Your iPhone copy of Fortnite is about to become out of date [Updated]
Since Apple pulled Fortnite down from the iOS App Store earlier this month, some eBay users have apparently paid thousands of dollars for iPhones that had a playable, pre-installed copy of the game. Starting tomorrow, though, those devices will be no longer be able to play the latest version of the game.
[Update, 8/26 at 3:10p ET: iOS players who have previously downloaded the game will actually be able to continue playing the current Version 13.40 "Chapter 2 -Season 3" update on iOS, as well as subsequent versions on other platforms. Progression in the Season 3 Battle Pass will no longer be possible on any platform, however, and iOS players won't be able to crossplay with players on later versions on other platforms. Ars regrets the error.]
[...] Android users will still be able to install and play the latest update by downloading it directly from Epic or from The Samsung Galaxy Store on compatible devices.
Related Stories
Epic CEO Tim Sweeney has long been an outspoken opponent of what he sees as Valve's unreasonable platform fees for listing games on Steam, which start at 30 percent of the total sale price. Now, though, new emails from before the launch of the competing Epic Games Store in 2018 show just how angry Sweeney was with the "assholes" at companies like Valve and Apple for squeezing "the little guy" with what he saw as inflated fees.
The emails, which came out this week as part of Wolfire's price-fixing case against Valve (as noticed by the GameDiscoverCo newsletter), confront Valve managers directly for platform fees Sweeney says are "no longer justifiable."
[...]
The first mostly unredacted email chain from the court documents, from August 2017, starts with Valve co-founder Gabe Newell asking Sweeney if there is "anything we [are] doing to annoy you?" That query was likely prompted by Sweeney's public tweets at the time questioning "why Steam is still taking 30% of gross [when] MasterCard and Visa charge 2-5% per transaction, and CDN bandwidth is around $0.002/GB." Later in the same thread, he laments that "the internet was supposed to obsolete the rent-seeking software distribution middlemen, but here's Facebook, Google, Apple, Valve, etc."
[...]
The second email chain revealed in the lawsuit started in November 2018, with Sweeney offering Valve a heads-up on the impending launch of the Epic Games Store that would come just weeks later. While that move was focused on PC and Mac games, Sweeney quickly pivots to a discussion of Apple's total control over iOS, the subject at the time of a lawsuit whose technicalities were being considered by the Supreme Court.
[...]
In a follow-up email on December 3, just days before the Epic Games Store launch, Sweeney took Valve to task more directly for its policy of offering lower platform fees for the largest developers on Steam.
[...]
After being forwarded the message by Valve's Erik Johnson, Valve COO Scott Lynch simply offered up a sardonic "You mad bro?"
Apple turns post-lawsuit tables on Epic, will block Fortnite on iOS:
Weeks after Epic's apparent "win" against Apple in the Epic Games v. Apple case, Apple issued a letter denying Epic's request to have its developer license agreement reinstated until all legal options are exhausted. This effectively bans Fortnite and any other software from the game maker from returning to Apple's App Store for years.
Epic was handed an initial victory when the US District Court for Northern California issued an injunction on September 10 ordering Apple to open up in-game payment options for all developers. At the time, the injunction was something of a moral victory for Epic—allowing the developer to keep its in-game payment systems in its free-to-play Fortnite intact while avoiding paying Apple a 30 percent fee that had previously covered all in-app transactions.
But now Epic has faced a significant reversal of fortune.
The better thing would be to ban all micro-transactions. Instead this is more like a couple thieves divvying up the loot from the candy they stole from children. Sure, they didn't "steal anything", but kids aren't allowed to play the slot machines in Casinos, either.
Previously:
Apple Can No Longer Force Developers to Use In-App Purchasing, Judge Rules
Valve Gets Dragged into Apple and Epic’s Legal Fight Over Fortnite
Judge Dismisses Apple’s “Theft” Claims in Epic Games Lawsuit
Microsoft Thumbs its Nose at Apple With New “App Fairness” Policy
Your iPhone Copy of Fortnite is About to Become Out of Date [Updated]
Judge Issues Restraining Order Protecting Unreal Engine Development on iOS
Microsoft Issues Statement in Support of Epic Games to Remain on Apple Ecosystem
Epic-Apple Feud Could Also Affect Third-Party Unreal Engine Games
Fortnite Maker Sues Apple after Removal of Game From App Store
(Score: 0, Offtopic) by fustakrakich on Wednesday August 26 2020, @11:51PM (2 children)
Didn't congress cover this in their Covid package? Oh, that's right, they never got to the second one before this one expired
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Thursday August 27 2020, @01:24AM (1 child)
Offtopic? Fortnite is being evicted from my iPhone! Where's the humanity?
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 3, Funny) by kazzie on Thursday August 27 2020, @08:33AM
Here. [apple.com]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 26 2020, @11:52PM (6 children)
Pay thousands of dollars for something that stops working as soon as you buy it.
They could have paid a hundred dollars for a used Android phone or console that could run it just as well, or better.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Grishnakh on Thursday August 27 2020, @12:03AM (5 children)
If they had bought a console, they would probably never have had to worry about the game somehow becoming unplayable.
