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Apple Blocks Steam's Plan To Extend Its Video Games To iPhones (reuters.com)
Citing "business conflicts," Apple has blocked Steam's plans to distribute PC-based video games to iPhones. It's "a sign that Apple is serious about protecting its ability to take a cut of digital purchases made inside games on its mobile devices," reports Reuters. From the report: Steam, the dominant online store for downloaded games played on Windows PCs, had planned to release a free mobile phone app called Steam Link so that gamers could continue playing on their mobile phones while away from their desktop machines. But Apple has rejected the app, blocking its release, according to a statement from Steam's parent company, the Bellevue, Washington-based Valve. Steam did not give a precise reason for the App Store denials, saying only that Apple cited "business conflicts with app guidelines." But the conflict likely centers on what are known as in-app purchases or micro-transactions, in which gamers can spend small sums of money inside games to buy tokens, extra lives or others so-called digital goods. Lombardi said Steam disabled purchasing its iOS app but did not elaborate on how the change was made. Many analysts believe Apple could lose revenue if they allow Steam's app, which is essentially a store-within-a-store. "Apple takes a 30 percent cut of such purchases made within apps distributed through its App Store," Reuters notes. "[T]hose purchases are among the primary drivers of revenue in Apple's services business."
This is the real reason Apple is so locked down. To keep the money funnel going. You can't fault a company for doing this but it is seriously anti competitive in nature. It's the only reason I stick with Android too since you can still side load (for how much longer don't know).
Many analysts believe Apple could lose revenue if they allow Steam's app
Did these "analysts" think about what the consequences might be for apple's vendor lock-in if valve rewrites this thing in wasm and distributes it over any standards compliant browser instead?
I don't understand any of the logic here. Steam already exists as a smartphone app which allows me to access the Steam store, purchase games, and even remotely install them on my PC, so obviously the "store within a store" reasoning is already moot. Steam Link is just a thing that would let me stream the video/audio of a game playing on my PC to another device, in this case my iPhone/iPad. Arguing that Steam Link on its own somehow constitutes competing with the App Store is nonsense; I could do the same thing with any other remote desktop app, and in either case the playable library is going to be very limited by the lack of control options on a smartphone, more or less forcing me to use an external input device anyway. I am still required to be on the same local network and still have to run these games on my PC in order to stream them, so the only real function of the Steam Link app is extending my PC's display to a mobile screen.
Blocking this may not make much sense now, but we don't know what plans Apple have in the future...
Revenue stream aside.
Although the iTunes store is not perfect for security, it is reasonably good. Perhaps Apple is just trying to stop installing apps that they have not vetted?
Or apps using deprecated APIs etc? I can think of a lot of reasons for this other than just revenue.
I find it curious that when Google or MS actively prevent any competitive service on their products the Apple fanbois scream anti-trust. However Apple has a pretty good chuck of the mobile market in terms of manufacturers and routinely and actively prevents competitive products.
Every tried to use Google maps or Waze with carplay? Nope. Terms and conditions say you are not allowed to make a navi platform for it.
Alternative app store? Nope. Not allowed.
I could not personally care any less about the restrictions on Apple products since I do not use them. It's just silly though that Android gets anti-trust lawsuits when Apple is far more anti-competition in their actions.
Apple is raping their own customers. Fucking them without permission. Hopefully Valve will push this into a courtroom, as it is clearly anti competitive disgusting behavior. They even had the nerve to admit they were doing it to prevent competition right in the rejection notice. Disgusting.
I still use my iPhone 6 working for a 3 letter agency in Sicilicon Valley.
I save 75$ a month by keeping using iPhone 6 but I am a special verizon customer so I can get a new iPhone for free if I want.
Steam is a piece of shit.
Perhaps Steam can set up a totally web based or remote-desktop-type solution, so the phone becomes "just a display device."
This would lock Apple out of the revenue stream and show the world how petty Apple is.
As a bonus, it would "play anywhere" that had a web browser or remote-desktop cloent.
The downside is the cost to Steam, the network traffic, and the cost of a poor-quality connection on game-play.
