Seems like blackmail on Apple's part

'Blackmail' is such an ugly word. I prefer 'Extortion' 'Pulling Aggro'

Epic is in breach of contract, so Apple doesn’t really have much choice.

Epic must think they have a very strong legal case to bet the farm on this action. And Apple has to go all-out, whether they think they have a strong case or not.

Google Play removed Fortnite for the same reasons Apple did. Epic is not siding with small developers. They just want a side deal. They bit off more than they can chew

And when Epic tried to release Fortnight outside of Google Play a few months ago, it wasn’t very successful. They’re biting the hand that feeds them.

Epic is perfectly fine paying the console makers the exact same percentage that Apple (and Google) have been charging. The obvious difference being that Sony has invested money in Epic. So I don’t understand what they hope to accomplish (apart from pissing off all the developers who rely on Unreal Engine). This seems really foolish to me.

The best take on this I've read is that this is like David vs. Goliath, if they were both gods.

The 30% charged by the Google and Apple AppStores is clearly rent-seeking. They aren't providing any service besides some lackluster gatekeeping and some API updates.

Epic is just betting that they can extort the threat of getting the young people to switch to side-loading on Android and another round of congressional anti-trust testimony to cut a 15% deal.

Unfortunately, this is two wolves fighting, so it's not going to do anything for the sheep.

Epic already tried side-loading the Android app and didn’t do well, so that’s an empty threat and clearly they are getting a significant benefit from the Play store, and the Apple store is likely to be equivalent. What is the difference between what Google and Apple are doing and what the console makers are doing?

The difference is genericness. When Google/Apple are charging 30%, they are effectively tolling all the roads in a new continent. Smart phones (and generally, information technology) are not "optional"; your quality of life and the operation of your society will suffer for not having access.

The government/society hasn't figured out that software/hardware ecosystems are an infrastructure good just like roads and water reservoirs and power lines are, so they are allowing robber barons to tax society just like the railroads did in the 1800's. Society needs to curtail rent-seeking to maintain its own stability.

When Nintendo charges X%, they are charging it on the transportation equivalent of a zip line. It's pure entertainment, completely optional. I think you can make a similar argument that their provisioning of 4 buttons, 2 joysticks, a d-pad and a screen might not be worth X% either, but I don't think societal harm will result.

Playing games is completely optional too. I'm not saying Apple is above criticism on their store policies, but Epic is being extremely disingenuous here. It's not the government's job to help them make more of a profit than they already do (again, when they left the Google Play store they LOST money). And as for regulating tech, while I do think it needs to be more regulated than it is, I absolutely do not trust the government to tell Apple what to do. Remember, they keep trying to force Apple to compromise user privacy and security by installing backdoors in the iPhone. That's a terrible fucking idea.

Apple will get their day in court just like they got it for the backdoor stuff. I'm more concerned that the present government will turn a blind eye to all the empire building. Corporatism has advantages, but it needs to be checked.

Yeah we are very much in agreement on that.