handle transactions, and so on and so forth, which sets a minimum level of the non-artifical value being provided.

Everyone who is arguing that is ignoring a whole bunch of very comparable cases. There are many hardware platforms with vendor-controlled software distribution platforms attached.

 

Last I checked you aren't allowed to "send" users to the web browser. You're allowed to give them access to stuff they've purchased elsewhere on their iDevices, but if it's digital goods then they either purchase it via Apple's mechanism and the fee is charged, or there's nothing about how stuff can be purchased.

It's been a long time since I used an iDevice, but from memory according to their online help pages the Kindle app works that way. Books purchased online show up in your library, but the app itself doesn't tell you anything about how to get them.

 

It is artificial to the extent that it is a monopoly. The question of what constitutes a monopoly, and how much of one Apple is, is what this whole thing is about.

Competition is what makes a healthy market for buyers. A market where competition is restricted, the way I look at it, is an unhealthy one, and the value of the app store is currently determined more by the fact that competition cannot exist than the quality of the service it provides.

To begin with, as I understand it, Epic is taking on both of them. So it's not as if Android is necessarily different.

I understand that a big part of the appeal of Apple products and apps has to do with scarcity and higher perceived value. That's something that has to be taken into account. But it doesn't automatically validate what Apple has done.

Like I said, I'm not entirely sure what should be done here. I'm not 100% in favor of opening up Apple the same way Android is (although there might not be a reasonable alternative). But I think that the way they have linked the platform and the app store is pretty close to what I would call monopolistic. I think they are using that to operate in ways that would not be possible in a healthy market.

As an example, I've heard many stories of the app store (and play store for that matter) removing an app without any warning or stated reason, and it's up to the developer to figure out some silly badly worded rule somewhere in the TOS that they broke. They know what the problem is and could easily have pointed it out, but couldn't even be bothered to add a few words in the email (if one is even sent out).

If there was an alternative store available, would devs put up with that kind of treatment? I certainly hope not.

I'm sure they would buy anything that would threaten to eclipse them. The difference is that this competition would have to come in the form of the phone and the app store simultaneously, both of which are monumental enterprises in their own right.So far it's proved too difficult, even for very big existing companies.

I think a government has a duty to create an environment and a set of market rules that maximize the efficiency and value of that market, and accelerate its progress. Most of the time, that involves just staying out of the way. But I think there are some areas now where doing nothing is not necessarily beneficial.

It's a difficult question, and I don't have any clear answers. But I am impressed by Epic's willingness to try to open up the games industry, even if it's by brute force.

 

Just because Apple didn't do the worst thing possible doesn't make what they have done right. I think these companies get away with an incredible amount of stuff simply because there is no alternative. Having a monopoly kind of makes it difficult to have a reference point.

Fair point, but clearly the elephant in the room is what is going to get noticed first.

 

This is just deferring explanation. Why does a monopoly mean value is artificial?

I mostly agree with the first half, but I probably disagree on what constitutes a "market."

Yeah I'll be interested to see what tack Epic takes with Google whenever they get to that point, because their arguments used for Apple don't seem to apply there.

I think "scarcity and higher perceived value" is kind of disingenuous. They're definitely the minority but they are 20-something percent. That's not "scarcity" territory.

That example sounds terrible, but more related to scale than monopo...lism?

Do we have any examples of them doing so? Might be hard to distinguish between buying a company to support an existing initiative (like Tesla recently with that battery company) vs buying them expressly for the purpose of reducing competition, like Instagram, but I haven't seen anything about Apple doing the latter.

I'm torn. I think there's value in government intervention when big business gets exploitative in anti-competitive, almost unstoppable ways (see Walmart), but that isn't easily defined. See the current situation.

Epic isn't trying to open up the games industry when they're moneyhatting exclusives and refusing to put some games on their store if they're not exclusive. This is solely about their own profit.

 

I think we are talking about two different things. That is for the engine. If you make a game in unreal and publish it on the app store you are paying 5% plus 30%. If you publish on the Epic store, they waive the 5%, but you are still paying 12% for their store.

 

That's a question for lawyers. But I think that the value of the app store being related to the fact that no one else can add apps to the platform, rather than the quality of service provided by the store itself, is a kind of artificial value.

If only one shop can import a loaf of bread, is $1,000 really the value of the bread?

Yeah scarcity is not the right word. Altogether, the way they operate the platform definitely does add a certain value for customers.

Hard to say, isn't it? That's the problem when there's not much of an alternative, you can't separate anything from the fact that you don't have much of a choice. Competition takes care of that, because competitors will find your weak spots and offer something better.

I feel the same way. It's not 100% clear what benefits and downsides monopolies have, or even what one is.

Of course Epic are doing this with their profit in mind, that's what competition is all about. As far as exclusivity goes, maybe that's what it takes to compete with Steam. It's not as if anybody is going to be able to run a website alongside Steam and get people to come over. It's pretty obvious to see the difficulty Epic had by the way gamers responded to their tactics. People liked the idea of a new store being around, but actually moving there with all the investment they had put into Steam was a different proposition.

In fact one of the things I like about Epic is that they ignored politeness and convention when it was obvious that it only served to uphold the status quo.

Maybe Epic aren't fighting the perfect fight, but they are doing something. When app stores are taking 30% of the revenue from developers they rely on for profits, barring alternative payment systems and generally treating devs poorly I think something is probably better than nothing.

Whether that's really what Epic cares about, for me, is not really the point.

 

What you're calling "the worst thing possible" is pretty much just how phones were before Apple came along and popularised smartphones. If at the time they didn't bother to make an App Store I doubt anyone would have thought anything of it.