With an Android phone, it's possible, but unlikely, because Google aren't Nazis about their Play Store the way Apple is with their store. But even if Google did get into a fight with the game developer like this, it's not that hard to get around Google's store and install an app with another store. Heck, many carriers even do this themselves (for instance, Verizon has their own app store). You can even connect your phone to your PC and load the .apk file directly.
People complain about Google tracking them and spying on them, but Google doesn't show any signs of wanting to *control* them the way Apple does. But, judging by the popularity of iOS in the US and the AAPL stock price, Americans obviously like being told how they can use expensive devices they've purchased. Also note that iOS doesn't have nearly as much marketshare in most western European nations.
(Score: 5, Informative) by coolgopher on Thursday August 27 2020, @12:25AM (2 children)
Yeah, it's not like Sony has a history [yahoo.com] of messing with owners' access [tweaktown.com] to their stuff...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 27 2020, @05:26AM (1 child)
In general gaming console companies will try to avoid doing that sort of thing (especially intentionally), because it's very bad for business. The entire purpose of your platform is to play games, and if your customers suddenly find they can't play a game they paid good money for, that will not end well. Sony made the decision to cut out Linux on PS3 as they decided that it wouldn't affect the majority of their game-buying clients, you know, their actual customers. I read through the second link you provided, and that doesn't seem to support your contention either. According to your article, Sony didn't actually roll out that potentially damaging firmware update to all PS4's. It was beta testing firmware that they made available only to people who were actually foolish enough to want to try it out. It seems they managed to fix those potential issues before the next production firmware general release. Subsequent PS4 firmware updates didn't have big problems it seems, else they'd have made huge news that we probably would have heard about here.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Freeman on Thursday August 27 2020, @02:33PM
One might argue that the people who paid for a PS3 were their actual customers. Thus, they took away a feature that was interesting / useful to at least a subset of their customers. They also dumped backwards compatibility with PS2.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2, Informative) by purdy on Thursday August 27 2020, @10:22AM (1 child)
> But even if Google did get into a fight with the game developer like this
If? You can't possibly be unaware that Google has also kicked Fortnite out of the Google Play store and that Epic is also suing Google.
You point about sideloading is still valid, but you are trying a little to hard to paint Apple as the only offender.
https://lmgtfy.com/?q=google+play+fortnite [lmgtfy.com]
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday August 27 2020, @02:10PM
Sorry, I was unaware of this. It's not in the article summary, so you can't expect me to know this... Seriously, I don't keep up with all the news about games, since I don't use them. But I'm guessing they were kicked out for the same reason? (Trying to get payments from customers for in-game purchases by going around the app store payment system)
Anyway, yeah it kinda sucks that there's a duopoly for these mobile devices' app stores, but again with Google at least you can sideload. Can't this be done now for Fortnite? According to the last line of the article summary, Android users can download it from Epic directly, or from the Samsung Galaxy store. This should solve the problem. If Fortnite users are apparently *so* crazy and stupid about this game that they'll pay thousands of dollars for iPhones with pre-installed copies of the game, then maybe they should grow a brain and just buy an Android phone where they don't have to resort to buying used devices on Ebay (on which the games then become unplayable unless they want to stick with an older version that has very limited abilities according to the summary), and they have the freedom to use different app stores or download apps directly from developers.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday August 26 2020, @11:53PM (13 children)
I really, really wanted Sailfish OS and the Jolla products it ran on to succeed. Android may have Linux under the hood, but that hood isn't just locked down, it's welded shut, and while OS-X lets some of the Linux peek through, iOS is sealed up tighter than Android. I wrote off iOS in ~2008 when someone gave us an iPad One... developers didn't have sufficient access to write a functional alarm clock app - years of living with a couple of Chumbys had already informed me: customized alarm clocks are the killer app in that form factor. If I can't even do that, why bother?
Draw this out to its logical conclusion and you have people paying a 10x premium (as compared to an equivalently featured Android phone) just so they can get a variant of the locked down system that's a little less locked down for a little while. Fools and their money are their own problem, but the world should not be encouraging this kind of thing.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Informative) by Grishnakh on Thursday August 27 2020, @12:06AM (9 children)
How is Android locked down? If you don't like Google's play store, you can load your own .apk files directly on the phone with a USB cable, if for some reason you can't get it on Google's play store (which is hard, because they'll take just about anything).
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday August 27 2020, @12:38AM (6 children)
There are also competing platforms available on Android such as the Amazon Appstore:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_Appstore [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mobile_app_distribution_platforms [wikipedia.org]
https://www.fool.com/investing/2020/02/06/google-play-store-to-face-first-serious-competitio.aspx [fool.com]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Thursday August 27 2020, @12:53AM (5 children)
If we want to seriously "regulate" this market, I like to refer to Compaq as the hero in the story of reverse engineering. Somewhere the market has to be pried open as it was for the PC.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 3, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Thursday August 27 2020, @01:12AM
In the case of phones, the hardware is built very specifically to serve the OS - nearly the opposite of early PCs.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday August 27 2020, @02:24PM (3 children)
What the heck are you talking about? I don't even see the parallel you're trying to draw. Compaq was a "hero" because they reverse-engineered the IBM PC and made a compatible clone, and started a revolution in personal computing by opening the door to countless companies making PC clones, which could all run the same MS-DOS software.
