INTRODUCTORY STATEMENT TO APPLE’S ANSWER AND COUNTERCLAIMS
Epic’s lawsuit is nothing more than a basic disagreement over money. Although Epic portrays
itself as a modern corporate Robin Hood, in reality it is a multi-billion dollar enterprise that simply
wants to pay nothing for the tremendous value it derives from the App Store.
In its filing, Apple alleges that Epic Games asked for an individual arrangement with Apple, producing three emails from Epic CEO Tim Sweeney that bolster its claim.
Koioua
That entire ad campaign took away any tiny "Robin Hood" message they had. It was carefully planned and they tried to strong arm Apple by having their base of teenagers and kids against them. Epic simply wants the benefit of the Apple ecosystem (Which btw despite being way smaller in terms of market share, brings the most money compared to Android, which own the large majority of the market share) and enjoy the revenue it brings to them while not paying for anything. Apple owns not only the Appstore but the software and developed their phones. They have absolutely say on what happens on their platform. This isn't like Android which is shared by multiple manufacturers and the software is open source.
Epic is just crying now that their strategy didn't work.
r/FortNiteMobile Epic, you guys really don't care about your playerbase do you?
Wow.
Can't believe I'm watching you guys throw your playerbase in the dumpster fire. First it was STW now it's iOS. It's so sad how little you care about us sometimes, acting like the iOS community will have no problem with playing v13.40 until Epic smartens up.
At first I was on your side. That's before I watched it all unfold. You turned it into a shitty marketing play, using this to boost the attention to the game and sell some stupid merch. Hell, you even threw in a tournament acting like you cared. "Yeah, a free skin is enough compensation for throwing 116 million players under the bus!" It's disgusting to watch you guys do this. And you know what, I really don't feel like seeing the stupid #FreeFortnite slogan blaring at me every time I log into Fortnite iOS. Just let me play my season 3 in peace.
You want to be more than just a game right? You want to make a difference in the world? Getting rid of Apple's 30% cut rate is a cute little idea, but there are much better ways to do it than literally bypassing Apple's system thus breaking the rules. "Oh my goodness, Apple just took our game off the App Store! We totally were in the right what did we do wrong?" All you had to do was file a lawsuit on Apple for taking the 30% cut BEFORE going ahead and bypassing it yourself. Apple can't legally take the game off the App Store just because you have an argument with them. But you just spoonfed them a reason. Great idea!
Oh, and by the way, it's a little sickening how you use children to fight for you. You know full well these kids are not capable of seeing the entire situation and that they'll blindly side with you. They just want their game back for shit's sake.
And honestly, what does everyone else see as they watch this unfold? They see a faceless company that doesn't care about their players' feelings and opinions, while thinking about the fact their platform could be next.
Stephen Quinn
@CBCStephenQuinn
8. sep.
Question: Is life going back to anything resembling normal for any of you today?
I'd love to know.
Thanks.
Quinn Duffy
@QuinnDuffy
God no. Our company isn't even contemplating going back to our lovely, brand new office until the New Year and maybe not even then. We're going to have to socially re-distance ourselves from grandparents until we see what happens at school. Sports? Who knows? School? Weird.
The News Crew Discusses EA placing ads directly in UFC4, Madden's Sales Actually INCREASE this Year?! - ANGRY RANT WARNING, the Baffling Mario 35th Anniversary Edition, and Nintendo updates its Refund Policy!
Despite being the worst-reviewed Madden game on record, Madden NFL 21 continues to sell well with its core customers. EA Sports recently announced that the only football simulation on the market has seen an almost 20% increase in its sell-through numbers as compared to last year. Sell-through, in case you don’t know, are how many copies were sold to customers. On the surface, that number might be surprising given the scores and online calls for a boycott. However, there are several factors that have likely led to such an increase.
The most obvious reason for Madden NFL 21 to continue its strong sales numbers is that EA Sports has a monopoly on simulation football with the NFL license. That, coupled with the brand awareness as the only game in town for years means people only have one place to go for their football fix. Remember, 2K can and will develop an arcade NFL game, but that hasn’t happened yet. For now, most casual fans might not even know that game is a thing.
On top of the perception monopoly the team has built, COVID-19 has led to an increase in video game sales nearly across the board. People are salivating over the thought of football finally starting next week. It’s not a surprise that more people are picking up Madden than last year. Plus, it looks like people just really want to play with Tom Brady and the new-look Buccaneers.
