Apple Helps Little Studios Due to War With Epic Games
There seems to have been an interesting development in the dispute between Apple and Epic Games. The American technology colossus has cut tax in its app store in half, but only for some developers. Interestingly, Epic Games does not meet the conditions.
Epic Games has fought for something it will not get
The conflict between Epic Games and Apple, caused by the removal of the well-known Fortnite from the App Store, led to interesting events. At least this is how we interpret the unexpected move by Apple. It's about halving the tax for every entrepreneur earning less than a million dollars per year in the App Store. This is quite a significant leap - from 30% to only 15%, which will certainly help the creators of indies as well as all smaller companies. As a huge video game developer, Epic, on the other hand, won't get the reduction it fought for.
Impact on the conflict between Apple and Epic
Certainly the main motive for Apple to make such a decision is to weaken Epic's position as a representative of the developers "oppressed" by Apple and to deprive the company of the opportunity to use the argument in court that it is supporting the group with its lawsuit. We would like to remind that the giants are in a court dispute over the removal of the Fortnite from the App Store, as well as Apple's right to demand the high, 30% margin share.
Apple's move seems to be a brilliant one, because not only does it take away Sweeney's moral high ground argument, but it practically does not affect the earnings of App Store's owner. According to Sensor Tower (these are estimates), although the change will cover as much as 98% of companies that have put up their apps in the store and pay Apple's commission, in total they account for only less than 5% of annual revenues of the App Store.