It all started so well. When the iPhone and iPad arrived, those devices transformed games almost as much as they upended the rest of the tech world. Suddenly everyone had powerful games machines in their pockets, and it was amazing…
So what did Apple do next? Nothing really. It seemed to create a whole new games ecosystem by accident, and ever since has presided over it like a contemptuous landlord. It takes a tasty 30% cut of almost every in-app purchase while doing next to nothing to earn that fee…
Apple could have reinvested a greater fraction of the billions it has earned from mobile games to make the App Store a good place to find fun, interesting games to fit your tastes. But it hasn’t, and today the App Store is a confusing mess, recently made even worse recently with the addition of ad slots in search, on the front page and even on the product pages themselves…
Happily things may be about to change – including that 30% commission on all in-app purchases. After a bruising US court battle between Apple and Epic Games over alleged monopolistic practices, government bodies in the UK, EU, US, Japan and elsewhere are examining Apple and Google’s “effective duopoly” over what we see, do and play on our phones.