Apple and Epic and you, the megathread

[Ego Studio]

Hey !
I've read some of the thread so far. Don't want to get into a deep debate but :
- Sorry for Apple users and we all hope there will be a fair solution for this
- Don't forget that UE is not only free but they support developers
- We all know that the Epic Games team and developers are doing their best, so please don't be too hard with Epic Games / Unreal Engine

Let's stay positive and give our full support to Epic Games.

Cid

[spacegojira]

Harsh words! But how many on here can really disagree? Epic DGAF about non-licensees anymore.
Personally, I don't recommend UE unless devs are 100% self-sufficient / reliant, and just get on with it.

Provocative! But you could say Unity was always the 'cooler' engine. Its easier to use for starters, right?
But will Unity look as good in 5 years? ...IDK... UE lets devs create impressive work with minimal skill.

The bigger risk is that a 20 billion market cap makes the Kings @ Epic become arrogant / decadent.
If so, then UE will suffer! So its best to have a backup option. But is that Unity? GTFOH - Try Godot!!!
Either way I wouldn't bet against Epic (or Tesla too btw). Both have the smartest guys in the room atm.

Yeah I have been using Unreal for over 4 years now and I could witness the sharp decline in community-acitivity and support over these years. I also can't recommend UE anymore, especially considering how poorly data-security issues are handled and how everything community-related (e.g. the marketplace or this forum) has gone down in quality so much.

I will eventually switch to Godot, once we finish our current project. Unreal is still the most "shiny" engine on the market, but the shine has begun to wear off a lot recently.


The joke about this whole Epic vs. Apple battle story is, IF Epic actually wins this court battle, it would mean from then on Apple, Steam, Microsoft, GOG and every little dev will be able to publish and sell their game on the Epic store - AND they will NOT have to pay Epic anything. Oh the irony.

[UnrealEnterprise]

how catastrophically under-documented Unreal is

Harsh words! But how many on here can really disagree? Epic DGAF about non-licensees anymore.
Personally, I don't recommend UE unless devs are 100% self-sufficient / reliant, and just get on with it.

Unity is the cooler engine and doesn't get the credit for it.

Provocative! But you could say Unity was always the 'cooler' engine. Its easier to use for starters, right?
But will Unity look as good in 5 years? ...IDK... UE lets devs create impressive work with minimal skill.

The bigger risk is that a 20 billion market cap makes the Kings @ Epic become arrogant / decadent.
If so, then UE will suffer! So its best to have a backup option. But is that Unity? GTFOH - Try Godot!!!
Either way I wouldn't bet against Epic (or Tesla too btw). Both have the smartest guys in the room atm.

[Allenheathx]

good luck to ya

[Per Holmes]

I dont care what you do but there is more then a 1% chance that some problem or another will derail what your doing regardless of what device, platform or toolkit you use. The probability Apple doesnt accept your app on grounds unrelated to unity or unreal is way higher then 1%. For all you know apple wont be accepting indie app store submissions at all by the time your done. Thats why it would be nice if phones were treated like normal computers opposed to walled gardens dictated by a single entity.

No, because all of those problems can be dealt with. Apple not accepting an app can be worked with. Compatibility issues can be dealt with by lowering the level of ambition or changing the spec. But the framework not existing at all can't be negotiated with.

Having now spent a few days as a returning Unity user, I gotta say, I'm pretty blown away by how far Unity has come in just the half year since we left. The grass was always greener over on the Unreal side. But I see now that I was partly just dazzled by things that are relatively trivial.

The change in feeling now is mostly drastically lowered stress, and this is not about the platform future. I have had a nagging stress about how catastrophically under-documented Unreal is, and how it's really so much a one-size fits all that nobody bothered to explain anything. The DLC system is almost completely undocumented. I managed to make a streaming installation system for Unreal entirely by looking at their source code, which has Fortnite namespaces in it (classy porting!). In Unity, it's just documented, here's how you do it, done. It's like this ALL THE TIME in Unreal. It's weird to be in an editor that doesn't crash every 2 minutes, and where your class constructors don't randomly run while you use the editor. There is a rogue feeling in Unreal, and in Unity, everything just feels much more under control.

I'm completely aware of the qualities Unreal brings, and where Unity is catching up. But my private feeling is increasingly that Unity is the cooler engine and doesn't get the credit for it. Just my personal feeling, having now finally gained some expertise in both engines.

For us the choice is made. It's not just the Epic thing, this merely triggered us to be more realistic about chasing glimmer, versus chasing what we actually need for this project.

[Allenheathx]

If there's even a 1% chance that Unreal might not be on iOS/Mac for the long haul, we can't make this investment.

I dont care what you do but there is more then a 1% chance that some problem or another will derail what your doing regardless of what device, platform or toolkit you use. The probability Apple doesnt accept your app on grounds unrelated to unity or unreal is way higher then 1%. For all you know apple wont be accepting indie app store submissions at all by the time your done. Thats why it would be nice if phones were treated like normal computers opposed to walled gardens dictated by a single entity.

[spacegojira]

Because of this, we've now decided to switch back to Unity. We lose some months of work, but it is what it is. Some points:

...

Sorry to hear your trouble. I hope the transition will work well for you in the end.

It really sucks how Epic management, out of greed for more profits from microtransactions in the Apple store, is willing to throw devs like you under the bus, just to make a point. It also sucks how this decision is affecting negatively the great Unreal Engine 4 development team & all the free contributors, working hard to bring out new features.