I know it's all too easy for people to automatically assume some sort of corruption or greed is the explanation for any given "you can't do that!" answer from a big business... but in this case, there is a far less complicated answer which I think is clearly more plausible: Apple's App Store guidelines forbid emulators for both performance and security reasons. The quickest method for a Steam port of existing Windows games over to iOS would be to emulate some portion of the functionality, just as they've done (by way of Cider, for example) for quite a few of their MacOS game ports over the years.
Thus, while Steam on iOS would seem on the surface to be an easy win for both Valve and Apple, it's going to take some serious recoding for Valve to fall completely in line with Apple's current App Store guidelines -- and that doesn't come cheap, which is why they used emulation in the first place for those previous ports. So Valve is no doubt quietly advocating for a change in Apple's policies, in order to get the iOS version of Steam rolled out with minimal recoding... but opening up iOS to emulators really would be an incredible can of worms, and as I see it, Apple probably just isn't interested in taking on that kind of risk.
But... that sort of explanation is kind'a boring and doesn't really play well in the press -- especially from Valve's point of view. It sounds much more interesting to make Apple out to be the greedy bully, who just wants more easy money... and as can be demonstrated by many of the comments in this thread, gamers enthusiastically eat up that crap. And of course, Apple doesn't generally publicize the reasons for specific store submission denials, out of deference to the privacy concerns of the app developers... so for the moment, we're really only hearing one side of the story.
Hopefully, in time, Apple will make some statement that will provide us with "the rest of the story," as Paul Harvey used to say.
...it never had anything to do with "web standards" or that Flash didn't run well on the Mac or performance in testing was not good enough on iOS. It had *everything* to do with the fact that users would just go to non-Apple websites to buy and/or just play their games/apps for free, bypassing Jobs' App Store.
It was so obvious, yet the media and the anti-Flash crowd took Jobs' bait hook, line, and sinker.
Can someone explain to me the usecase of this app, i.e. why would I want to play a game on my iPad that I could play on my Mac? If such a game works so much better on an iPad, the correct way would be to make a native iPad version. Which shouldn't be that much of a problem given that a Mac version already exists.
Better block all the RDP and other remote-control Apps (I still use Splashtop occasionally...)
Just file an antitrust complain against Apple in the EU and see Apple fold.
Well, what I think you'll find here is that when money comes into the equation, neither / both sides share fault in what's going on, and you're being marketed to using "principles" while it's just a hidden contract dispute. So don't buy the "it's Apple trying to maintain a closed ecosystem" hype, etc. It's a little bit of that, but more about just the payment terms.
Take as an analogy the periodic squabbles, for example, between MLB, or NFL or whatever league and the cables companies not broadcasting their games. The sports leagues say that it's because the cable/TV companies are trying to stop their access to the public and being anticompetitive. The TV networks will say that the league is against "the American pasttime tradition" and being unfair about how to show the games. They make it sound like a principled stand about access or monopoly (or closed ecosystem?), yada yada yada. Those are all marketing words being traded.
But it all comes down to money and the price of the deal. One side doesn't want to pay the other so much. Get it?
Same here in all likelihood. Apple wants to have game companies pay for it's ecosystem administration (which by the way is pretty much free if you don't charge any money for an app, and free to develop software for -- can you think of some other examples of software where you have to pay just to join / get the development environment?) . The game company doesn't want to pay so much.
Steam could easily agree to pay / charge their micropayments through Apple's method. Apple could lower its rates.
Who's at fault then? Say all you want. It's as much the buyer's + seller's fault that you choose to assign when you want to buy a house and it costs too much, and both sides accuse each other of not working to close the deal.
Stop developing on Apple. Seriously, 30 PERCENT cut ? Holy shit kids are you all this retarded? There are other options.
Why do I get the feeling Apple rather enjoys being a crack dealer in this transaction. So much reward for so little risk.
Unless Apple blocks all remote desktop applications, this is hypocritical. I can also make purchases via remote desktop from anywhere I want without apple getting a cut - and all steam link is, is a fancy remote desktop for games.