No one needs to clone Android phones. Anyone can make an Android phone who wants to, and lots of different companies do. There's almost too much choice in Android phones in fact; there's a ridiculous number of models out there, all running the same OS (or at least some version of it; older devices generally don't get upgraded to the newest version of the OS). The specs are completely open; if your company has the resources, you can design and build an Android phone too.
Or maybe you're thinking someone should make an Android-compatible OS, which somehow also runs Android apps? Sorta like DR-DOS? Well I think that's been tried too: didn't Blackberry do this around 5 years ago, making their OS able to run Android apps? It hasn't helped them much, judging by the success of their company and the size of their marketshare.
Honestly, I just don't see the problem here. On Android, you can sideload apps pretty easily it seems. This "Fortnite" game looks like you can load it just by scanning a QR code on their website! Or, according to the summary, you can get it from the Samsung app store (if you have a Samsung device, presumably). There's a bunch of other app stores out there for Androids; you're not restricted to Google's. My phone is a Verizon model and has the Verizon store on it (which I never use), for instance. So I just don't see the problem if developers can go to different app stores, or even get customers to install directly from their website. Of course, this is only for Android users; Apple users don't have this freedom, but again I don't see the problem: iPhone users obviously don't want freedom, or they wouldn't have bought into an ecosystem where both 1) the devices are more expensive, and 2) there's no freedom. If these people are so stupid that they insist on having an Apple device just because of the brand prestige, then why shouldn't they be ripped off and abused?
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday August 27 2020, @02:27PM
As an aside: I doubt this, but I kinda wonder if Apple is paying Google to not be as bad as them, just so Apple can continue to abuse their idiot customers for profit.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday August 28 2020, @01:12AM
Jolla has been dicking around with Sailfish making it able to run Android apps as well as Linux, for years now. I haven't checked on them lately, but I do know they still owe me the 2nd half of my tablet money they never delivered.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 29 2020, @07:04PM
Speaking of your Compaq/IBM revolution. Do we have a viable alternative to qualcomm mainboards for smartphones?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Thursday August 27 2020, @01:09AM
Have you ever written an Android app? If you want access to any of the hardware (like the screen, the speaker, the GPS, the storage, etc.) each has its own little permissions scheme which happens to change APIs with most every new flavor. The Android treadmill isn't cranked up quite as fast as the Microsoft DOS/Windows hamster wheel was in the 1990s, but it's spinning at a pretty good clip. If you want to play in their OS, you need to jump all the hoops properly, and the hoops continue to move, change, and multiply.
Sure, once you've got a working App you don't (usually) need to completely root the phone to install it, but you do have to code it to Android. It's not like I can sudo apt install anything I want on my phone - and it's my phone, so I really feel like I should be able to, or at least recompile from source and get 90+% of the basic Linux stuff that works on Raspbian to work on a phablet.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Thursday August 27 2020, @02:01AM
Apparently you can just click on a link or scan a QR code [epicgames.com] as well.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Thursday August 27 2020, @02:40AM (1 child)
"The world" is composed of fools who put up with this shit and pay to be sodomized by companies like Apple and Google. The fools are the majority, and their money is the very reason why this situation exists in the first place. It ain't going away because the fools and their money aren't going anywhere.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Thursday August 27 2020, @10:54AM
We ran an investment based R&D business for many years... it was interesting to get to know the investors.
Some of our more reliable money came from trust fund babies... in their late 50s/early 60s these people got a predictable "allowance" of around $400K per year from mom and dad - with this reliable infusion of cash they had built up some income generating businesses of their own, but they still got the $400K and for a while they passed it on to us. These were people who still thought that Amex perk points came for free (like: can I make my $125K investment in your company using my AmEx? because if I do that I'll get a "free" airline ticket to Fiji... we explained that we would really prefer a personal check for $125K that didn't have a 3% CC fee taken out of it, and if they like we'd buy the $1500 ticket for them as a gift.)
Most of the investors were less naive, but more psychopathic. Pump and dump / reverse shell merger were the primary "legal-ish" games they wanted to play, and they usually demanded the first 80% of the profits go back to them while the business assumed 80% of the risk. We didn't take that kind of money, but for many years it was the only kind of money on offer.
Once, we got the attention of a British Knight and the President and VP of R&D of a company he 30% owned - the Knight wanted to expand his prison security business into medical devices, the President & VP wanted to open offices in South Florida, we flew in to Israel to do due diligence on the merger - everything looked good to go, then the other 70% of the board of directors got wind of the deal, fired the President, put the VP on notice, and told the Knight to get over himself.
All kinds of fools out there, not surprising that the consumer level is full of them - the investor class is supposed to be educated, but in my experience they're just as flighty as people who impulse buy candy from the checkout aisle.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 27 2020, @02:04PM
Huh? You wrote: "and while OS-X lets some of the Linux peek through..."
MacOS has nothing to do with Linux.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 27 2020, @05:40AM
...till Fortnite don't run.