If there is some hope and this lawyer firm will have their predictions to be true, then Epic will likely go back to the App Store under the old terms very soon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZkX3pG8biQ

Though I can understand you can't take that risk.

[spacegojira]

The level of communistic authoritarian in this is just insane.

Before you are throwing around words you don't understand: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communism

[Per Holmes]

Because of this, we've now decided to switch back to Unity. We lose some months of work, but it is what it is. Some points:

* I had forgotten how professional Unity is compared to Unreal. Clean API, great docs, lots of features Unreal doesn't have, cloud build, cloud crash reporting, clean and succinct C#, no more hacky hot-reloading and editor crashes. It's so much more developer friendly.

* The only thing that brought us to Unreal was the ability to scale from low-end mobile to high-end desktop in the same project -- a must for us. Unity has now committed to targeting URP and HDRP from the same project for 2021.1. We're two years from release, so we're fine.

* If Epic hadn't threatened the future of Unreal on iOS/Mac (markets we must be in), we might not have realized that Unity was actually better for us, and using Unreal was just chasing shiny things.

* I'm weirdly productive in Unity compared to Unreal.

In the end, we just couldn't stomach how Epic was willing to throw us under the bus. If there's even a 1% chance that Unreal might not be on iOS/Mac for the long haul, we can't make this investment.

So... thanks?

[Antidamage]

Wrong, they are absolutely NOT on Epics side. Epic had to defend itself last year when being questioned by the UK parliament: https://www.businessinsider.com/fort...e-harry-2019-6

While this is in the UK, the EU will eventually follow up on this (as memberstates are currently in the process of enacting legislative models restricting microtransactions, e.g. Belgium recently) and issue a EU-wide restriction for microtransactions in general, considering how often underage kids spend hundreds to thousands of Euro on it, which would defacto end Fortnites current business model. It just takes time, like every new EU wide policy.

Epic Fortnite microtransactions are no different to loot-boxes, with their "rotating offers", encouraging players to buy an item while it's available, using a psychological trick - just like loot-boxes do.

Epic is in no way a template for paid content, don't be silly, they had lootboxes themselve not long ago.

So you think the EU is against people buying and receiving goods and services? Are you going to be the one to tell everyone under 18 that they can no longer buy anything because they're "children"?

The level of communistic authoritarian in this is just insane. Equally so that you think it'll happen. Nobody follows stupid laws, if they even get that far. Just look at Apple who effectively do whatever they want and tell lawmakers to keep up. Very rarely other consumer drivers can make a difference, such as what might happen in this case, but the state just follows what the people want. That is the weight of consumer choice. Your ideals are going to get bulldozed.

[spacegojira]

They most assuredly are on Epic's side both in regards to monopolies and microtransactions. Epic and Fortnite are their template for what paid content should be - you want it, you buy it. No gambling aspect, no winning loot boxes aspect, you just pay for the thing you want. And regardless of any of that, law doesn't operate on emotive views like that. The law doesn't like or dislike a company.

The key thing to remember is that whether Apple is a monopoly or not largely depends on legal specifics, but the EU is capable of making law in order to force Apple to behave better even if it's slipping through the cracks. The only problem with that is it'll take a decade and we'll all be dealing with a new monopolistic player then.

Wrong, they are absolutely NOT on Epics side. Epic had to defend itself last year when being questioned by the UK parliament: https://www.businessinsider.com/fort...e-harry-2019-6

While this is in the UK, the EU will eventually follow up on this (as memberstates are currently in the process of enacting legislative models restricting microtransactions, e.g. Belgium recently) and issue a EU-wide restriction for microtransactions in general, considering how often underage kids spend hundreds to thousands of Euro on it, which would defacto end Fortnites current business model. It just takes time, like every new EU wide policy.

Epic Fortnite microtransactions are no different to loot-boxes, with their "rotating offers", encouraging players to buy an item while it's available, using a psychological trick - just like loot-boxes do.

Epic is in no way a template for paid content, don't be silly, they had lootboxes themselve not long ago.

[AE_3DFX]

In short, this is morale to use more open platforms that cannot lock out of devtools and sideloading is possible always without issues. Apple iOS & OSX design is good but are so locked in.

[Antidamage]

The EU is not on Epics side. If anything, they will go down hard on microtransactions in the near future, and then Epic will lose a huge chunk of their income (Fortnite) AND this while battle with Apple will have been for nothing.

Remember, this is about Epic getting a bigger percentage from the microtransaction prices through Apple devices.

They most assuredly are on Epic's side both in regards to monopolies and microtransactions. Epic and Fortnite are their template for what paid content should be - you want it, you buy it. No gambling aspect, no winning loot boxes aspect, you just pay for the thing you want. And regardless of any of that, law doesn't operate on emotive views like that. The law doesn't like or dislike a company.

The key thing to remember is that whether Apple is a monopoly or not largely depends on legal specifics, but the EU is capable of making law in order to force Apple to behave better even if it's slipping through the cracks. The only problem with that is it'll take a decade and we'll all be dealing with a new monopolistic player then.

[Hermyth]

Well, my latest app was approved today in app store. I hope not just for a week

[BrUnO XaVIeR]

Microsoft only gave up on their plans to be like Apple because Azure services make them the bigger bucks now.