I feel like I'm hitting an unwell equestrian, here. This is an incredibly blinkered view. There are loads of ways to access software, listen to music, watch movies, etc.

To be deliberately extreme about it here, the 30% is getting you the convenience of accessing your audience via the computers in their pockets rather than by the computers on their desks.

"First"? If Apple are forced to back down I'm really interested to know what impact that has on Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo. The price split is of less interest to me than the fact that it'd invalidate their business models.

 

Maybe 'worse' rather than 'worst'?

I think you're misunderstanding, I'm simply illustrating the point as straightforward as I can. The question of whether Apple is a monopoly is yet to be decided, but a monopoly does interfere with a market achieving the right balance between product/service and price, especially when the monopoly effectively created the market (or whatever fraction of that market constitutes a monopoly).

That doesn't give me any real reference point. If there is a cure for something that I am about to die of, what is a fair price? That's very dramatic, of course, but it goes to show that nothing has an innate value.

A fair price, in my opinion, is determined only by first creating a healthy market (with competition an essential feature), and running it for some amount of time until it converges on some value.

True. This issue has very far-reaching consequences, and a solution is very difficult to reach analytically.

 

I think you can't find a reference point because you're you're talking morals, which are very important but don't convert to dollars. I'm talking actual income. People make money from selling on these platforms every day at a generally consistent rate. Some of that is reported. Anyone who can write a business plan can do projections with and without access to that market and estimate roughly what it's worth in their particular case.

For what it's worth, I'm not really arguing whether or not it's "fair", because I don't think that's a useful concept. What is useful, for better or worse, is whether or not it is worth it to people in the moment when they make the decision.

In many cases that's going to come down to Game Theory in many cases, which is not necessarily in the common good's long term best interests, so I agree that regulation is a fair enough thing to consider and apply.

And the point of that thought experiment is that if going back to how things were is "worse", then the way things are today, even with the 30%, is clearly "better".

 

Amusingly I was going to bring up babushkas but thought it would be too aggressive and slippery-slope-y.

I think it's a philosophical question, but we may be operating under different definitions of the word "value." My understanding of the word is that it is explicitly different than "cost" or "price." My understanding is that "value" is an intrinsic, inherent quality. Picasso's paintings had value long before they were popular.

From my perspective the bread a babushka gets from a food line holds value even if the state holds a monopoly on food distribution (without it she starves).

But there are alternatives. Not to the same exact group of people, but to the general demographic. Just recently the boss of the Football Manager series mentioned that his game is coming to the Xbox Series X but not PS5 because Microsoft responded to their requests for help/devkits while Sony didn't. They aren't reaching the exact people with PlayStations, but they are reaching a general gaming audience. I think that qualifies.

Do you believe Sony should be forced to host other "app stores" on their device/OS to prevent that situation? Hint, that would completely upturn the market, in ways probably disadvantageous to developers.

I concluded that poorly. My point wasn't meant to be that Epic only cares about profit, my point was meant to be that Epic isn't trying in a general sense to open up the market. if they were they wouldn't be using exclusives. And if they were they'd be going after Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo as well.

 

I'm cool with that. it is their service, so they are allowed to burn it down. They'll be likely facing multiple lawsuits afterwards, though. And in some jurisdictions woudl be required to issue full refunds.

That would be fine too. They'd have less market share due to phones being specialized, though.

Because companies are made to generate money, and in case there's no competition you don't need to match prices anymore. So, if you're making iFancyGadgets and manufacturing costs are $1, you can charge $1000 for each, and people won't have a choice as nobody else is making those. This becomes highly amoral act, when the company is not selling luxury goods, but something necessary for survival.

"Fair", despite being subjective, affects perception of the comapny and brands it possesses and that may result in fewer or less sales.

Basically, generally company would prefer that people perceive them positively, as "good" or "just" guys, as that would result in positive feelings towards things they do. Resentment of policies or negative emotions would allow people to switch brands faster when opportunity arises.

It is, of course, possible to build a "digital satan" and make a company use authoritarian practices disregarding morality and people's opinion. The company woudl need to become sufficiently big for that first, and this kind of situation would be an indication of cyberpunk age. When a corporation can place itself above law.

 

As for Billy I suspect we're using different definitions of "value." I'm not talking about "fair market value."

Even if I/we were, however, I would not at all agree that an iPhone is necessary for survival. Certainly hasn't been in my 28 years

 

I think it's kind of stupid to break Apple's terms of service in the intent of 'making a change'. No one is forcing them to use their platform.

 

Industries very rarely if ever change for the better when everyone just follows the rules and never tries to challenge the status quo. We're only paying 30% now because people thought it was reasonable to charge the same amount as a physical storefront despite the wildly different costs associated with a digital storefront.

Currently the discussion is largely around the idea of them losing and the percentage decreasing, but what if they win this lawsuit? If they discover that no one has the authority to stop them at 30% what's preventing them from pushing it up higher? How would you like to pay 40%? 50%?

Naturally the increase would have to be passed onto the customer. How would you like to spend $90 instead of the $60 we currently pay for a video game in the US? Just imagine being in Australia where the cost is already $90 or higher. Imagine suddenly paying $150 for a game.

Of course if the digital storefronts suddenly started getting away with it you can bet that the physical storefronts would want to start doing it too. Both of the next generation consoles are $499 MSRP but imagine if they had to make them as high as $999 MSRP. How would you like a GPU to cost a couple thousand?

Edit: Typo.

 

For the record, it is something that already happens in countries with lower wages when a publisher forgets to implement regional price adjustments