Yeah, but at least their hardware looks good and isn't as powerful and costs a lot.
I'm sure the jailbreakers will appreciate it.
Care killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back.
Sorry Apple this is clear antitrust violation. You can't prevent STEAM from having an app on your phone because you fear a loss of profits. That's competition. You already allow other vender's apps on your phone. That's called precedence. Suck it up or fuck off.
Reminds me of arguments about who owns inventions an invented AI invents.
Can Apple get a cut of in-store-in-store sales? How deep does it go?
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Makes more sense for them to target the Android environment than the iOS environment. Apple doesn't even allow secondary stores that I'm aware of... Hopefully Steam can give more consideration to the better platform.
Monopoly & anti-competitive Practices ?
Blocking Game makers from selling games seems unconstitutional and
communist.
Liberate our Capitalism and Free Markets !
Hmm I did not know that IOS had an inel ISA, I though Apple had an ARM lisemce, are we talking about some kind of emulation here? Leaving that to one side, how. many PC games ar compatibel with touch input and can run on the Ipad/iphones amarativly weak hw? This was not meant to be sarcastick or funny, the rest of this post however...
But here I go applying logic again, bad apple for asking 30% of revenue, capitalist swine etc
OK, so I can buy a cheaper phone, (probably Android) and get...replaceable batteries, SD-card reader, dual SIM, headphone jack (insert standard /. anti-Apple bitch-list here)
Then (even without side-loading) install pretty much what I want; with more choice.
(Android apps: 3.5 million; iOS apps: 2.2 million.)
Or, I can pay much more, and get less choice.
Huh?
Typing this as someone who has both types of devices, and actually in general much prefer iOS.
So does Apple.
To me it's not a question of If? But When?
Sounds like a negociation tactic by Valve.
They get away with it because they have successfully marketed the idea to everyone that they are an awesome platform for developers..
So the lay person argues wrongly to others that they are better for coding. In truth, if you're competing against Apple in any way, they will f you over. That's what happened to Pebble for instance
Even if Apple is 13 percent of the mobile user base, it can still make a majority of app store revenue. Apple App Store's revenue per user is nine times that of Google Play Store (source: "Apple is pulling further ahead of Google in this one key area" by Kif Leswing), and 0.13 times 9 is more than 0.87 times 1. Or what has changed in the nearly two years since the publication of Leswing's article?
Valve is shocked that something they thought was approved was revoked without much explanation?
Good thing they haven't done anything like that recently.
That is literally like saying "You can't fault a thief for stealing.".
If all they do, is trying to maximize the amount of money they trick you or force you into giving them, and minimize the work the do for it, or do no work at all for it, merely "providing a platform" or reselling etc, then how is that dominating part of their income called "profit" any different from the income of a common fraudster or robber?
In my definition of right and wrong, you better work just as hard as I did, to *earn* that money!
Not "make" money.
Everything else ... is a crime. ... written by the criminals ... allow it.
No matter if the current laws
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyDFzTOvfTk
It is amazing how many techies buy into this closed eco system, but even more so, how so many enviro hippie leftists do. I love seeing riot photos of them breaking into a Starbucks holding iPhones. Apple couldn't be any more anti-freedom. It has always been, since the start, the anti-choice choice. Their hardware/software for years was so closed. OS X seemed a hopeful bright spot but then we got Cloud Services and they knew they had us.
Example: try to share a mass amount of locally-stored photos between Apple devices on your home WiFi/ServerFarm. Used to be possible out-of-the-box on OS X Photos. They took it out a few versions back. So now if you've got 200GB of photos to share with your family, in your own house, you gotta upload them all to iCloud so the person sitting next to you on your own home network can look at them.
Personally I have a Macbook and run Linux Mint (triple booting as needed with rEFInd) because Apple does make the best laptop hardware (still hate that I don't get a full keyboard though). Beyond that, I only choose or use Apple if I've got a work obligation requiring it
Market penetration doesn't put a roof over a developer's head. Dollars do. The dollars per user ratio between Apple App Store and Google Play Store is so high that it overwhelms the latter's greater market penetration.