Seriously, in the infographic EA shared alongside the announcement, they revealed that the Bucs usage rate has increased by almost 900%. That’s wild. They’re in the top five most popular teams. That probably hasn’t happened since they beat the Oakland Raiders for the Super Bowl in 2002. And that was just so people could pretend to be John Gruden.
It also sounds like people are enjoying The Yard, with over 17 million games happening over the first week. I still wish that mode was standalone and actually incorporated arcade-style football. That said, I’m glad to see people seemingly loving it. It sucks how badly EA has monetized the mode.
Madden NFL 21 is available now on PC, PS4, and Xbox One. The game comes to PS5 and Xbox Series X once those consoles launch.
If that was not bad enough. EA is also doing some SJW pandering for good measure.
Kaepernick Has Higher Madden Rating Than Half The NFL Starting QBs:
*snip*
Look: I have no issue with Kaepernick being included in the game. I think he’s better even today than a lot of the league’s backups and maybe even a few of the starters. I’m a Packers fan and was very aggravated in 2017 when they wouldn’t explore signing him after Aaron Rodgers went down with a broken collarbone, stubbornly choosing instead to submarine their season with Brett Hundley. I’ll probably go to my grave with the unprovable opinion that he could have salvaged a playoff berth for them that season.
But it’s insane to say he would be an above average starter in the NFL, today, after missing the last three full seasons. This is pure pandering for attention on the part of EA Sports, and to a certain extent we’re giving them the attention that they want by running a post about the absurdity of it all.
Feral Interactive have released a new gameplay video showcasing the fast-moving combat environments of Company of Heroes on iPhone and Android. The game will be released on mobile platforms this Thursday, September 10th.
Company of Heroes is officially supported on all iPhones released since the iPhone 6S.
On Android, the game is officially supported on the following devices:
Google Pixel 2 or better
Samsung Galaxy S8 or better
Samsung Galaxy Note8 or better
OnePlus 5T / 6T / 7 / 8
Sony Xperia 1 / XZ2 Compact
HTC U12+
LG V30+
Motorola Moto Z2 Force
Nokia 8
Xiaomi Mi 6 / Mi 9 / Mi 9T
Xiaomi Pocophone F1
Xiaomi Redmi Note 8 Pro
Company of Heroes will be available from the App Store and Google Play Store for £13.99 / $1
So when is free-to-play CoH2 mobile with MTX coming to China?
We're going to pay real money now for bulletins as well?
yes and no question.
Similar to Starcraft 2 with a new CoH Co-op mode Relic could monetize campaign units/commanders/bulletins that can't be used in competitive multiplayer.
In player vs environment (PvE) game modes pay2win doesn't exist. At worst within a Co-op team someone else is paying for you to progress faster through PvE content.. So MTX is less intrusive to the core gameplay compared to competitive PvP modes.
Pay-to-help your team is not P2W. Same thing with Warframe PvE.
Morton is clearly happy to be working on StarCraft 2, which still has a very dedicated base of both competitive and cooperative players. The cooperative mode is actually StarCraft 2's most popular mode now, he tells me, as it keeps non-competitive players who might've left after the campaign around.
For AAA games (especially live ops) MTX is here to stay. The best we can do is help influence how they are being implemented.
Yes, AoE4 won't have MTX (according to creative director) but Microsoft also have a different business model with Xbox Game Pass etc.
It's our job as a fan community making sure Relic do not have tunnel vision. They can't be allowed making the same MTX mistakes as CoH2.
This tournament money has less to do with CoH2 eSport and more to do with Sega's marketing budget (influencer marketing).
Relic is not a profitable studio without Microsoft money from AoE. That is just a fact.
Studio management hired 4 community managers for AoE4 while CoH+DoW game franchises have zero.
Relic management & self-preservation in a nutshell. Focusing on 'keeping the ship afloat' whatever the cost may be:
Relic's game development process is probably the slowest and the most complicated in the video game industry but they don't really care or don't know what to do about it. I haven't seen in my whole life a better example of Parkinson's Laws about bureaucracy and work than Relic.
This studio might end up losing both DoW + CoH IP but management don't seems to care because Microsoft got their back for whatever reasons that may be.
So how do Sega higher ups justify investing this tournament money into a 7 years old game and a studio with too much dead weight?.
2+2=4.
Influencer marketing is the future of game marketing. If done right, influencers is the new access media that sell games.
Sega/Relic also tried this by hiring Geoff 'iNcontroL' Robinson (RIP) to play DoW3.